Illustrations
The Singapore waterfront, and mouth of Singapore River. A section of North Pier is on the left, Clifford Pier in the centre, and the Singapore Cricket Club on the right in the photograph
The Queen Mary in the Singapore graving dock, August 1940
The 22nd Brigade embarked for Malaya in the Queen Mary, at Sydney in February 1941. After farewelling the troops, Brigadier H . B . Taylor (right), who is seen with Lieut-General C. G. N. Miles, G .O .C. Eastern Command (centre) and Brigadier C . A. Callaghan, flew ahead of them to Malaya (Australian War Memorial)
Major R. F . Oakes (left) and Lieut-Colonel D . S. Maxwell, commander of the 2/19th Battalion, at the embarkation (Australian War Memorial)
The Queen Mary, carrying some 5,750 Australians, including the 22nd Brigade, arrived at Singapore on 18th February 1941. A group of British officers, including the GOC Malaya, Lieut-General L . V . Bond (carrying cane) and the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas (on Bond's left) greeted the Australians. (Australian War Memorial)
A group of Australians after disembarkation (Australian War Memorial)
Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, Commander-in Chief Far East, and General Sir Archibald Wavell
Lieut-General A . E . Percival, GOC Malaya, and Major-General H . Gordon Bennett, GOC AIF Malaya (Lt-Gen H. Gordon Bennett)
The Australians were soon hard at work. Long route marches helped to harden them and make them familiar with the Malayan countryside (Australian War Memorial)
A cricket match between two 27th Brigade teams, played in September 1941, soon after the brigade's arrival in Malaya (Australian War Memorial)
Australian troops moving through thick jungle including pandanus palms (Australian War Memorial)
A delivery of mail to the 2/15th Field Regiment, after the outbreak of war (Australian War Memorial)
The headquarters of the 8th Division in a rubber estate. The dense vegetation of Malaya lent itself to concealment and camouflage (Lt-Gen H. Gordon Bennett)
A naval craft negotiating a river boom in eastern Malaya (Australian War Memorial)
Members of the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment manhandling a gun into position during training (Australian War Memorial)
A forward Australian infantry patrol, after the outbreak of war (Australian War Memorial)
Rice stocks were distributed to the civilian population to avoid them falling into Japanese hands (Australian War Memorial)
Indian sappers prepare a bridge for demolition, as the rice distribution by various forms of transport, continues (Australian War Memorial)
Gemencheh bridge taken from the direction of the advancing Japanese. Captain D. J. Duffy's company of the 2/30th Battalion was disposed in ambush positions to the right and left of the cutting beyond the bridge. Post-war photograph (Australian War Memorial)
Scene of the tank trap in the 2/30th Battalion area forward of Gemas. Five Japanese tanks were destroyed in this area on the morning of 15th January 1942 (Australian War Memorial)
Laying an Australian 25-pounder field gun, Malaya, January 1942 (Australian War Memorial)
Stretcher bearers attending a wounded Australian (Australian War Memorial)
The Muar ferry crossing, looking south-east. The 45th Indian Brigade, on the left flank ofWestforce, was disposed along 24 miles of river front, with detachments forward of the river
The rear 2-pounder gun of the 13th Battery, 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment, in action ahead of Hakri on 18th January. From this position the forward and rear guns accounted for nine Japanese tanks (Australian War Memorial)
Two of the nine Japanese tanks knocked out by anti-tank guns forward of Bakri on 18th January (Australian War Memorial)
The crew of the rear anti-tank gun, which accounted for six of the nine tanks destroyed (Australian War Memorial)
The Parit Sulong bridge towards which the survivors of the 2/ 19th and 2/29th Battalions and of the 45th Indian Brigade fought their way. The wreckage of some of the column's vehicles may he seen to the right of the bridge. Post-war photograph (Australian War Memorial)
The hut at Parit Sulong into which the Japanese forced wounded Indian and Australian prisoners. Most of the wounded were afterwards massacred (Australian War Memorial)
Smoke from the naval base overshadows Singapore, February 1942 (Australian War Memorial)
Simpson Harbour, fronting Rabaul, capital of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea in 1942, viewed from Taliligap on the Kokopo Ridge road. Post-war photograph (Lt-Col B. G. Dawson)
