Book Review - The Witness
Written by: Tom Gilling
Allen and Unwin Book Publisher, 2022, 320 pp
Paperback ISBN: 9781760879273
Reviewed by: James Bryant
Two thousand four hundred Allied servicemen died as prisoners of the Japanese at Sandakan in Borneo, many on the so-called ‘death march’ that took place along a 260 kilometre long jungle track between Sandakan and Ranau. Exhausted, malnourished and wracked by illnesses like malaria and beri-beri, all who fell out on that track were kicked or bludgeoned to death, or shot. Three-quarters of these fatalities were Australian. As Tom Gilling sets out in his book The Witness, the last to die on the march was Private John Skinner from Tenterfield, who was dragged to the edge of a slit trench, blindfolded and decapitated.
But six had escaped the march and survived. What would it take to survive such an ordeal? While there isn’t scope in The Witness to consider the circumstances and character of all six, one fits the archetypal image of the Aussie survivor. Bombardier Richard Braithwaite is the first to reach the Allied lines and safety. Tough and driven, he is hard for his debriefers to handle. But it is not Braithwaite on whom Gilling focuses his narrative. Instead it is Warrant Officer Bill ‘Stippy’ Sticpewich who is by far the most shadowy and divisive figure among the escapees. Far from admiring him, his captive peers all loathe him, calling him ‘the White Jap’. The author’s decision to tell Stippy’s story is a masterstroke as it takes the reader on a narrative journey rarely traced in the literature of the POW experience.
Bright and resourceful, Sticpewich possesses rat cunning in abundance. Good with his hands, unlike most of his fellow inmates Sticpewich does what he feels he must to ingratiate himself with his Japanese guards and their commander, the sadistic Hoshijima, in order to survive. This approach sees him maintaining and repairing camp equipment as the head of a workshop, a job that also involves creating creature comforts for the guards. Critically, those in the technical section are given extra rations and are exempt from the work of clearing the jungle to build an airfield. This is the exhausting, soul-crushing mission of the camp’s other prisoners—a job that kills them in droves day after day.
By viewing the horror of the Allied experience in the Pacific through the morally ambiguous character of Stippy, this book differentiates itself from the usual POW narrative. While Sticpewich found himself a role that that kept him in much better shape than the average POW, he was nevertheless also a member of the Escape Committee. Indeed, it was acknowledged by some of the survivors that Sticpewich saved fellow POWs’ lives on a number of occasions. Significantly too, at the subsequent war trials Sticpewich’s testimony was critical in condemning many of the Japanese guards and their commanders to death. So accurate and detailed was his memory of events, and so commanding and authoritative his presence in the witness box, that he was the central plinth upon which many of the prosecutions depended. He dominated proceedings. Here too, however, Gilling finds Sticpewich deceitful. Specifically, on several occasions Stippy feigned a clear recollection of events at which he was not actually present—testimony that resulted in a number of Japanese guards swinging from the gallows.
Gilling’s prose style is simple and straightforward, almost stark. While some may find it rudimentary, unpolished or prosaic, others will find it just right. Gilling’s narrative lets the horrors of Sandakan speak for themselves, unembellished by descriptors. There are, however, areas for improvement. For example, this book would have benefited from the inclusion of a map or two early on. A broad introductory chronology would also have been useful, as would a list of key characters, as the reader inevitably starts to forget who is who, particularly on the Japanese side. The narrative flow of the latter section of the book is also disjointed, making it hard to follow, while Gilling doesn’t seem entirely sure how to close the story out. But these are quibbles about what is otherwise an enormously rewarding read.
It is the fascinating character of Bill Sticpewich that binds this book together. Through its narrative focus, the conditions in the camps and on the death march are brought to life. The reader also gains unique insights into the conduct of the subsequent war crimes trials. Further, this book adds a moral perspective to the POW experience that is absent among titles more interested in reinforcing stereotypes around mateship and personal resilience. Gilling centres on the nature of good and evil in conditions like those faced by Allied POWs in the Pacific, and poses some interesting questions on freedom of choice as the reader is forced to consider what they would have done in such circumstances.
It may be that the best way, indeed the only way, to address the horrors of war is to do so obliquely—via a narrative device like that adopted by Gilling. The American author Kurt Vonnegut took a similar approach in the semi-autobiographical Slaughterhouse Five when he created the figure of Billy Pilgrim, another Allied POW, this time in Europe. In that book, the main character finds himself clearing bodies after the firebombing of Dresden in early 1945. In a story told in a non-linear way (using flashbacks and time travel) it is as if Vonnegut cannot articulate the horror of his experience directly. With the subject matter simply too painful to be viewed front on, the lens is refracted. There are clear parallels in the approach that Gilling takes to the character of Sticpewich, a man stripped bare by his circumstances and his overwhelming desire to survive. That he was a real prisoner makes Stippy a far richer figure for examination than would be delivered by any work of fiction.
About the Reviewer
A graduate of the Defence Academy, the Royal Military College and the Australian Command and Staff College, Lieutenant Colonel Bryant has a First Class Honours Degree in History, two Masters Degrees, and was the Chief of Defence Force Scholar in 2006. An infantry officer with service in Somalia and East Timor, he has also been a development adviser in Afghanistan with AusAID, an analyst in the Office of National Assessments, and a policy officer in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He now works for the Australian Army Research Centre in an Army Reserve capacity.
