AWM 045258, Australian prisoners of war of 'A' Force march to a new campsite south of Thanbyuzayat during construction of the Burma section of the Burma–Thailand railway in late 1942. Australians continued to be captured, but in small numbers. Having arrived exhausted and ill-fed they were given brief respite to build camps, before they were forced to begin labouring on the line. The talented Ray Parkin had joined the navy at the age of eighteen, and fourteen years later he was a Petty Officer on the Perth. The surviving prisoners from Ambon had suffered extreme deprivation and photographers saw them immediately on release. In May the first of the major Australian work parties left, not just Changi, but Singapore. The deaths in 'F' Force began immediately. But the new camp was in an intensely malarious area and the weakened women were vulnerable. In July, Mollie Nottage was told that her husband, Captain Stewart Nottage, 'must now be posted missing'. Tragically, over a thousand died when Allied submarines torpedoed the unmarked ships carrying prisoners around Japan’s wartime empire. The discipline was strict; slapping and sometimes more brutal punishment was imposed. The prisoners of war of the Japanese had secured a significant place in popular and scholarly history. Rescued and taken ashore by some Chinese, he was captured trying to make his way to friendly troops. And in Thailand the geography posed greater problems: the supply line was longer and more difficult and the Japanese administration was not only indifferent to prisoner welfare, but prone to failure. To disguise his real purpose, Chalker was employed as a nurse and physiotherapist but, Dunlop said, 'His gentle compassion, keen intelligence and sensitive hands made him a marked asset in either capacity'. Sergeant Walter Wallace was helped by the Sandakan 'underground' to reach Berhala Island, and there he joined six other prisoners in another escape bid, and the seven managed to join the guerrillas. The doctors, encountering what for them were new diseases and with few resources, were under extreme pressure. Caught in the open sea on 14 February by Japanese aircraft, the Vyner Brooke was soon sinking. But all the prisoners of war were to find that their experiences as prisoners overwhelmed all that had gone before. For men who were underfed, the winter was harsh, particularly for those working at Naoetsu on the west coast, where the snow was several feet deep. By the end of January there were over 17,000 Australians on the Malay peninsula and Singapore. The day that all prisoners had lived and longed for, came late and without drama in most camps. All prisoners then knew that as individuals their lives were of little value to their captives, and there was no obvious safety in numbers. Dutch prisoners caught passing inoffensive notes to Dutch women were paraded and then bashed until a few were dead and about twenty were stretcher cases. The Changi library had more than 20,000 volumes and over 3000 men would listen to George McNeilly, previously a professional singer, introduce and then play records from the donated and 'scrounged' Changi collection. Shifted further north, 'A' Force was joined by other Allied prisoners and by October 1942 they had began work on the railway. Sparrow Force, comprising just over 1300 men, was near Koepang in Dutch Timor; Gull Force, of 1100 men, was on Ambon; and Lark Force, of just over 1400 men, was at Rabaul on New Britain in the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea. The slaving prisoners, the shouting, gesticulating Japanese and the shadows on the rock walls were dramatic and terrifying. In June 1943 'E' Force joined the Australian and British prisoners at Sandakan. They still wore the grey dress, red cape and white veil; they were yet to be issued with the jungle green slacks, shirt and slouch hat that so changed the appearance of the nurses in the tropics later in the war. Fearful that disease might break out, the senior officers decided that all should sign. Dunlop is facing, and Markowitz has his back to, the viewer. Captured at the fall of Singapore and transported to Korea on the Fukkai Maru, they were led on the march by a member of the Kenpeitai (Japanese security police), followed by a Korean guard. After the officers had been shifted away, there were about 2500 British and Australian prisoners at Sandakan. Just how many romusha is unknown, but it could have been around 200,000, with the peak number at any one time of 80,000. Of over 500 who set out, 142 Australians and 61 Englishmen reached Ranau. AWM 066376, This work is copyright. Nothing had prepared either the servicemen or the public for the disaster. Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop — an Australian surgeon and legend among prisoners of the Thai Burma Railway in World War II Clive Dunn — British Dad's Army actor, captured following the Battle of Greece in 1941 and held in German captivity until the end of World War II It was there that Peter McGrath-Kerr said, 'we struck the Koreans, or should I say they struck us? A few days later, sixty officers and eighteen women—the civilian, mission and army nurses and Kathleen Bignold—were shipped to Japan on the Naruto Maru. Twelve nurses died in the attack or were drowned. The Japanese were on their way to the west coast, but it was obvious that the prisoners would not get there. Initially, the government classed foreign nationals of countries at war with Australia as enemy aliens. On 12 February 1942 the last sixty-five nurses went on board the Vyner Brooke. Of the men deployed to the north, only those in Port Moresby, a few in the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles on mainland New Guinea who withdrew towards Wau, coastwatchers, guerrilla forces on Bougainville and Timor, some RAAF personnel ordered out just ahead of the ground fighting and a few evaders and escapers (including General Gordon Bennett of the 8th Division) were still free. Cheering crowds lined the bus route. Many of the 2/30th were in 'F' Force, and they remembered: Usually the march began about dark; a ten minute halt was made every hour and was signalled by a blast on the bugle when the men just collapsed where they were and often fell asleep immediately, oblivious of the myriads of sandflies which tormented them. In all, around 13,000 Australians went to the railway, and close to 2800 died, a significant proportion of the 12,000 Allied prisoner deaths. The death rate among Australians in Changi was certainly under 10 per cent, less than the death rates in the German prisoner of war camps in the First World War. The men were flown from Singapore into Rose Bay by Catalina flying boats, then bussed to hospital for medical examination. The nurses on Sumatra learnt that the war was over on 24 August, but no Australians knew where they were. In April 1943 750 British prisoners arrived at Sandakan, and the Australians through their outside contacts learnt that another 500 Australians of 'E' Force had landed on the small island of Berhala, just off Sandakan. With the Japanese themselves under stress, the prisoners were both exploitable and expendable. The five survivors were picked up by a Japanese cruiser, and the doctor in the sick bay, Metzler said, was the 'soul of kindliness and courtesy', and through the next years he never met another Japanese like the good doctor. The hammer and tap men, one wielding a heavy hammer and the other holding the drill and giving it a slight turn between strikes, drilled holes in rock to take explosives. Soon shortage of food and an ill-balanced diet led to the abandonment of most active sports. Their involvement has strengthened the celebrated Anzac legend in Australian culture. When the prisoners refused to sign a sworn statement saying that they would not escape, the Japanese crowded over 15,000 British and Australian troops into the Selarang Barracks Square. Captain Lionel Matthews, two local members of the police and four civilians were sentenced to death. Your generous donation will be used to ensure the memory of our Defence Forces and what they have done for us, and what they continue to do for our freedom remains – today and into the future. Nearly all the troops in Port Moresby were militia, and there were a few militia men in Rabaul, but the rest were Australian Imperial Force (AIF). In spite of the bashings, it broke the boredom of his month of solitary confinement. But on 16 August the Japanese admitted that there was an 'armistice', and the men were no longer to be considered prisoners. It was soon apparent that the Japanese, overwhelmed by the numbers of prisoners, committed to other operations, and being largely indifferent to the welfare off those who had surrendered, were not going to do much for their captives. By going from tree to tree, one could take a stormy passage down the Channel with the Yatchmen's Club, take a leisurely tour through the waterways of France with the Travel boys, or find oneself caught in a blizzard in the Alps with the Mountain Climbing group. In February 1944, Catholic and Lutheran missionaries on the Yorishime Maru— also Dorish Maru—were bombed and strafed by American aircraft off Wewak, killing sixty-three and leaving many wounded. (Tim Bowden, Changi Photographer, 1984). In the official histories, AJ Sweeting, 'Prisoners of the Japanese', covers the experiences