You need to track down the stuff that has been written recently about Z Force, I had the luck to know a couple of them before they passed away. As for the aircraft and shipping for the withdrawal, that I got from the Ops Officer who planned the operation.
How recently? This is what I've just found at my local library, in
Borneo, Australia's Proud but Tragic Heritage, by Kevin Smith, revised second edition, 2000, selfpublished, Armadale, NSW. All comments in italics are mine:
"Capt. Pat Lees of 'Z' Special Unit, formerly of 1 Australian Parachute Battalion, was sent to fly over Sandaken, in October 1944 as he recalls, to check the feasibility of parachute landings. Under heavy anti-aircraft fire, in a Mitchell bomber, he observed that the airstrip was considerably ravaged by bombing... he reported that a parachute landing was feasible." (p.355)
[
Smith makes no mention of Services Reconnaissance Department, the organisation that ran 'Z', ever having put boots on the ground at the proposed assault sites.]
"In early March [
1945, more than half a year after the rescue was first proposed] the new AGAS I operation at last inserted 'Z' Unit personnel fifty kms across Labuk Bay from the Sandaken Peninsula. The objectives of AGAS I included: '...obtaining and relaying to Ausralia the detailed intelligence essential for the planning of a combined airborne-naval operation on the POW camps in the area, aimed at effecting the rescue and withdrawal by sea of the prisoners...' In pursuit of this objective AGAS I spent a month ranging far and wide. Time was passing by. Despite the many radioed reports from AGAS I, the process of dissemination, both in Borneo and at S.R.D., was far too slow. Information gathered by the 'Z' Unit personnel was too often out of date when received... Information for final planning of KINGFISHER was just not coming together quickly enough." (p.361)
"Both Blamey and MacArthur had approved the planning. They did not withdraw that approval while prisoners lived. Other factors intervened to create a strong belief that the need for KINGFISHER no longer existed." (p.361/362)
"S.R.D. Intelligence report no.65 of 4th April 1945 stated, 'all signs indicate an enemy evacuation of Sandaken.' According to reliable information from a native chief in the Sugat area where AGAS I was located the Sandaken POWS had been moved to Jesselton and those unable to travel were shot. S.R.D. Intelligence report no.147 of 21st May 1945 stated unequivocally, 'there are NO PW left in SANDAKEN' [
There were still hundreds of POWs at Sandaken. Command weren't certain what the truth was, as evinced by them sending an officer to recon the area in June]... KINGFISHER had collapsed long before any C47s were needed, it collapsed not because of a denial of aircraft but because of misleading information. The 1st Australian Corps then focussed attention upon a Ranau rescue [
Ranau being the destination of the death march survivors], AGAS III, but that was also too little, too late." (p.362)
"In some quarters there has been much made of the 'project' status of KINGFISHER, as distinct from it being a military plan. To be sure there seems to have been no precise date ever really finalised for implementing KINGFISHER... There was indeed a plan, and somebody did indeed deny the opportunity for that plan to be implemented for the simple reason that S.R.D. was lethargic in its late 1944 planning" (p.363).
Anyway, for more on the he-said-she-said narrative (literally he-said-she-said, as
this Australian War Memorial online journal article by Ooi Keat Gin relies on the argument of Lynette Ramsay Silver to tell us--"Blamey blamed MacArthur as an excuse to cover-up an SRD bungle in the gathering of accurate intelligence.") Selected quotes that go someway to corroborating what I believe is Smith's more lucid account:
"If the AGAS report is to be believed, and there is no apparent reason to doubt its veracity [
personally I do doubt its veracity, just look at Smith RE Operation AGAS not being terribly effective], why then was no attempt... made to effect the planned rescue of the Sandakan POWs – that is, implement Operation KINGFISHER? KINGFISHER, conceived sometime in mid-1944, proposed a rescue plan of POWs in Sandakan by a paratroop unit. The probable reason for aborting KINGFISHER has been hotly debated, with arguments ranging from a conspiratorial cover-up that implicated Australia's military elite to MacArthur's non-cooperation in providing vital support for the operation...
However, Major Chester, the leader of AGAS party, was well aware of SRD's shortcomings. He confided with Sergeant Wong Sue, telling him
'You know what they're going to do? Blamey's going to shift the blame for all their bungling onto MacArthur'. Chester, however, was unable to challenge Blamey in 1947; he died of blackwater fever at Jesselton (Kota Kinabalu) in August 1946. Nor was there much the Chinese Wong Sue could do at the time to dispute Blamey's claim."