Sandakan: The untold story of the Sandakan death marches

Paul Ham

ɔtb 2012 · Bolinda · Lu par Robert Meldrum

À propos de ce livre audio

This is the story of the three-year ordeal of the Sandakan prisoners of war – a barely known episode of unimaginable horror. After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese conquerors transferred 2700 British and Australian prisoners to a jungle camp some eight miles inland of Sandakan, on the east coast of North Borneo. For decades after the Second World War, the Australian and British governments would refuse to divulge the truth of what happened here, for fear of traumatising the families of the victims and enraging the people. The prisoners were broken, beaten, worked to death, thrown into bamboo cages on the slightest pretext, starved and subjected to tortures so hideous that none survived the onslaught with their minds intact, and only an incredibly resilient few managed to withstand the pain without yielding to the hated Kempei-tai, the Japanese military police. But this was only the beginning of the nightmare. In late 1944, Allied aircraft were attacking the coastal towns of Sandakan and Jesselton. To escape the bombardment, the Japanese resolved to abandon the Sandakan prison camp and move 250 miles inland to Ranau, taking the prisoners with them as slave labour, carriers and draught horses. Their journey became known as the Sandakan Death Marches. Of the 2700 prisoners originally sent to Sandakan, only six – all of them Australians – would survive.This important and harrowing book narrates the full story of Sandakan, as told through the experiences of the participants. Paul Ham has interviewed the families of survivors and the deceased, in Australia, Britain and Borneo, and consulted thousands of court documents in an effort to piece together exactly what happened to the people who suffered and died in British North Borneo, and who was responsible.

À propos de l'auteur

Paul Ham is the author of the highly acclaimed Kokoda and the Australia correspondent of the London Sunday Times. He was born and educated in Australia and lives in Sydney, having spent several years working in Britain as a journalist and publisher. Ham's Passchendale won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2018 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.

Robert Meldrum is an actor, director and teacher with over 35 years experience. His TV and film credits include Blue Heelers (1994) and Georgia (1988) and he is a highly respected teacher and director. Originally a member of the Australian Performing Group at the Pram Factory in Melbourne, he has performed with all the major Australian theatre companies, and was a lecturer in acting at the Victorian College of the Arts for eight years.