Operation Kingfisher was an operation planned to rescue Allied prisoners of war from Japanese captivity in
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...
towards the end of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The operation did not come to fruition and almost 2,500 POWs died during the
Sandakan Death Marches
The Sandakan Death Marches were a series of forced marches in Borneo from Sandakan to Ranau which resulted in the deaths of 2,434 Allied prisoners of war held captive by the Empire of Japan during the Pacific campaign of World War II at the Sa ...
.
Operation Kingfisher
/ref>
See also
* Batu Lintang camp
Batu Lintang camp (also known as Lintang Barracks and Kuching POW camp) at Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo was a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War. It was unusual in that it housed both Allied prisoners of war (POWs) ...
* Berhala Island, Sandakan
* Borneo campaign, 1945
The Borneo campaign or Second Battle of Borneo was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area during World War II to liberate Japanese-held British Borneo and Dutch Borneo. Designated collectively as Operation Oboe, ...
* 1st Parachute Battalion (Australia)
* The March (1945)
"The March" refers to a series of forced marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 Allies of World War II, western Allied prisoner of war, prisoners of war held in Germany, German military prison c ...
References
Further reading
*
*
{{Australian Commando raids of the Second World War
Sandakan
British North Borneo
Military history of Malaysia
Kingfisher
Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...
Japanese prisoner of war and internment camps
Japanese war crimes
Forced marches
1945 in Japan
History of Sabah