Australia's Greatest Escapes by Colin Burgess
Author:Colin Burgess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Published: 2020-07-08T00:00:00+00:00
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Following the escape by Jinkins’ party, those left behind at Tan Tui camp managed to hide the shortfall in numbers for some time, thereby ensuring the escapers had a good head start. When the Japanese finally saw through this subterfuge they warned that those caught in the act of escaping, or assisting in an escape, would be summarily executed. They further warned that if any more escapes took place and the prisoners were not recaptured, a comparative number of POWs bearing equivalent rank would face execution in their place. A new four-metre barbed wire fence was erected around the camp perimeter, and further machine-gun posts constructed.
In June 1942 events changed for the worse when the Imperial Japanese Army handed over control of the Tan Tui camp to their naval forces, and the administration fell to the despised Captain Naburo Ando. According to Lionel Wigmore in The Japanese Thrust (Australian War Memorial, 1957):
Recreation of any form, conversation with Ambonese, instructional classes, keeping of diaries, were all forbidden, and nightly inspections took place. Men were beaten with canes or struck with swords, and surprise searches were instigated. In July the Japanese intercepted letters passed between the Dutch prisoners and their wives in an internment camp beyond Ambon. Thirty-four Dutch prisoners including nine officers, two doctors and the padre, their hands tied, were assembled on a rise overlooking the camp in full view of the prisoners. There with pickets, lengths of piping and pickhandles they were flogged by a platoon of young marines.
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