Single greatest example of Japanese atrocity.
World War Two PoWs trudged to their deaths through these paths and when Major John Tulloch retraced the steps of Allied prisoners of war and their infamous 'death march' from 1945, he captured these haunting images of those soldiers who are still marching towards their death place. All other photoes were taken 70 years ago.
The retired army officer had revisited the muddy track in Borneo.
Maj Tulloch studied his pictures and found what appeared to be hunched, skeletal ghostly figures marching across his photograph, almost exactly in line with the path they took seven decades ago.
The haunting image evokes strong memories of the desperate 'death march' made by Some 2,400 World War II PoWs as they embraced their death in the horrific Sandakan Death Marches in 1945 to avoid them being liberated as Japan was forced on the retreat.
Severely malnourished and barefoot, they were forced by brutal Japanese
captors to walk 160 miles in sweltering heat for a month. Maj Tulloch took the picture from the window of a 4x4 vehicle while driving along the 'death march' route in 2010.
It is thought the astonishing photographic illusion was caused by a the reflection of a patterned towel which was on the dashboard of the vehicle as he took the image. Maj Tulloch said he took the picture in 2010 when he did a recce of the route ahead of a March of Remembrance and the unveiling of a memorial to the 400 members of the Royal Artillery who died.
Men who collapsed through exhaustion were left to die or were killed by being shot, bayoneted or beheaded. Conditions were so appalling that some of the servicemen are said to have resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.
Only six men survived the three marches from Sandakan to Ranau and that was because they managed to escape. It was the single greatest atrocity against Australian troops.
Maj Tulloch is now an instructor in jungle warfare for the Royal Artillery.
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