Sandakan prisoner of war camp
The Sandakan camp or ( Engl. ) Sandakan POW Camp was a POW camp in World War II in the city of Sandakan in the Malaysian state of Sabah . The camp gained notoriety because of the death marches that began here . Part of the former site is now the Sandakan Memorial Park .
location
The prisoner of war camp was located about 1.5 kilometers southwest of today 's Sandakan Airport .
history
Due to the initially successful course of the war for the Japanese , large numbers of Allied soldiers were distributed as prisoners of war to various camp facilities in the Pacific region. In July 1942 the "B-Force" prisoners of war - almost 1,500 Australians - were transferred from Singapore to Sandakan in the north of the island of Borneo to build a military airfield there. This date is considered to be the beginning of the camp. In 1943 more than 770 British and another 500 Australian “ POWs ” followed.
At the height of occupancy in 1943, the camp housed around 2,500 prisoners of war.
When the Japanese became increasingly on the defensive in the further course of the war, the airfield in Sandakan was also the target of constant bombing by the Allies from October 1944. In January 1945 the damage was so great that repairing the runway was out of the question. On January 10, 1945, work was completely stopped. Also in January 1945, a group of about 455 prisoners of war was sent on the first of the three " Sandakan Death Marches ".
From May 1945 an order to dissolve the prisoner of war camp was implemented. On May 17th, Captain Takakuwa Takuo took command of the camp. On May 29, 1945, he ordered the second death march of 536 prisoners of war to Ranau and had the camp area set on fire. The infirmary, all records and equipment were also given over to the fire. 288 prone sick remained under Japanese guard on the burned area.
On June 10, 1945 - 30 more prisoners had died in the meantime - the last group of 75 prisoners of war was marched towards Ranau. The remaining prisoners who had to remain in the burned area either died of malnutrition and illness or were killed by the Japanese guards. On August 15, 1945, none of them were alive.
Camp site
The site used by the Japanese to set up the camp was an experimental farm owned by the North Borneo Chartered Company , where fruits and crops were grown and cattle were raised.
The site was divided into three main areas; One camp part each for the Australian and British prisoners of war ( Australian Compound and British Compound ) as well as an area for the guards and for the residential buildings of the Japanese.
The camp generated its own electricity with a generator powered by a steam engine. The power station originally belonged to the agricultural experimental farm. The wood-fired steam engine powered the generator, which in turn produced electricity with a voltage of 110 volts, which was used to light the camp and its fencing. The electrical works also played an important role in running the secret transmitter controlled by the camp's underground movement. From 1942 until its discovery in July 1943, the voltage was secretly increased in the evening hours in order to supply the transmitter with sufficient voltage.
"The Great Tree" (The Big Tree) - a huge specimen of a Mengarisbaumes (Koompassia excelsa) - was the dominant structure of the POW camp.
A little way outside of the Australian part of the camp, the Japanese quartermaster ran a food depot and kitchen for the Japanese. A concrete foundation and water reservoir have been preserved from this facility.
Camp commanders
The Japanese Hoshijima Susumi, who had the rank of lieutenant, was responsible for the camp from the start. As a military engineer, he was entrusted with the task of building a military airfield. Towards the end of the war he was promoted to captain. Athletically built, with a height of 1.80 m, which is unusual for the Japanese, he was an impressive figure. He revealed his tyrannical, unscrupulous character to the prisoners of war arriving in April 1943 with the following words:
“You will work until your bones rot under the tropical sun of Borneo. You will work for the Emperor. If any of you escapes, I will pick out three or four and shoot them. The war will last 100 years. "
“You will work until your bones rot under the tropical sun of Borneo. You will work for the emperor. If anyone escapes, I'll pick three or four of you and shoot them. The war will last 100 years. "
In May 1945 the military command gave the order to abandon the prisoner of war camp. On May 17th, Captain Takakuwa Takuo of Hoshijima took command of the prisoners of war.
Hoshijima and Takakuwa were at the war crimes trials of Labuan ( Labuan War Crimes Trials guilty) and death through the strand convicted. The death sentence was on April 6 in Rabaul enforced .
Mistreatment of prisoners
Dog cage
Outside the storage area secured with barbed wire, there was a wooden cage about 1.8 × 1.5 × 1.2 meters in size in front of the security guards office, which was quite reminiscent of a dog cage. Originally the cage was intended for the punishment of minor offenses among the Japanese soldiers; but it was never used for that purpose. The majority of the prisoners of war placed in the cage were punished for stealing food from the camp's vegetable garden.
In June 1943 and October 1944 an additional cage was erected, each larger than the previous one. The second cage with 2.7 × 2.1 × 1.5 meters and the third with 4.5 × 2.7 × 2.7 meters were intended for group punishment.
The camp rules for punishment were based on the same rules that were intended for the punishment of Japanese soldiers. Accordingly, the maximum length of stay in the dog cage was limited to 30 days. The toilet was only allowed to be used twice a day. There was also abuse through beatings and water torture, and the victims were given no food in the dog cage for the first week. Wearing only loincloths or shorts, the prisoners were also exposed to the mosquitoes without protection, whose constant attacks on the weakened body made sleeping almost impossible at night.
The camp after the end of the war
All remains of prisoners of war found on the site during post-war investigations were transferred to the central war cemetery in Labuan . The identified dead were buried there in graves marked by name, while the names of the others were listed on commemorative plaques in Labuan and Singapore.
In 1986, a memorial stone was erected on the abandoned site, honoring the merits of Captain Lionel Matthews and the Sandakan underground movement and also commemorating the six survivors of the death marches. On the basis of an agreement between the government of the state of Sabah, the government of Australia, the veterans' association "Returned & Services League of Australia" and the Sandakan City Council in 1995, the Sandakan Memorial Park was built in a part of the former prisoner of war camp . The ceremonial opening of the memorial took place on March 18, 1999.
literature
- Australian Government, Office of Australian War Graves: SANDAKAN MEMORIAL PARK , Department of Veterans' Affairs, Canberra 2006.
- Richard Reid: Laden, Fevered, Starved: The POWs of Sandakan, North Borneo, 1945. Commonwealth Department of Veterans' Affairs, 1999, ISBN 0-642-39922-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Richard Reid, pp. 22/23
- ↑ a b Ooi Keat Gin: The Japanese Occupation of Borneo ( Memento of February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), p. 96, Routledge, 2011, ISBN 0-203-85054-8
- ↑ Ooi Keat Gin, p. 97
- ^ Australian Government, Department Of Veteran's Affairs: Daily life ( June 2, 2011 memento in the Internet Archive ), Materials to the Sandakan Memorial Park; Accessed January 17, 2013
- ^ The Australian: Sandakan paints a portrait of hell on earth , November 10, 2012; Accessed January 17, 2013
- ↑ Ooi Keat Gin, p. 96
- ↑ Ooi Keat Gin, p. 96
- ^ Moffitt, Project Kingfisher , cited in Ooi Keat Gin, footnote 47
- ^ The Sydney Morning Herald: Mr Big and others brought to book , May 3, 2007; Accessed January 17, 2013
- ↑ a b c Explanations of the WW2 Punishment Cage on display in the Wisma Warisan, Sandakan. Explored on site on July 24, 2012
- ↑ Information on the board "The 1986 Monument", put up by the Australian government. As of August 2012
Coordinates: 5 ° 53 '18.7 " N , 118 ° 2' 49.9" E