THE STORY OF ESCAPE AND FRIENDSHIP AT SANDAKAN - DICK BRAITHWAITE AND ABDUL RASHID @ LORETO PADUA

SEJARAH NORTH BORNEO SABAH

SPECIAL EDITION, SECOND WORLD WAR SERIES

"THE STORY OF ESCAPE AND FRIENDSHIP AT SANDAKAN"

DICK BRAITHWAITE AND ABDUL RASHID @ LORETO PADUA

Bombardier James Richard Dick Braithwaite, 2/15th Australian Field Regiment escape from the horrific Sandakan Ranau Death Marches. During the early stages of the second march Dick Braithwaite was so ill with malaria that his mates had to hold him up at roll call. For him it was a question of escape or die. Taking advantage of a gap in the column, he slipped behind a fallen tree until everyone had gone by. At nightfall he made his way back to a river they had recently crossed, hoping to follow its course to the coast. On his way he encountered a sick Japanese guard, whom he killed. Initially, Dick finished up in the middle of the jungle swamp feeling he was a beaten man.

Eventually he reached Labuk River where an elderly local man called Abing helped him. Abing took Dick in his prahau down river to his village, where he was looked after and hidden. The locals wanted to help him as they thought he might be able to get Allied planes on the hunt of Japanese to stop strafing the villages and the locals prahu. Hidden under banana leaves, Dick was paddled 20 hours downstream to Libaran Island by Abdul Rashid and friends where it was hoped he could be handed over to Allied forces operating in the area. On 15th June 1945 Dick Braithwaite was rescued from North Borneo by an American PT boat and taken to nearby Tawi Tawi Island, Philippines.