Japanese Internment Camps In Australia Ww2

Australian POWs

In 1942 over 22,000 soldiers and 40 nurses were captured by the Japanese, trapped working as slaves for the Japanese. Most were captures when the Japanese forces took over Malaya, Singapore, New Britain, and the Netherlands East Indies. The long wait until World War II finished, one in three of the captured Australians had died, approximately 8,000 through all the country's. One thousand deaths caused form allied ship torpedoed the unmarked ship carrying the prisoners around Japan's wartime empire. In 1945 the lucky survivors of the harsh conditions were liberated from all camps all over Asia, some places had been captured and others in Burma and Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan itself.

The Burma- Thailand Railway was one

Japan conquered south-east Asia in a series of successful campaigns over a few months, starting December 1941. In march 1942 a lot of civilians found them-self behind enemy lines and were subsequently interned by the Japanese. Civilians constrained by the Japanese were treated just a bit better than the prisoner but the rates of deaths were the same. The camps worked differently to the POW, they had to work to run their own camps. The Japanese devised no consistent policies to regulate the treatment if the civilians. The camp conditions were full of disease, malnutrition and vary degrees of harsh discipline from the ruthless Japanese guards. The camps size changed through out, one camp named Pangkalpinang only help four people, but another one called Tjihapit had 14,000 people. The camps were organised into groups of gender and race. The camp building vary between the areas, and what was ever available. This includes schools, universities, prisons and hospitals. When the camps were freed the liberation of them wasn't don't in a proper manner. Many of the camps liberated when the land was getting taken back from allied forces. For the internees their freedom was many months after the Japanese

Changi was used to imprison Malayan civilians and Allied soldiers including Australian soldiers. For the first few months the prisoners at Changi were allowed to do as they wished with little interference from the Japanese. There was just enough food and medicine provided to begin with. However, by Easter 1942 the attitude of the Japanese had changed. They organised work parties to repair the damaged docks in Singapore and food and medicine became scarce. The mood of the Japanese changed for the worst when a prisoners tried to escape. The attempt was a failure and the Japanese demanded that everyone in the camp sign a document declaring that they would not attempt to escape. This was refused. As a result, 20,000 prisoners were herded onto a barrack square and told that they would remain there until the order was given to sign the document, the ones who still refused ended up getting