Missing Links of the Sandakan Death March

MD of Sandakan Spirit Wayne Wetherall along with his Borneo Partner Jerome Robles, has uncovered what he believes to be the missing links and lost sections of the “Death March Track” of Sandakan.

This remarkable discovery has resulted from years of research and hard slog through the Borneo Jungle. Wetherall commented;

“it was like entering a lost world, the jungle was thick, dark, steamy and brooding.

 

The track was steep, slippery, brutal and unforgiving, it was difficult staying upright.

 

No white man had trekked this toughest section of the track since the POW’s marched it 66 years ago.

 

The section of track from Lolosing –Monkilau and onto Tampias has remained hidden, its secret location only known to one or two local men who were carriers for the Japanese on this soul destroying section of the Death March route.

 

Some of the most compelling intelligence that we have gathered has come from the local people along the track

including the Village Chiefs of Taviu, Mankadai and Miruru.

 

During these investigations we were able to interview a number of first hand witnesses to the Death March route

including two local men who were forced to be carriers along the route.

 

One of our most amazing discoveries was a Javanese man who was conscripted into the Japanese Army

as a prisoner guard; his story of the Sandakan Death March is both barbaric and breathtaking.

Sunday Herald Sun 21 august 2011

By Brigid O'Connell

An Australian trekker says he has uncovered two new sections of the infamous Sandakan Death March track in Borneo which would help with the preservation of one of the country's most tragic and heroic wartime histories.

More than 2400 Australian and British prisoners of war died on the mountainous track during World War II, where they were sent to build an airstrip for the Japanese and were beaten, tortured and executed.

Only six Australians escaped and survived.

The route was lost for 60 years but opened to the public in 2006.

But trekker Wayne Wetherall, whose company Kokoda Spirit trains Victorian hikers, says he has discovered two new sections of the route after intensive research and interviews with those who witnessed the attacks on Australian soldiers.

"The real answers for us have been actually walking through the jungle and talking to the local people aged in their 90s now who were the carriers," he said.

His research also included piecing together information from the Australian Office of War Graves recovery maps, Japanese death certificates and the Australian War Memorial archives.

The new sections they have uncovered include a seven-hour trek across the Maitland Ranges between the relocated villages of Mangkadai and Milulu and a stretch of jungle near a former Japanese logistics camp.

Mr Wetherall explored this new section with a team of Melbourne hikers last weekend.

"We were the first people to actually go into this section of the forest and it was primary Borneo jungle - deep, dark, with vines coming down everywhere," he said.

"We had with us an 80-year-old who was a carrier for the Japanese, and he was showing us where the commander's building used to be and where he saw an Australian soldier killed.

"It was chilling stuff to be there with him. It's going to be an ongoing project because there is still much more left to discover." 

Read the complete story here at heraldsun.com.au