The Sandakan Death Marchs

A little known aspect of Australian WW2 history, is the Sandakan Death Marches. This year the PREMIERS ANZAC Tour is being attended by me (Lynne Noack), as a supervising History teacher. Sandakan is on the northern reaches of Borneo. Lebuan is an island to the north west off, Borneo. Both places will go down in infamy as places of great atrocities for Australian POWs in WW2. I will be spending ANZAC Day at Sandakan with 10 students from around WA, searching out the history and the pain of the 1800  (Australian, British and NZ) men who were ordered Japanese to march from Sandakan to Sabah at the end of the war. 6 survived. The Japanese did not expect these men to survive, certainly they did not expect these men to give evidence at the Lebuan trials of Japanese officers in December 1945.

We will be marching (a paltry) 6 hours of this march before commemorating ANZAC Day. We will also travel to Lebuan, the site of the trials, which will mean a lot to me personally. My Uncle, an airforce navigator during WW2 was ‘demobilised’ and transferred to Lebuan to bear witness to the trials as a civilian. The trials achieved very little, but it was a huge emotional drain to those involved.

Having done ANZAC Day at Hellfire Pass in 2008 and experienced the emotion that envelopes everyone there, I am only too aware that the emotion of Sandakan may be over whelming.