The Sandakan Death March began on the coast of northern Borneo and ended in its mountainous interior. In fact, there was more than one Death March, as the Japanese hurriedly concentrated their forces around Ranau. Japanese soldiers also suffered and died on the march. Resenting enforced relocation and fearing defeat, they subjected Allied prisoners to harsh and degrading punishment. Only six of more than 3000 British and Australian prisoners survived the ordeal on Borneo. For Australia this was surely the greatest tragedy of the war.

[You will feel] their presence in a rotted boot,

A blaze upon a tree that marks a grave,

A bullet scar still unhealed in the bark,

A scrap of webbing and an earth-stained badge,

A falling bamboo hut, a giant tree

They rested at this log, this creek,

This climb that r uns the sweat into your eyes –

Though you aren't laden, fevered, driven, starved

You tell yourself you know how they went by.