1. society
2. unrest and war

5.5 Experiences of prisoners of war
Between 1940 and 1945 more than 30 000 Australians became prisoners of war (POWs).
Of these, 8000 were prisoners of the Germans and Italians and 22 000 were prisoners of
the Japanese.
Prisoners of the Germans and Italians
Australian prisoners of war in Europe had been captured by the Germans and Italians
during the Middle East, African and Mediterranean campaigns, as well as being
captured in naval engagements or as survivors of ditched aircraft. In Germany, many of
the prisoners were forced to join work parties building roads or railway lines, or working
on farms. Their basic food requirements were met and most survived the war — 265 of
the 8000 prisoners died in captivity.
Prisoners of war of the Japanese
Conditions for POWs of the Japanese were generally far worse than for prisoners of the
Europeans. The Japanese military code assumed that soldiers would fight to the death;
this meant that very few Japanese soldiers allowed themselves to be taken prisoner.
They chose instead to die by suicide. The Japanese, therefore, were not prepared for
SOURCE 5.29
the large number of Allied soldiers who became their prisoners after the surrender
Map of South-East Asia,
of Singapore on 15 February 1942. The Japanese did not always respect people who
showing places and
had surrendered. A total of 130 000 Allied prisoners were taken, including over 22 000
events mentioned in
Australians. By the end of the war only 13 872 POWs had survived the Japanese camps.
the text
The majority of prisoners were at first kept
in Changi. Before the war Changi had been the
BURMA
CHINA
major site of the British military, and contained
three military barracks as well as a civilian prison
SOUTH
Moulmein
FRENCH
CHINA
built only six years previously. At the beginning
T H A I L A N D I N D O - C H I N A SEA
PHILIPPINES
Thai–Burma
there were around 15 000 Australians in Changi
Bangkok
Railway
PHILIPPINE
living in reasonable conditions but, by mid 1943,
SEA
less than 2500 remained. Some prisoners were
sent to prisons in places such as Japan (where
they were forced to work in war industries),
Sandakan
Ranau
Sabah
M A L AYA
Burma, Manchuria and Formosa. The sea voyages
to these camps were themselves dangerous.
Singapore
On three occasions, US submarines sank ships
Borneo
carrying prisoners, with a loss of over 1700 lives.
Sumatra
New Guinea
N
However, most prisoners were sent to far worse
Palembang
Ambon
JAVA SEA
conditions to work on the Thai–Burma Railway.
Island
D
INDIAN
U
T C
H
OCEAN
0
500
Java
E A
S T
I N D I
E S
SOURCE QUESTION
1000 km
AU S T R A L I A
Using the map and information in the text, identify
what the Japanese were trying to achieve by building
the Thai–Burma Railway.
The Thai–Burma Railway
From Changi, prisoners were sent by train — usually in goods trucks — and then on
foot to work on the Thai–Burma Railway. The Japanese planned to use this line to carry
supplies for an attack on India — then a British Colony. Conditions there were quite
different from those in Changi (see sources 5.30 and 5.31).
The Japanese had assembled a forced-labour workforce of over 300 000 men. About
250 000 of these were men from the occupied territories such as Malaya who were
taken by force from their families to work for the Japanese and 60 000 were allied
prisoners of war: Australian, British, Dutch and American. The death toll was very high.
184
Retroactive 2
Around 80 000 of the civilian workers and 12 500 of the POWs died in the appalling
conditions. The death toll was particularly high between April and August 1943, when
the Japanese command decided that the line had to be finished.
SOURCE 5.30 An extract from Stan Arneil’s description of his period on the Thai–Burma railway from May to December 1943
It has been estimated that 100 000 prisoners and coolies*
died during the construction of the railway, approximately
393 people for every mile of the track. Troops died from
every known tropical disease and from sheer exhaustion.
So constant was the torrential rain that the troops were
wet for months on end, many of them had no shirts, others
only lap laps and most in bare feet. Men died in such numbers that the traditional ‘Last Post’, the haunting bugle call
normally played at military funerals, was played only once
per week, for all those who had died during the week. It was
thought that the sounding of the ‘Last Post’ for every death,
sometimes six or seven a day, would have had a depressing
effect on the troops.
The group of prisoners of whom I was a member was
known as F Force and suffered the highest percentage of
deaths of any force on the railway. Of a force of 7000 men,
3096 died, forty four per cent of its original strength, in nine
months. Many more died later as a result of the disease and
privation they had suffered on the railway.
The rate of deaths was so great that there was not time,
and not sufficient men strong enough, to dig graves. The
dead were cremated on bamboo fires and a handful of ashes
of each man collected in a separate bamboo container cut
straight from the bamboo.
Many of those who returned from the railway never recovered their former health.
It was a period when the Australians concentrated solely
on the business of living, almost willing themselves to live.
Stan Arneil, One Man’s War, Sun Books (Pan Macmillan),
Melbourne, 1982, p. 91.
* Australians at that time did not distinguish between different Asian
groups such as Chinese or Indian, and just used a general term for
unskilled labourers.
SOURCE 5.31
Photograph of prisoners
of war on their sleeping
platform in a camp on
the Thai–Burma Railway.
The hut was made of
bamboo and palm leaf.
Each of the men had
about 75 centimetres of
bed space.