Looking south-east from Laha across the bay of Ambon to Mount Nona. Post-war photograph (Australian War Memorial)
Laha airfield, looking towards the northern end of the strip where much of the fighting took place . Post-war photograph (Australian War Memorial)
Dutch Timor. Plains in the Usau district (looking north-west towards the head of Koepang Bay) where Japanese paratroops landed on 19th–20th February 1942 . Post-war photograph. (Australian War Memorial)
Usau Ridge, where resistance by the 2/40th Battalion ended on 23rd February 1942 . Post-war photograph. (Australian War Memorial)
Lieut-General V. A. H. Sturdee, Chief of the Australian General Staff, and Major-General H. ter Poorten, who commanded the Allied forces in Java in February-March 1942 (Australian War Memorial)
Men of the 2/2nd Independent Company in a village in Portuguese Timor (Australian War Memorial)
Sergeants R. C. Hopkins and A. R. Cutter of the 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion, with a Dutch liaison officer, checking positions on a map in the Tjampea area, Java, March 1942
HMT Orcades. carrying members of the AIF from the Middle East, at Batavia, February 1942 (Australian War Memorial)
The Changi area, looking south-east. Batu Puteh is in the centre foreground
The move of Australian prisoners at Changi to Selarang Barracks Square. A photograph preserved during captivity of the incident of September 1942. (Brig F. G. Galleghan)
Rice distribution from the cookhouse outside Changi Gaol. Photograph taken after liberation (Australian War Memorial)
A hut of the 50-metre type, used by the Japanese at Changi to accommodate about 250 prisoners (Australian War Memorial)
News bulletins, illicit, and prepared and circulated at great risk, ranked in importance second only to food in the prisoners’ lives. The broom wielded by Lieutenant R. F. Wright had a wireless set built into its head. (Australian War Memorial)
Wright demonstrating the way news was received. (Australian War Memorial)
Steer rice trucks were used by the Japanese to move prisoners from Singapore to Thailand. These trucks. 16 feet long by 8 feet wide, normally carried 30 prisoners of war and their belongings. (Ex-Servicemen’s P.O.W. Subsistence Claims Committee)
A river barge transporting stores and sick prisoners of war on the Menam Kwa Noi River, Thailand. (Ex-Servicemen’s P.O.W. Subsistence Claims Committee)
The Burma–Thailand railway (Australian War Memorial)
The Main road. (Ex-Servicemen’s P.O.W. Subsistence Claims Committee)
Reproduction of a sketch by Major L. J. Robertson. preserved during captivity. of the Australian officers’ mess at Alepauk camp (kilo-18 on the Burma–Thailand railway.
The audience at a camp theatre on the Burma–Thailand railway. (Ex-Servicemen’s P.O.W. Subsistence Claims Committee)
Mess parade at a camp on the Burma–Thailand railway. (Ex-Servicemen’s POW Subsistence Claims Committee)
Pile-driving on the Burma–Thailand railway. 1943. Reproduction of a sketch by Maj L. J. Robertson.
“Working men” on the Burma–Thailand railway, Kenyu area, January 1943 (Drawn by Gnr J. B. Chalker, R.A.)
A 200-foot bridge, built by prisoners of war about ten miles south of Thanbyuzayat, after low-level attacks by RAF Liberators, 22nd March 1945 (RAAF)
A better type of jungle camp on the Burma–Thailand railway (Ex-Servicemen’s P.O.W. Subsistence Claims Committee)
Cholera hospital, Hintok {Drawn by Gnr J. B. Chalker, R.A.)
A Japanese questionnaire circulated to prisoners of war in Korea in 1944
Prisoner-of-war camp hospital, Bakli Bay, Hainan Island. with the Dutch ward to the right (Australian War Memorial)
Members of an American recovery team giving plasma to a Dutch prisoner of war in the camp hospital at Bakli Bay. (Australian War Memorial)
Copies of this leaflet were dropped over Changi on 28th August 1945. The reverse side contained instructions to the Japanese about the treatment of prisoners. The annotation on the left of the leaflet has been made by the diarist of the 8th Australian Division
Released prisoners of war congregate round the entrance to Changi Gaol (Australian War Memorial)
Released prisoners of war about to embark on a hospital ship. (Australian War Memorial)
Survivors from Ambon on board a corvette bound for Morotai. The rapid improvement in the physical appearance of the prisoners after a few weeks’ rest and good treatment is illustrated by the contrast between the Ambon survivors, picked up directly from a Japanese prison camp, and those in the top photograph, after a short time in the hands of an Australian Reception Group. (Australian War Memorial)