of the army prisoners in Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust (1957). With the Australians captured in north Africa, Greece and Crete in 1941, over 30,000 Australians were prisoners of war. The Konyu Cutting, which became the site of the Hellfire Pass Memorial, was completed in August 1943, with the men working shifts of up to eighteen hours in the light of flaring bamboo fires. Flight Lieutenant CH 'Spud' Spurgeon was in action on 8 December and saw some 'pretty damned magnificent flying'. In the immediate post-war period, the prisoners of war remained in public consciousness as the trials of Japanese accused of war crimes continued into the early 1950s. A Japanese float-plane strafed and bombed the Patricia Cam, sinking it. In the First World War just over 4000 Australians had been taken prisoner and many had suffered extreme deprivation and 10 per cent had died after capture (often because they had been severely wounded in battle), but those casualties were so overwhelmed by the fact that more than 60,000 had died in battle that the prisoners of war were given slight notice in official and unofficial histories. The cemetery at the Thai end of the railway, at Kanchanaburi, is better known. On May 22, 1938, 792 or 795 prisoners of war and political prisoners escaped from Fort San Cristóbal, near Pamplona, Spain. Most were captured early in 1942 when Japanese forces captured Malaya, Singapore, New Britain, and the Netherlands East Indies. 213,000 Australian battle casualties quickly overshadowed the prisoners’ hardships that included 60,000 war dead who became the focus of private and public mourning in the years after the war. Aircrew continued to be captured through the following weeks. They also found that the police were in contact with men still sailing between the islands in the Sulu Archipelago, and that opened communication with guerrilla groups who were operating in the islands and the Philippines. Fearing the outbreak of disease and knowing that all men were suffering from the limited food and water, senior officers told the men to sign—assuring them that a statement signed under duress was not binding. The nurses endured the dirt, malnutrition and lack of privacy of Irenelaan until October 1944, when they began the shift back to a new camp at Muntok. The Australians also built a transmitter, held for an emergency, although it was used briefly to report the movement of a Japanese convoy. Squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) were operating from Koepang, Laha on Ambon, Rabaul and Port Moresby. Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Alfred Lynch. A year later, 25,000 Australians were deployed in south-east Asia and the Pacific and all were at risk. Near the Thai–Burma border, there were few local people, and almost no surplus food. Those men of the 8th Division not in Singapore and Malaya were at three points across the north of Australia. The wave of Japanese victories, ending with the capture of the Netherlands East Indies in March 1942, left in its wake a mass of Allied prisoners of war, including many Australians. The 290 prisoners left at Sandakan were all ill, and they all died of malnutrition or were murdered before the end of the war. Twenty-eight Australian World War II soldiers will be posthumously* awarded for their bravery 73 years after the end of the war. A fourth man who survived the march and escaped from Ranau, Bombardier William Moxham, was too ill to be photographed with this group. (State Library of Victoria Argus newspaper collection image an002442, The grave of a victim of the Sandakan death marches: a man shot near the 16-mile peg near Sandakan. By 1945, the officers in Zentsuji were suffering from starvation, but only one died before they were shifted to northern Honshu and Hokkaido just before the Japanese surrendered. But other formal and informal pursuits helped the men combat one enemy of all prisoners—time. It was to the credit of the training of the units and the good sense of men and officers that Australian units generally retained their discipline and cohesion through the tough years of imprisonment. Despite receiving some help from locals, Hackney was recaptured and interned at Pudu Gaol and later Changi Prison. AWM P02468.516, A group of nurses and civilians on their way home after their internment at Yokohama, Japan, wait at a prisoner of war processing centre in Manila, 4 September 1945. AWM P02338.001, photographer: George Aspinall, Troops de-bugging their beds, Changi, by Murray Griffin, 1942–43: oil over pencil on softboard, 63 x 81.2 cm. In the early months of imprisonment sporting teams representing units and nations played on Changi