Sandakan: The Untold Story Of The Sandakan Death Marches

Author: Paul Ham

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $34.99 AUD
  • : 9781864711417
  • : Random House Australia
  • : Vintage (Australia)
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  • : 0.902
  • : May 2013
  • : 234mm X 152mm
  • : Australia
  • : 34.95
  • : February 2015
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  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Paul Ham
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  • : Paperback
  • : 2nd
  • :
  • : English
  • : 940.547252
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  • :
  • : 672
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Barcode 9781864711417
9781864711417

Description

The untold story of the Sandakan Death Marches of the Second World War.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 2500 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 there, 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 ingenious and 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 1000-plus prisoners sent on the Death Marches, only six - all of them Australians - survived.This important and harrowing book narrates the full story of Sandakan, as told through the experiences of many 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.

Author description

Paul Ham is a Sydney-based historian, and the author of HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI, to be published in November 2011 by HarperCollins. His previous books are VIETNAM: THE AUSTRALIAN WAR (November 2007) and KOKODA (November 2004), both published by HarperCollins. 'VIETNAM' won the NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Prize for Non-Fiction (2008), a Walkley Award and two other State literary awards. KOKODA was shortlisted for the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction and the NSW Premier's Prize for Non-Fiction. Since 1998, Paul has been the Australia correspondent for The London Sunday Times, covering politics, business and current affairs. He has a Masters degree in Economic History from the London School of Economic, and lives in Sydney with his wife, Marie, and son, Oliver.