Two year project, culminating in a 16-part series on the experiences of Australian POWs in Japanese prison camps in World War Two. First broadcast in 1984, and published on cassette by ABC Enterprises, this series won the Best Documentary category in the 1984 Paters Awards for professional excellence in the broadcast arts and sciences.
Episode 1 You'll Be Sorry
The first in a series about Australians in POW camps under the Japanese. This program is about the sardonic cry that greeted recruits to the 2nd AIR as they began their training before embarking for Malaya. After the brief but savage fighting against the invading Japanese forces, Australian troops began their imprisonment on Singapore's Changi peninsula.
(POW01.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (49 megabytes)
Episode 2 You’ll never get off the island
This episode deals with the Australian troops adjusting to the unwelcome experience of being prisoners of the Japanese in Changi.
(POW02.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (49 megabytes)
Episode 3 To the railway of death
The Japanese promised the Australian POWs camps of rest and recreation in the mountains of Thailand. The reality was slave labour to build the Thai / Burma Railway.
(POW03.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 4 Nippon very sorry, men men must die
Desperate to get the Thai/Burma Railway finished on time, the Japanese forced starving men to work around the clock, through the wet season, oblivious to the shocking death rate that resulted from the feared 'speedos'.
(POW04.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (49 megabytes)
Episode 5 Changi was like heaven
From 1942-1943 Australian troops struggled for survival during the building of the Thai/Burma Railway. Their abiding hope was to get back 'home' to Singapore and Changi.
(POW05.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 6 Just an ordinary bunch of women
Only 30 of the 71 women of the Australian Army Nursing Service, who were caught in Singapore and Rabaul by the invading Japanese, survived their imprisonment in Sumatra and Japan.
(POW06.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (48 megabytes)
Episode 7 We became things not people
The men of the Gull Force did their time on the islands of the Ambon and Hainan, and did it hard. Four out of the five men left on Ambon died.
(POW07.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 8 You could feel yourself dying
The worst atrocities the Japanese carried out were in Borneo. In October 1943, there were 2000 Australians and 500 English prisoners quartered at Sandakan where they were forced to build an aerodrome. By the end of the Sandakan 'death marches' there were only six Australians alive. You Could Feel Yourself Dying looks at the life of the prisoner at Sandakan and the involvement in the local anti-Japanese underground.
(POW08.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (47 megabytes)
Episode 9 To escape was to live
Allied prisoners of war had greater risks if they escaped than prisoners in Western Europe. There was no way they could blend into the local population and the Japanese punishment for escape attempts were harsh - usually execution or long prison sentences. No Australians ever escaped from the island of Singapore and reached Australia.
(POW09.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 10 Long odds to liberty
In Malaya some Australians evaded capture and survived over three years of sickness, violence and cultural isolation in the camps of the Communist guerrillas. On Ambon prisoners seized boats and made the dangerous sea crossing to Australia.
(POW10.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (49 megabytes)
Episode 11 Travelling in captivity
Many prisoners travelled further in captivity than they did at any other time in their lives. Travel by sea was very dangerous, one fifth of the Australian POW deaths were at sea.
(POW11.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 12 From Timor to Manchuria
Australians were imprisoned from south of the equator to 5000 kilometres north. Combinations of prisoners and cultures varied as much as the surrounding climates.
(POW12.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 13 Outram Road
Outram Road, the most feared prison in Singapore, had one function: to punish.
(POW13.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 14 Rice now for rice later
By the end of the war, nearly 3000 Australians were in the homeland of the enemy - Japan. They worked in shipyards, mines and factories, knowing they could not survive either another winter or an allied invasion.
(POW14.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 15 Are we free?
For three and a half years the prisoners had longed for liberation. But when they finally heard of the end of the war, many were reluctant to believe it. "What, not again" was one laconic response.
(POW15.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Episode 16 Lost years and wounded minds
At the end of 1945, 14 000 Australian prisoners were on their way home. Another 8000 were buried or burnt near camps from Timor to Manchuria. Now the survivors of the intense trauma had to adjust to a changed Australia.
(POW16.mp3) right-click to download mp3 file (50 megabytes)
Replies
Thanks for posting this, listening to ep1 now. It is interesting to hear these recollections, 22000 Australian pow's!, explains a lost time.
Would be great to have a similar programme from the Aboriginal Australians about the European invasion,
(Early - Rabbitproof Fence)
Paul
Thanks Robert, this will definitely go to the top of my listening list.
I'm excited to hear this. Many thanks, Robert. You're a stand-up guy.
Hi Robert
Thanks for this series. I knew a fellow who was a POW during WW2 and he was in Japan when the Nuclear bombs went off, He was in a forced mining camp. Amazing he never held any animosity to his captors.
Your welcome, I have not listen to this yet but it is on my short list.