Stories From Sandakan: 2/18th Battalion

Kevin Smith

From the preface by Kevin Smith:

Only one in ten of the 174 men of the 2/18th Australian Infantry Battalion sent as prisoners of war to Borneo in 1942 and 1943 survived to return home in late 1945 ... Sandakan and Ambon were the locations from which very few of our men came home at the end of the Second World War.

The many stories told here reflect the peacetime training experiences and the wartime ordeals of all of these Australian soldiers, but most especially they tell what it was like for the ill-fated Diggers of the 2/18th Battalion who were sent to Sandakan. This then is the story of an Australian infantry battalion, told through the individual stories of its members.


Soft cover, photographs, 204 pages.