BORNEO Australia’s Proud but Tragic Heritage

They were volunteers, aged between fifteen and fifty at enlistment. Many were married men with children. They all came together as comrades in arms, described by one of their senior officers as “… the finest cross-section of Australian manhood that has ever left our shores”. In Malaya and on Singapore, these men of Australia’s fighting 8th Division were in action continuously for four ferocious weeks. Of 2,030 Australian POWs sent to Borneo after the 1942 surrender at Singapore only 218 survived to return home. The rest were dead from starvation, beatings, innumerable diseases and illnesses, malnutrition and murder. Whole networks of mates perished in Borneo with none left alive to tell their story of stoic courage. During the first year in Sandakan POW Camp there were subversive links with a local resistance movement, but an offer by Filipino guerillas to aid mass escapes was not accepted. Eventually, however, there were ninety escapes and attempted escapes, from which twenty-one returned home. From late 1943 members of “Z” Special Unit were in North Borneo on reconnaissance operations PYTHON and then AGAS, based within 140 and 70 km of Sandakan. In 1945 there occurred the infamous death marches to Ranau. A lethargic incompetence among the secret planners of a rescue mission led to its abandonment. This KINGFISHER operation would have been carried out by the highly-trained 1st Australian Parachute Battalion. The book brings together into a coherent narrative the scattered evidence of what was happening in Borneo during those desolate years of captivity. The author has followed steadfastly in the footsteps of the Australians who were sent to Sandakan and the 789 of them who were sent in 1945 towards Ranau. He has delved deeply into the extensive archival records, and has interviewed persons in both Australia and Borneo who vividly recall some of those events of 1942-45.