POW NX40325 JIMMY DARLINTON, 2/18TH
A TRUE AUSTRALIAN LEGEND from SANDAKAN 1943
Sandakan guards were both Japanese and Formosan
Above: Jimmy Darlington on board ‘Queen Mary’ sailing to Singapore – fighting Ron Sykes for Heavyweight Champion
North Borneo POWs working at speedo rate at Sandakan aerodrome were given a very small break Christmas 1942. Commander Hoshijima was now determined stage two of the aerodrome should be completed as soon as possible. Hence POW working party quotas were increased and sick were forced to make up the numbers. (1)
In most POW Camps, Australians adopted their own system to pool rice rations ensuring their sick received more food than the miserly portions Japanese admin had ordered throughout all POW Camps (their logic was sick POWs must receive a much smaller allocation of food because they weren’t working!). Hoshijima decided to put a stop to this custom and determined the POW rice ration be taken to the aerodrome, cooked and consumed there. He also ordered a crackdown on anybody trying to obtain food outside prescribed hours.
The beatings, bashings and being caged continued. The worst was being sentenced to the suspended humiliation cage at Sandakan right outside the guard’s house for all to walk past and for every guard the opportunity to mistreat prisoners.
The following story has been covered by several books and authors. Their stories vary somewhat – however as none of us was there, and every book or story is slightly different, I have taken the liberty of putting the story together as best I can.
(1) As well as ongoing and extremely dangerous, was the popular pastime of going out through the wire to forage for food, entertainment included ‘Gunboat’ Simpson’s popular gambling den and there were always impromptu two-up games. The most popular entertainment was boxing and sometimes wrestling. Boxing champion was part-aboriginal Jimmy Darlington from NSW. Jimmy was champion boxer on the ‘Queen Mary’ transport ship from Australia to Singapore, he had boxed at Singapore prior to battle and was 8th Division champion.
Sandakan offered a variety of boxers:
Ritchie Murray – talented semi- professional welterweight
‘Gunboat’ Simpson – heavyweight champion of Victoria
Jimmy Warren – Queensland’s reputed lightweight boxing champion
Others always waiting to have a go included Billy Young’s mates: (‘The Story of Billy Young’ by Anthony Hill)
Sandakan & Outram Road Survivor – Jimmy Finn, John or ‘Snowy’ Bryant, Keith Gillett, ‘Punchy’ Donohue, Clarrie Grinter (driver to Hoshijima).
The best was by far was Jimmy Darlington.
Admirers often gave Jimmy extra rations which in turn he shared with other mates from his home town of Barrara. It could be said Jimmy was a talented, intelligent and uneducated (part Aboriginal) man who could fit in anywhere.
(2) He was also generous and gentle, but beware anybody who made reference to his aboriginality.
Jimmy let it be known among friends that if a guard hit him without just cause he would hit him back.
0n 17 Feb 1943, shortly after the noon meal at the Drone ‘Mad Mick’ stopped off at the POW cookhouse and proceeded to wash his dirty underpants in one of the 44-gallon cooking drums. One of the cooks, an older, grey-haired and much-liked POW made the mistake of pointing out that washing one’s smalls in the cooking pot was not accept able. ‘Mad Mick’s answer was to knock the cook flying after which he began hitting him with his sword stick as he lay on the ground.
First in the waiting queue was Jimmy Darlington. He stepped forward saying words to the Japanese guard effect to ‘ ‘Lay off, he is an old man’ and gently pushed the guard away. The guard immediately swung a punch at Darlington who ducked and blocked with his left hand and hit the guard with a right upper cut to his jaw. The guard was knocked out cold and was not seen again for some weeks. It was thought his jaw was broken. Other guards quickly arrived, hitting at Darlington who continued to block their blows with his arms and at this point, and remained on his feet.
Darlington was immediately set upon with rifle butts and sticks being wielded by other guards who came from every direction.
The melee began moving towards one of the skip-lines, more guards descended.
Many including a number who were unfamiliar with the POW and had fixed bayonets to keep other prisoners away. Their response was rapid and highly organised. The guards seemed to instinctively know what to do – they had special form of torture in mind for Darlington. They fought and hit him until Jimmy, all bloody lay out on the unconscious on the ground.
From a nearby pile of split wood, the guards began picking out pieces with the sharpest of sharp edges. They made a platform making sure all the sharpest sides were sticking upwards. Jimmy was dragged over to the platform and made to kneel. The guards then began to wedge other sharp edged wood pieces ensuring the sharpest edges were placed between the joints of the knees. Further wood was wedged between his arm joints and his back.
In view of every POW working at the Drome Darlington’s kneeling body is bound by wet ropes – his arms trussed behind his back and tied to his legs. His right arm is drawn back at such an agonising angle behind his waist that jimmy wakes from his unconscious state in excruciating pain. Guards ram a piece of sharp edged wood behind his knees and they jump on either end like a seesaw. When Jimmy fainted or fell off the wood guards would revive him with a bucket of water, set his body upright again and the process was repeated again and again for half a day. As the ropes dried out in the heat they cut deeper and deeper into Jimmy’s flesh cutting off circulation. His hands and feet turn purple, then black.