padangs. Little food was provided, some men going thirty-six hours between meals, and there were no toilet facilities. It gives a narrative and pictorial account of life in POW camps north of Australia during World War II. AWM 019195, Recovered prisoners of war from Ambon being landed at Morotai from an Australian corvette, HMAS Junee, 12 September 1945. But on Ambon much of the work was pointless: on the 'long carry' the weakened men lugged bombs and bags of cement over hills for no practical reason and when they could have been shifted easily by other means. As always, rumours began well before any orders, and one persistent rumour was that men were to be repatriated in exchange for bales of wool. At first the work was not excessive, but as they moved south, the country became more difficult, supplies decreased, the hours of work lengthened and the speed increased. On their return, the Japanese ordered twentytwo nurses to walk into the sea and opened fire on them. Many wrote false names, a surprising number of Australians being called 'Ned Kelly'. He was right about the first, and the nurses were certainly under threat of the second, but evaded that fate. He was placed in a POW camp east of Leningrad. On 30 August it was announced that there might be 17,500 Australian prisoners of war coming home. Many digital copies of World War II service records already exist. But by late 1942 the Japanese knew that their sea route to Burma was under increasing threat from Allied attack, and the roads were primitive and disrupted in the wet season. In July 'B' Force, 1500 Australians, sailed for Borneo; in November 'C' Force, 555 Australians, sailed for Japan; in the following March 500 Australians in 'E' Force followed 'B' Force to Borneo; and in April 200 in 'G' Force and in May another 300 in 'J' Force sailed for Japan. AWM 116271, Recently liberated RAAF and British prisoners of war discard the pig trough formerly used to prepare the daily ration of boiled rice for 1200 internees of the camp at Kuching, Sarawak, 14 September 1945. The prisoners continued to die at Ranau and at Paginatan, where some had been delayed. Prisoners of war buried their dead close to many of their camps. Most of the other Australians in Japan worked in dangerous conditions in underground coal mines, in ship yards and in various factories. The smaller 'H' Force also arrived late, was thrust into similar appalling conditions, and suffered a high death rate: 179 from a total of 670. The Thai police who picked him up allowed him to be taken away by an Englishman who hid him in an internment camp. Other units and reinforcements followed. Includes Changi, the Burma-Thailand Railway, Sandakan, Timor, Ambon, Rabaul and Japan, and the prisoners who died at sea. Ben Hackey, who survived, was in Pudu gaol by 20 March 1942. It has been difficult to create a site of mourning for an incident that took place at sea, and the shores that they left at Rabaul are distant and have been covered in volcanic ash. In the second group of fifty prisoners and forty-nine Japanese who left Sandakan, probably twenty prisoners and ten Japanese had died. It was while they were housed in temporary camps such as the peace-time amusement park of The Great World or unloading ships and trucks that the Australians began to earn their reputation as audacious and inventive thieves. We could have given him lessons'. An equally extensive and more general account is in the medical series: Allan Walker, Middle East and Far East (1953). Fearful of what would happen to the nurses in the event of surrender, senior medical officers on Singapore got half away on the Empire Star, and although they were bombed heavily no nurses were injured. The Nationalists recaptured or killed the rest. Accused of trading for food outside the camp, men were battered and tortured. Australian-born descendants of migrants from enemy nations 3. others who posed a threat to Australia’s security. The loss of 845 prisoners of war and 208 civilians was the greatest single disaster suffered by Australia in the Second World War. At great personal risk some Thais were prepared to sell medicines and food on credit, and even provide cash. When the war ended and plans were made to shut down the camp in 1947, Andras Toma was sent to a mental hospital when the prison camp closed. AWM P00406.011, Australian prisoners of war chop and saw wood in front of the cookhouse at the prison camp at Kanchanaburi, Thailand, in 1944. Hundreds of Australian civilians were also interned. In addition, men captured on Java and Timor and from the Perth passed through Singapore on their way north, some groups joining 'A' Force and going to Burma and about equal numbers