Guide to the Papers of Athol Randolph Moffitt

Collection of papers relating to War Crimes Trials, British North Borneo 1945-1946, and to the Sandakan POW camps. Captain Athol Randolph Moffitt was an Army legal officer assisting with the investigations of war crimes against prisoners of war (mainly Australian) by the Japanese forces and their collaborators during the Second World War. As a member of the British Borneo Civic Affairs Unit, and later attached to the HQ 9th Division AIF (Labuan), Capt Moffitt gathered the evidence for, and conducted the prosecution of Captain Hoshijima, the commander of Sandakan POW camp from mid-1942 to May 1945. The trial of Hoshijima was conducted in January 1946. The records include an indexed typed transcript of Moffitt's diary, September 1945-February 1946; Japanese War Crimes Trial typescripts; original charts compiled by Japanese officers concerning the first Sandakan 'death march'; maps relating to Sandakan POW camp and the 'death marches'; research documents collected by Moffitt for the book Project Kingfisher (1989); a copy of Project Kingfisher autographed by survivors of the Sandakan 'death marches'; and contemporary papers.