It need not be reiterated on this channel how despicable the Japanese were in WW2. For those
unaware of their policies and general culture during WW2, becoming a prisoner of war was the
most dishonorable thing one could do and so when the allies were caught flat footed in the pacific
and the Japanese captured them in droves, they could expect some of the worst treatment the war
had to give. One of the many atrocities committed by the Japanese was the Borneo Death March, where
only a mere 6 men out of 2700 survived what came to be known as Australia’s worst wartime atrocity.
The accounts in this story are told by one Owen Campbell, who was one of the 6 survivors of the
Death March and eventually lived to be the only one to recount the horrific tale. As most stories
involving interactions between the Japanese and prisoners, starvation and torture were
commonplace, and every prisoner of war was treated as a subhuman by their inhumane Eastern guardsmen.
Initially interned at Sandakan and the prisoners working under brutal conditions there,
the Japanese eventually realised the allies were closing in on the camp and the war was
slowly but surely coming to an end. The Japanese however had no plans to surrender
peacefully and they wanted to inflict as much damage to enemy as possible and die honorably
for their ancestors. As a result of this, one of the inhumane orders that the Japanese telegraphed
to their camp commanders was known as the Kill all Order, where the commanders could
essentially choose how they would kill off the remaining prisoners, whether it be through fire,
plain execution or an excruciating Death March, as of course was the case at Owen Campbell’s prison.
Although many camps didn’t get around to fulfilling this heinous order,
unluckily enough for the prisoners of Sandakan, their camp did, and they forced the prisoners
to March on a devastating trail where many of them would meet their end due to starvation,
disease and exhaustion. Even the men strong enough to make it to the end
of the trail were simply execution for their efforts as per the Kill all order.
So the question remains, how 6 Australian servicemen,
including Campbell manage to escape the trail?
80 km's into their 260km hike Campbell, suspicious of what was awaiting them at the
end tracked down one of the rare friendly Japanese guards there were and asked him
personally. The guard told campbell and some of the other prisoners that they would be executed
when they reached their final destination at the village of Ranau, and he was ultimately right.
Upon hearing this, the first batch of escapees who were Campbell and 4 of his mates, made their
getaway at the next available opportunity, which came in the form of American reconnaissance planes
that made the Japanese guards scatter for cover. Campbell and his friends spent the next few days
diseased and skeletal, hacking away at the thick jungle. The 5 men managed to learn the secrets
on survival in the jungle and became adept at catching food, however this was not enough for
2 of the men, who became so weakened with disease they could not carry on. One man, named Skinner
ended up slitting his throat and taking his own life as not to slow the rest of the group down.
After seven weeks in the Jungle, Campbell was the last man alive. The other 2 men he was
with were cruelly shot at point blank range by a Japanese soldier after trying to hail
what seemed to be a friendly fishing boat. Campbells luck however was seemingly better,
as he actually managed to find a friendly fisherman, who then took him to a group of
Australian commando’s and into the safe confines of a hospital onboard a US Navy
ship. Out of the 5 in the first escape attempt, campbell was the only survivor.
In July 1945 and almost at the end of the death March,
another group of Australians made an escape attempt and had much better luck than their
brothers who had escaped previously. These 5 men managed to find a group of sympathetic
locals who fed them and hid them from the Japanese until the end of the war,
making these 5 Australians, in addition to Campbell the only survivors of the Death March.
Thanks to the testimonies of the men, a semblance of justice was found, and 3 Japanese captains were
found to have been guilty of the massacre and were hanged and shot in mid way through 1946.
Owen Campbell would later state in regards to his escape experience “I can’t explain what
keeps you going, In a situation like that, you seem to get supernatural strength. Don’t
ask me where it comes from. But you don’t stop. If you stop and lay down, you’ll never get up.”
So guys, yet another story of Japanese brutality throughout the second world war,
and to me it’s crazy think that only 6 men survived a March intended to kill 2700 people,
it nearly did it’s job. As per usual let me know thoughts and feel free to post any
anecdotes you have of the pacific in the comment section below because you know I love them.