His fellow POWs know Jimmy will die unless the ropes are released. They distract the guards’ attention by screaming and yelling and throwing down their tools, while drome ambulance man on duty Sgt W. ‘Mac’ McDonough rushes to Jimmy to cut the binding ropes to release the pressure.
McDonough is later bashed for his effort.
Darlington lives, but only just.
Covered in blood and wounds, his arm badly broken, his face puffed up and his eyes shut Jimmy is taken back to camp and thrown into a small wooden ‘cage’ out of sight of the men. Jimmy curls up alone and quivering. One of the ‘six survivors’ Braithwaite recalls seeing Jimmy brought into camp – he was insane with rage. He was tied with his arms behind his back and his legs tied to his arms.
M.O.s plead to help him, but the Japanese refused.
Darlington is given no food for 2 days.
Although out of physical sight, POWs can think only of Jimmy. His pain as he howls without end throughout the night becomes their pain. His wails are heard right throughout the camp but nobody is permitted to go to his aid. The Japanese refuse medical aid. They are happy ….. Jimmy’s wails will act as a warning to the men.
He passes out and later in the night regains consciousness waking the whole camp resuming his hideous howls begging the guards to kill him. By now the guards can barely stand his howls and send for an Australian doctor. Capt Domenic Picone brings water laced with morphine from the POW’s precious reserve supply, easing Darlington into a sleep.
The next morning Jimmy’s ruined body is dragged out of the cage past the shocked faces of Australian POWs standing to attention and dumped in a truck bound for an unknown destination. At this point, Capt Ken Mosher falls out, strides across the parade ground and shakes the near-lifeless hand of his faithful adjutant.
There is no reprisal from the silent Japanese.
Jimmy is taken to a local prison placed in a wooden punishment box, questioned and tortured. It was not long after that Billy Young and his mates who had been caught trying to escape, arrived at the same prison and received the same treatment as Jimmy. Two of Billy’s mates had limbs deliberately broken by guards. The POWs were here two months in small wooden punishment boxes being enterrogated about their escape plans. Finally they were deemed not part of a wider underground spy network and the men with Jimmy Darlington were put on a boat to Kuching to be tried in a Japanese military court.
Billy and Jimmy were surprised to be reunited on board with their other five Sandakan mates who they thought had successfully escaped.
At Kutching the group of Australians were handcuffed and chained together, not knowing what was in store. At the Court hearing the Australians were then handcuffed to five local Chinese. The Chinese were called first, each was tried (in Japanese) and sentenced to execution.
The group of Australians were now terrified. Their court procedures were also in Japanese with no translators.
What a shock to receive their sentence of imprisonment at Outram Road Gaol, Singapore. Later, perhaps some of them may have preferred execution.
‘Until now, no POWs have witnessed such prolonged and merciless cruelty. The severity of Darlington’s torture draws a line in the sand’ wrote Braithwaite. “The men now know there is no end to the Japanese forms of cruelty’.
Sometimes out of sight but now never out of mind, are two wooden punishment cages.
Out of sight to POW accommodation is the small cage which stands behind Japanese barracks, looking like a large dog kennel. Six feet long, five deep and four high – two or three prisoners are intended at one time.
A larger one is soon built to stand in front of the guardhouse which will hold several men. Made of 2” X 1” wooden bars, they are larger than ‘Tiger cages’ the South Vietnamese will use in Vietnam to isolate, humiliate and torture prisoners.
A third cage is built in Sandakan township to punish locals and exhibit Allied POWs to the civilians.
The ‘cage’ is a feature of Japanese POW camps.
The Kuching ‘cage’ is of barbed wire on a wooden frame. In order to curb growing resistance, POWs are ordered to construct two larger cages in their camp. The largest built October 1944 is 15 feet X 9 feet X 9 feet for group punishments, cramming in as many POWs as possible.
The POWs are forced to sit cross-legged for days. Initially the maximum sentence is 30 days but this is later extended to five or six weeks or longer. Dressed only in loincloths, possibly a shirt, POWs are exposed nightly to swarms of mosquitos. There is no food for the first week and thereafter one serve rice per day. Prisoners are permitted two daily toilet visits, but for those with dysentery (nearly every POW suffered at some time) the men defecate and urinate between the bamboo slats within view of any passing guards and prisoners.
POWs guilty of minor infringements can be thrown in the cage – typical crimes include stealing food, ‘going slow’ i.e. working slow at the Drome, failing to stand to attention in presence of guards and leaving work parties without permission. In the coming years scores of POWs will be locked in the cages with little water and no food. Many will die.
