The Church of Creativity South Australia™

A walk of military history

Lauren Novak, Sandakan, Malaysia: The Advertiser | August 15, 2008

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24185881-2682,00.html

A GROUP of South Australians, including businessman John Ellice-Flint and Alexander Downer, have begun retracing the steps of Australian prisoners of war in Malaysia.

The group of about 40 people set off this morning (FRI) on a six-day, 250km trek following the infamous WWII “death marches” made by captured Australian and British soldiers more than 60 years ago.

Under the control of Japanese troops, more than 1000 exhausted and starving men were made to walk from Sandakan to Ranau, through north-eastern Malaysia, towards the end of the war.

Just six Australians survived.

The trip by the SA group has raised about $125,000 for the McGuinness McDermott Foundation.

Mr Downer, who will walk part of the way with the group, described the treatment of soldiers at Sandakan as “probably the cruellest thing that has ever been done to Australians” during war.

The son of a a prisoner of war in Changi, Mr Downer lamented that the death marches in Malaysia were not as well known in Australia as the Kokoda Trail or Gallipoli.

“So many killed, so many tortured, so many treated barbarically . . . it should help us remember what has happened in the past and what we should not do in the future,” he said at the Sandakan Day Memorial Service this morning. [more ...]

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