AWM PO1502 003
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Carefully study sources 5.30 and 5.31. What were three major problems faced by the prisoners?
2 How did conditions affect what happened even with those who died?
3 Note the date of source 5.30. From the text, find out why this was a particularly difficult time on
the Thai–Burma Railway.
4 Why might forced labourers on the railway who came from Asian countries object to being called
‘coolies’?
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Other prison camps
The worst experiences of the war took place on the island of Ambon in what is now
Indonesia, in Hainan off the coast of China and at Sandakan in East Malaysia.
In Ambon, over 200 Australians were massacred in February 1942. In Sabah (North
Borneo), there were two forced marches of soldiers from a camp in the coastal town
of Sandakan up to the inland village Rana, over 2000 metres above sea level and a
distance of about 260 kilometres. When soldiers became ill on the march, they were shot
or bayoneted by the Japanese. Out of over 2000 Australian and British POWs on these
marches, only six survived. This was the worst single atrocity in Australia’s experience.
SOURCE 5.32
A newspaper account of
conditions for Australians
in a Japanese prison
camp, 1945
During the past six months the Japanese High Command in the Philippines has insisted that it
does not recognise any form of international law, although the Japanese Premier told America
in 1942 that Japan would honour the Geneva Convention [Convention on the Treatment of
Prisoners of War].
In the camps, men, women and children, including the aged and sick, were supplied with
less than 900 calories per person per day, although 1700 are required to keep a sleeping person
healthy. Everyone in the camp suffered from malnutrition and because of the lack of protein
they were not able to control urination.
During the penultimate six months of our internment, rations were reduced to six ounces of
corn and rice per person per day . . . There were virtually no vegetables, except those grown
by the internees, and absolutely no fruit, no meat, and no fish. We were supplied with a pinch
of salt.
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 February 1945.
SOURCE 5.33
A photograph of a
hospital ward in the
Changi prisoner-of-war
camp, September 1945,
showing members of the
8th Division, recently
released after the
Japanese surrender.
All were suffering from
malnutrition.
SOURCE QUESTION
From sources 5.32
and 5.33 and the text,
list four examples that
demonstrate how the
Japanese treatment
of prisoners was
particularly inhumane.
AWM 019199
Treatment of nurses
On 14 February 1942, the Japanese sank a ship carrying 65 nurses being evacuated from
Singapore. Twenty-two nurses made it to land but 21 were shot by Japanese soldiers. The
only nurse to survive was Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, who remained in a Japanese prison
on the island of Sumatra throughout the war (see source 5.29). Only 24 nurses returned
to Australia at the end of the war; the rest died in captivity.
186
Retroactive 2
SOURCE 5.34 An account of the experience of survivors from the Vyner Brooke, a ship sunk by
Japanese bombers on 14 February 1942 while evacuating nurses and civilians from Singapore
The nurses sent the civilian women and children on ahead, remaining with the wounded on
the beach. When the Japanese arrived, they marched the men around the corner of the beachhead, returning minutes later with bloodstained bayonets. The Australian nurses were then
forced into the water and shot from behind. Only one, Staff Nurse Vivian Bullwinkel, survived
the shooting. That is how we know about it. She was the tallest of the women and the bullet
that struck her passed through her side just below waist level. After many days of living in the
jungle, scrounging for food in the native villages and caring for the only male survivor, Private
Kingsley, the two . . . once more surrendered to the Japanese. This time they were taken into
custody. Kingsley later died, but Bullwinkel survived and was reunited with thirty-one of her
colleagues [who became] prisoners of the Japanese on Bangka Island, together with hundreds
of other women and men.
The men were separated almost immediately. The women were to be moved many times
during the next three and a half years, spending most of their time at Palembang in Sumatra.
The Japanese refused to recognise the Australian nurses as military personnel . . . they received
no Red Cross parcels and were not permitted to write home for eighteen months, or receive
mail . . . through it all they retained dignity, close friendships, an ability to cope and adapt . . .
the last few months were very hard . . . eight of the women died in those final months.
G. Hunter-Payne, quoted in On the Duckboards: Experiences of the Other Side of War,
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1995, pp. 44–6.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 In source 5.34, identify two examples of how the Japanese treatment of nurses was even worse
than that of many military prisoners.
2 How did the Japanese attempt to justify this?
ACTIVITIES
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
1 Copy the following table and use information from the text to fill in the figures in the
middle two columns. Write down all figures to the nearest thousand. Then calculate the
percentage survival rate in each case.
Number of prisoners
Number who survived
Percentage survival rate
Prisoners of
Germany/Italy
Prisoners of the
Japanese
2 Explain the beliefs about fighting that often led the Japanese to have little respect for
prisoners of war.
3 Prisoners were often moved from Changi to other locations.
a List three locations to which they were moved.
b State two ways in which the Japanese used the prisoners to help them fight the war.
4 Identify the features of the experiences of prisoners at Sandakan that make it stand out
for its inhumane treatment of prisoners.
USE SOURCES
5 Sources 5.31 and 5.33 are both photographs of prisoners of war, but were taken in quite
different circumstances.
a Why would it have been dangerous to take and keep the photograph in source 5.31?
b When was source 5.33 taken? What would have been the purpose of doing this?
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