This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
A military court on Labuan Island in North Borneo yesterday sentenced to death two Japanese officers responsible for the deaths of over 800 Australian and British POWs, reports the Times. Captain Takakuwa, the former commander of Sandakan prison camp, and his adjutant Captain Watanabe, were charged with having force-marched the prisoners under their charge, at least 400 of whom were stretcher-cases and the remainder sick and starving, through 165 notoriously treacherous miles of jungle after Sandakan was abandoned in May 1945 to preempt its liberation by Allied forces. The march lasted until 28th June, by which time only 83 of the original POWs were still alive; Takakuwa then ordered the murder of the survivors, with sick men forced to crawl to the local cemetary where they were shot and tumbled into open graves. Takakuwa will be hanged, Watanabe shot.
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