Town remembers Australian soldiers lost in Sandakan Death Marches

Boyup Brook, a town in Western Australia, has held an annual memorial service for over 30 years to honour the Australian soldiers who died during the Sandakan Death Marches in World War II.

June Edwards, who is 101 years old, lost her brother Bill Beard at the Sandakan prisoner of war camp in Borneo. After Singapore fell in 1942, around 2,500 Commonwealth troops became prisoners of the Japanese on the island.

In the final year of the war, Japanese forces marched over 2,000 sick and weakened prisoners 260 kilometres across Borneo. Those unable to continue were killed, and many bodies were never found. Only six Australian soldiers survived the ordeal, which the Australian War Memorial describes as the greatest single atrocity committed against Australians in war. Edwards received a final note from her brother on his birthday in 1945, shortly before he died from malaria on July 10, 1945.

Boyup Brook residents erected a Sandakan war memorial in the early 1990s, one of the first of its kind outside of Sydney. The town also sponsors a student to travel to Malaysia each year with historian Lyn Silver to study the history. Silver explained that details of the atrocities were initially withheld from families due to the extreme distress they would cause, but she believes remembering Sandakan is critical.

Edwards hopes that younger generations will continue to learn about the tragedy, even if this year’s service is her last.