( I
PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BlY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
SANDAKAN MEMORIAL SERVICE, RURWOOD PARK
1 AUGUST 1993
The people whose initiative has built this memorial have done their country a great
service. It commemorates the most appalling event in Australia's war history.
Two thousand five hundred Australian and British soldiers were taken to Sandakan,
Only six survived and, because the Japanese authorities covered up the story, it is only
from these six that we know what happened.
Three times more men died at Sandakan and Ranau, and in the jungles betwcen, than died
in those heroic battles at Kokoda in New Guinea,
The Sandakan men did not die in battle they were tortured, massacred or allowed to
perish of disease.
Yet until now Sandakan has been forgotten.
The families of those who died received the most perfu~ nctory of messages they never
knew what happened to their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, uncles.
Knowing how and why makes a great deal of difference to thosqe who are left behind.
Knowing even when the truth is awful is better than the horror and dread of not
knowing at all.
What is true for the loved ones left behind is also true for the country they never saw
again. It is better to know. :-131
/ 2T'd TOO* ON 9S: E 663r
Australians should know the truth about their history.
A nation is stronger for knowledge of its shared experience, and the experience of these
men should be engraved in thie national memory.
With this memorial we remember these Australian and British soldiers who fell victim to
acts of cruelty and sadism as horrifying as any in World War 11.
Sandakan must be known. It must not be forgotten.
I don't say this because one of my own family died there, or because the deaths of these
men are to be regretted more than any others whether they were in Burma, or New
Guinea, or the Middle East or any of the other places where Australians have fought and
died. I say Sandakan must be known because all Australians should recognse that these men
died in the defence of their country they died as prisoners, as slaves, but they were no
less at war with the enemy.
The final victory was as much theirs as anybody elses,
It must be known because it is a reminder of what was at stake in the Pacific War, and
how much we owe all those Australian men and women and their allies who fought and
finally won.
At stake was the democratic civilisation Australians had built in this country and those
ideas of what is fair and just in which they believed.
The land they loved was at stake, the land they believed in.
The events in Sandakan should be known because we should never forget that there have
been generations of men and women prepared to die for Australia.
We owe a debt to them. Every succeeding generation owes them. Their sacrifice helped
Lis survive.
It should also help us believe.
We should remember Sandakan for one reason above all others.
Sandakan was more than a battle between nations. More than a battle between conflicting
ideologies.
r/~ dTOO'ON 92: 8 2636nuz 31
3
It was a war between human decency and human depravity.
That is why I think we should remember the men who died there as we remember the
victims of the death camps of Europe as casualties of pure cvil.
There was no glory in this kind of war, and nothing much to comfort those whose loved
ones suffered and died.
With this memorial there will be some consolation in knowing that others know what
happened at Sandakan.
If other Australians can come to know about these things the comfort to those who have
lived with Sandakan for fifty years will be so much greater.
And as a nation, surely, we will be wiser and stronger.
If there was no glory in the way these men died perhaps there can be in their memory.
Perhaps it can inspire in us the feelings for Australia that the men of Sandakan felt.
As Jim said earlier, they were all volunteers.
Men like Keith Botterill who, when recalling his escape from the death march, wrote:
We started at night, the native carried bamboo torches to light the way, until the
moon came up. The next day I was lying down thinking I could not walk another
step, when I looked up and saw an Australian face bending over me. 14e was a big
six footer. He just sat down beside me and cried.
So long as we have some sense of what Keith Bottcrill felt we will have an understanding
of what it means to be Australian.
And so long as we remember the lesson for humanity at Sandakan we will be a better
people and Australia a better place.
I ami very glad and very gratefujl to have had the privilege to speak here today.
Thank you.
/ dS TOO'ON 92: 8 26* 6nu' .1