One of the ‘six survivors’, Keith Botterill is sent to the cage on three occasions for stealing food. His longest sentence is 40 days, more than the supposed 30 days. Botterill said:
“First seven days no food, no water for first three days, forced to drink until you are sick on the third night. Every evening you received a bashing – hit with sticks and fists, kicking. No wash in that 40 days”.
Botterill shared the cage with17 others with lice and mosquitos. No talking although POWs whispered. They must kneel every day and at night the men would lay side by side, squashed up in the confined cage.
Every morning the men would be taken out of the cage for exercise or PT.
Botterill recalled ‘This consisted of a severe bashing’. Guards would commonly be seen jumping on the backs of prisoners doing push-ups. ‘Men are carried back into the cage crying. Some collapse but a bucket of water is thrown over them’.
Miraculously there are exceptions to the reign of violence.
Some guards try to help the men in the cage.
‘Sparkles’ so named for his easy going nature, is one of the rare ones – he smuggled food at night, passing it through the slats to the men. ‘Sparkles’ also smuggled food into the camp. Ordered to bash prisoners on the slightest pretext, Sparkles often restrains himself to the anger of his superiors. Or he performs as perfunctory bashing then apologises to the POWs.
Most condemned to the cage contract malaria and all suffer severe malnutrition. Their mental health deteriorates engendering chronic fear and depression. Men wish for death which is precisely the Japanese intention.
According to “Fighting Monsters” by Richard Wallace Braithwaite, POWs hardly ever retaliated – history shows there were only two instances at Sandakan one being Jimmy Darlington.
How difficult was it control one’s temper under provocation? There was temptation to thump a smaller bloke who was hitting you for no good reason and being utterly unreasonable took courage and strength.
Darlington’s army record lists fines for ‘drunkenness’ and ‘indecent language’ however he served as an effective and reliable batman to Capt. Ken Mosher of 2/18th. Darlington was only 5’ 8” tall but excelled in the ring and was the pride of 8th Division’s boxing line-up and could any deck any man twice his size. His backers earned a lot of money.
His war record dated 1 April 1942 says he is ‘Missing – POW Borneo ‘.
We know Jimmy is sent to North Borneo with ‘B’ Force to build an aerodrome at Sandakan.
Jimmy Darlington’s record states he was ‘recovered from Japanese at Changi POW Camp.’
On 7 January 1946 Jimmy is discharged from the army ‘on compassionate grounds’.
According to the Jimmy’s medical report he ‘ has deep scars on both arms, his right leg, right thumb and right arm are all horribly misshapen and he has suffered a terrible break.’
Paul Ham in his book “Sandakan’ writes ‘Jimmy’s brain is numb and incommunicative’.
Darlington with Billy Young and other Australian POWs were sent to trial at Kutching, on the north west coast of North Borneo. Kutching is the location of Japanese HQ for all of Borneo POW Camps and Japan’s 37th Army. The men were subjected to further brutality and questioning by Kenpeitai (Japanese Police).
Kutching is also where the Officers of Sandakan POWs were rounded up sent to from Sandakan August 1943 to relocate to Batu Lintang camp. This move was a Japanese attempt to weaken the POWs now without leaders. Conditions for the remaining prisoners worsened, with reduced rations and sick prisoners forced to work on the airstrip
Jimmy and Billy Young were separately sentenced to Outram Road Gaol, Singapore.
The POWs were placed in a horse float and sailed to Singapore – to Outram Road Gaol.
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It is believed Jimmy’s arm was operated on during a trip to Changi Camp Hospital whilst at Outram Road Gaol. Following his trial at Kutching,he was sentenced to Outram Road Gaol, Singapore – a notorious hell hole. During the trial at Kutching Billy Young was able to nurse Jimmy and take care of him as Billy was also facing the Japanese court because he had attempted escape.
Above: Prisoner Cell
Above: regular baths for scabies
The Australian legal team despised Hoshijima – they were reeling from the horror of learning NO POWs had survived Sandakan except the Six Australian Survivors who had escaped – and thank goodness were able to provide valuable knowledge of the Sandakan POWs and their dreadful deaths at the hands of cruel Japanese.
Hoshijima’s behaviour throughout the trial at Labuan was cocky. He was seen laughing and joking with his legal team and he was obviously confident of his Japanese commanding role. He was sentenced to death by hanging and hung Rabaul 6 April 1946. Please read further.
For your interest there were 71 men from 2/4th who were sent to Sandakan with either ‘B’ or ‘E’ Force. They all perished except WX227 Alfred ‘Alf’ STEVENS who was rounded up, arrested with the underground radio group of 20 Australians and 50 civilians to face trial at Kutching, North Borneo also men like Jimmy Darlington, Billy Young and any POW sentenced at Kutching to imprisonment at Outram Road Gaol. Alf was sentenced to prison at Outram Road Gaol. He survived to return home to WA. Please read his story
Please read our stories on Sandakan POWs.
Below: Statement of Atrocity or Crime re Jimmy DARLINGTON
Below: Barraba Historical Society
Below: Nov 1945 Jimmy signs up for a boxing match!