going to Thailand. Only 4,044 members of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) were taken prisoner across all theatres of operations between 1915 and 1918. We pay our respects to elders past and present. The Japanese had said that while they had not ratified the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, they would respect its authority. Relatives, anxious for news, cut out the report and pasted it in scrapbooks or filed it with last letters received. Ken Harrison lasted over a month in the jungle before he realised that with the bullet wound in his ankle he was becoming a burden to his three companions. Two were Australians, Corporal RE Breavington and Private VL Gale. But the Thai work parties also came under the increasing demands of the 'Speedo', named after the constant calls of the guards and engineers for 'speedo, speedo', often accompanied by a slap, kick or a thrown stone or steel tool. Realising they had a chance to escape, three small groups of Sandakan prisoners made attempts—all but one were recaptured and two of the last group were executed. So too were women of the Australian Army Nursing Service who were sunk near Sumatra while trying to escape from Singapore in February 1942. Newton was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his 'great courage' and 'iron determination' in pressing home raids against intense fire, and later the advancing Australians picked up a diary with a vivid and disturbing account of his execution with a 'sweep' of the sword. After five or six days, they stumbled from the trains at Bampong in Thailand. That farewell at sea, seen by 12,000 Australians, was a significant moment in Australian history: for the first time, Australia made a substantial commitment of forces to its near north. Stan Arneil's group covered 300 kilometres in fifteen nights of marching, arriving at Shimo Sonkurai, close to the Burma border, on 17 May 1943. At night, the Australian concert party put on a show, and under the watch of Japanese machine-gunners and before a vast crowd, gave one of their best performances. 20 Horrific Details about Japanese POW Camps During World War II By Steve The term “prisoner of war” dates as far back as 1660, recognizing an individual detained … Just six Australians survived from the 2500 Australian and British prisoners left at Sandakan after the officers went to Kuching: Gunner Owen Campbell and Bombadier Dick Braithwaite, escapers from the second march; and Warrant Officer William Sticpewich, Lance Bombadier William Moxham, Private Keith Botterill and Private Nelson Short, who escaped from Ranau. Nearly half of those on the Perth— 23 officers and 329 ratings—were thought to have been killed in action or drowned, and 320 were captured by the Japanese. Most of the men were soon shifted to Zentsuji on Shikoku Island, and in 1944 the women were moved to Totsuka, just beyond the outskirts of Yokahama. Spurgeon was the only member of the crew to survive the attack, the forced landing on the waves and a night drifting at sea. The next day he had some: some 'gallant fellows' had walked several kilometres up the line, climbed telegraph poles, smashed the insulators and taken out the sulphur. On the Sandakan death marches and at Ranau, prisoners had neither the opportunity nor the energy to bury all those who died or were murdered. AWM 118879, The amputation ward of 'Bamboo Hut Hospital' at a prisoner of war camp on the Burma–Thailand railway. But his three mates decided 'one in all in'. Use the 'help' tab for questions. The arrested prisoners and civilians were brutally tortured by the Kempeitai— the feared Japanese military police. Soon Changi had extensive gardens and a poultry farm, but much of the produce went to the hospital. All prisoners of WWII suffered in major ways, whether it be physical damage, psychological damage or both. Taking off from Kota Bharu, the Hudsons flew the short distance to bomb and strafe Japanese transports and landing barges. AWM OG3552, photographer: John Thomas Harrison, Private Kenneth Reid, 2/29th Battalion, was captured in Malaya in April 1942 and spent three and a half years as a prisoner of the Japanese before his release in late 1945, with severe malnutrition. The Australians were quickly disabused. The English prisoners on 'F' Force, who were less fit initially, suffered twice the casualties. In the extreme conditions on the Burma–Thailand railway, some work groups were forced to cremate their dead, but that was exceptional. Left to right: Privates Allan Scott, Amos Skinner, Stan Rixon, Robert Lowe and Walter Wright. There were many negative consequences for the POWs. 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