Sandakan Memorial Park

Located on the suburb of Taman Rimba, about 11km outside of Sandakan, is a well-maintained and beautifully landscaped hill park. It is the Sandakan Memorial Park, a notorious World War II prisoner-of-war camp site!

During World War II, approximately 2,400 allied soldiers were held by the Japanese as POW in Sandakan, North Borneo. Between January to June 1945, groups of prisoners were sent on 3 separate torturous 160 mile marches from Sandakan to Ranau, known today as the infamous Death March. Only 6 men survived.

To commemorate those who died and suffered the terrible atrocities, relatives and friends in Australia have initiated August 15 as the Sandakan Memorial Day. The memorial service is held annually at the Sandakan Memorial Park which was once the site of the POW Camp.

The Park includes a small museum, serves as a memorial to the thousands of Australian and British who lost their lives during the Japanese occupation. You can also see the rusting remains of an excavator, a generator and a boiler lie in their original positions, near steps leading up to a small Commemorative Pavilion.

Image Credit: Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / CC-BY-SA-3.0
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons