Sandakan forged closer bonds

Australia's Governor General, Quentin Bryce, speaking at a service marking the 65th
anniversary of the death marches at Sandakan during World War II, says Australians
and Malaysians have overcome appalling adversity to build closer bonds between the
communities.
Mrs Bryce, addressing dignitaries, former POWs and families under blue skies and a
canopy of green foliage, thanked the local people for their support of POWs during
the three-and-half years to 1945 of the occupation in Sabah by the Japan Imperial
Army.
"During this time of appalling adversity and shameful conduct, Sabahans (Sabahans)
and Australians dug deep to rise above it. Together, they vanquished fear and
loathing in all their manifestations and, in their place, chose generosity and
love," she said.
The morning service brought together families and representatives from Malaysia,
Australia and Britain marking the day, August 15, 1945, when the last POW at the
Sandakan camp, an Australian, was killed by beheading.
The POW camp and peoples of Sandakan suffered during the Japanese army's occupation,
viewed by historians as a gross example of deliberate and calculated brutality and
atrocity.
Only six Australians survived out of the 2434 Australian and British POWs at
Sandakan who had been sent to build a military runway that was later abandoned as
allied forces bombed the airfield and nearby town.
From early 1945 the Japanese forced-marched 1000 soldiers 260km through the Borneo
jungles to the small town of Ranau, many already weak from insufficient rations,
dysentery, malnutrition, and skin ulcers.
The remaining 400 POWs perished at Sandakan. Almost all died either from
malnourishment or were murdered, their skeletal remains later recovered along the
trail.
Only six POWs, all Australians who had fled into the jungles, survived due to help
from local villagers.
The former POWs' testimony later exposed the extent of the brutality of the
occupation forces.
The service on Sunday included Australian survivors Leslie Bunny Glover, a
Lieutenant in the Australian Infantry Force, and Russell Erwin, from the Eighth
Australian Division (AIF). Both had lived after all officers were transferred in
1943 to Kuching, the capital of the neighbouring state of Sarawak.
Besides the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea and Anzac Cove at Gallipoli in Turkey,
Mr Glover says more public attention needs to be given to Sandakan.
"This was a bigger disaster than any of them. It's only now that things are starting
to come out. Not only this camp, but the town; you take the photos of the old town
flattened (by allied bombing). And (the locals) suffered terribly and I never forget
that," Mr Glover told AAP.
The brutality of the Japanese occupation forces was kept officially quiet
immediately after the war.
Mr Erwin held in his emotions as he read a book passage of the "caring concern"
soldiers felt to those who were more sick that was "ennobling as this place was
degrading, in the tenderness and love that the slightly fitter showed for the weaker
in the protection that the slightly stronger gave the starving victims... "
The Chief Minister of Sabah, Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman, in a speech read on
his behalf, said the ceremonies provided "a deeper renewed understanding of the
precariousness of freedom and peace".
"As we remember the prisoners of war and all other fallen heroes who came to help
us, we must also honour local communities who took the risk and lost their lives in
helping those Allied soldiers," Datuk Seri Musa said.
After the service, Mrs Bryce oversaw the launch of the book, Blood Brothers, by
Sydney author Lynette Silver, which focuses on the bonds developed between the POWs
and the local community.
Massacres and atrocities had also been committed against the local population; on
occasions entire families of the local people were brutally killed.
Mrs Bryce said the book helps draw attention "to the people of Sabah who, as pawns
in coveted territory, endured horrific violence and destruction, and loss of life,
livelihood and community, at the merciless hands of the occupying forces".
"They risked their lives, their livelihood; they cared for the escapees, for the
survivors in every way they humanly could. It's a remarkable story of a friendship,
indeed a love across nations," Mrs Bryce told journalists.