Over twenty-two thousand Australians were captured by the Japanese when they conquered South East Asia in early 1942. More than a third of these men and women died in captivity. This was about 20 per cent of all Australian deaths in World War II. The shock and scale of these losses affected families and communities across Australia, then only comprised of seven million people.
In this 16-part-series originally broadcast in 1984, the historians Tim Bowden and Hank Nelson chart the story of Australian POWs under the Japanese; from the fall of Singapore in February 1942, to liberation by the allies in 1945.
Men and women who survived their incarceration recall their wartime experiences; memories which reveal great courage, grim humour, shocking brutality, surprising compassion, and above all, the capacity for humans to endure.
-
'You’ll be sorry' was the sardonic cry that greeted Australian recruits to the 2nd AIF as they began their training, before leaving for Malaya. After a series of brief but savage battles with the invading Japanese forces, the Australian troops were captured, and began their imprisonment on Singapore’s Changi peninsula.
More
-
The grim reality of being a prisoner of the Japanese in Changi started to sink in. These memories of life behind the razor wire are laced with gallows humour and Australian vernacular, which became vital tools for survival amid the brutality and bleakness of incarceration.
More
-
In late 1942, Australian POWs in Changi—many of whom were ill with dysentery and fever—were forced into vans, and taken by train into Thailand. In reality they were forced into slave labour gangs, to build the infamous Thai-Burma railway.
More
-
The Japanese, desperate to get the Thai-Burma Railway finished, forced the POWs to work around the clock. The captors seemed oblivious to the starving, sick and dying men, many of whom fell where they stood.
More
-
Stories of survival in the wretched work camps along the 400km stretch of the Thai-Burma railway. For those men who did survive the railway, returning to Changi was almost like coming 'home'.
More
-
The experiences of the women in the Australian Army Nursing Service who were imprisoned as POWs in Japan and Sumatra.
More
-
The men of the 2nd 21st 'Gull Force' battalion, stationed on the Indonesian island of Ambon, faced an impossible defence task when the Japanese attacked in early 1942. At the end of the war Ambon had one of the highest death tolls that Australians experienced in captivity.
More
-
The worst atrocities carried out by the Japanese were in Borneo, and particularly upon those POWs quartered at Sandakan, who were forced to build an aerodrome.
More
-
No Australian POWs escaped from Singapore and made it back to Australia during the war. But other Australian prisoners in Borneo did escape from the Japanese and survived. Some of these surviving escapees tell their stories, which involve underground networks to the Philippines, jungle hide-outs, and the extraordinary courage and kindness of Malayan civilians in Borneo.
More
-
In Malaya some Australians evaded capture and survived over three years of sickness, violence and isolation hidden in the camps of the local communist guerrillas. On the Indonesian island of Ambon some Australian POWs seized boats and made the dangerous sea journey to Australia.
More
-
Many Australian prisoners travelled further while captives of the Japanese than they did at any other time of their lives.
More
-
The Australian forces taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II were spread far and wide, from south of the equator, to five thousand kilometres away, in the north. The combinations of prisoners and cultures within these camps varied as widely as the surrounding landscape and climate.
More
-
Outram Road was the most feared prison in Singapore—it’s primary function was severe punishment of its' detainees.
More
-
By early 1945, nearly three thousand Australians were detained in the homeland of the enemy—Japan. They were force to work in shipyards, mines and factories. For many of these men, the constant doubt was whether they could survive another winter in Japan, to witness an allied invasion.
More
-
For over three years, the POWs had survived through the dream and hope of liberation, but when they finally learnt that the war was over, many were reluctant, even unwilling, to believe it was true.
More
-
At the end of 1945, fourteen thousand Australian prisoners of war were on their way home. Another eight thousand were buried or cremated near camps which stretched from Timor, north to Manchuria.
More
