?AP. BRUTALITY IN NORTH BORNEO

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5286, 24 December 1946, Page 6

?AP. BRUTALITY IN NORTH BORNEO

— !! j ONLY SIX SURVIVED • ' i ■ • ______ lAJORITY OF VICTIMS 1 KICkED TO DEATH • '■ TOKIO, Dec. 21. ,j Of all the British and Ausalian soldiers imprisoned in e Sandakan and Ranau camps . North Borneo, only six were ; ive to-day, declared Warrant hcer Sticpewich, giving evi".!«de at the War Crimes Trimai. The prisoners died ii'ough beatings, torture, exe- '' itions, over-work and starva- • oh at the two camps or through ie rigours of the 160-mile ' tngle march from Sandakan to 1 anau when the Japanese were : =eing in 1945. Warrant-Oft'icer Sticpewich said the 2k left behm.i at Sandakan were not i iled outright. The Japanese dicl ji )t bother to do that; they jast lei't . i em to d-ie without food and water. • Warrant-Offieer Sticpewich, who as one of the survivor.s of the death arch, relieved in the v/itness box his ng junglo ordeal. He told of s'tragglers beaten to ;ath when they were unable to 'pro5l their weary, siek bodies at the K'e set by the Japanese. 'Then, glaring at Tojo and other igh-rank:ng defendar-ts, the witnc-ss escribed the aftermath of the march. ie said he was now with a graves agistratiun unii, and during the past ear he had beon tvorking in North iorneo um-overing the bpdic ; of his ormer mates. tto far in the Sandakan area, 280 btdiet- had been recovered, of which 80 per eent had their skulls broken, their jav.'s sirashed, and their t'.ices kicked in, indieating that they were brutally nvurdered. Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, vlio held he rank of eaptain in Ihe Australian \rmy Nursing Service, toki the Uininal that after the survivors of a jom'hed ship reached the ocach of 3anks Island, near Sumatra and sur•endered, 28 Australian nurses were iriven into the sea and machine?unned. Fifteen stretcher cases were uayoneU i.