Australian Soldiers in Asia-Pacific in World War II by Lachlan Grant

Author:Lachlan Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth
Published: 2014-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

6

REVERSAL OF FORTUNES

POW contacts in captivity

Australian soldiers made significant contacts with the peoples of Southeast Asia during the Pacific War. The conduct of the campaigns in which Australian forces were involved has been well documented; however, there are certain aspects of the experiences of Australian soldiers in Asia that have not received as much attention. They are the episodes in which we can see a genuine awareness of Asia and Asian affairs developing within a large cross-section of Australian society. During their captivity in Asia, Australian prisoners of war found themselves in a situation few white men had experienced. Now lacking power and prestige – and many enslaved by the Japanese – they interacted with Asian communities in an unprecedented way. In all the places of their internment assistance was given by Asians which in certain circumstances proved crucial to the prisoners’ survival. Rather than fleeting, some personal contacts and friendships proved to be long-lasting.

Prisoners of war were acutely aware of the reversal of fortunes in which they had taken part. They had witnessed, and some had been sympathetic to, the subjugated Asian civilians in the British colonies during the days of peace. Now, following the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, British and Australian prisoners were on the other end of the racial hierarchy. This was evidenced by well-known survivors’ accounts with titles such as White Coolies or Slaves of the Samurai.1 Some prisoners found their circumstances, in full view of Asian civilians, ‘a most humiliating experience’.2 The official war artist Murray Griffin, recalling the march from Singapore to Changi in full view of the locals, later wrote: ‘What a change from rulers to slaves, to a position more lowly than theirs in so short a time. Some of the Malays laughed.’3 Such sentiments were emphasised in Australian press reports at war’s end which tended to accentuate that in their employment of labour the Japanese had failed to distinguish between white European prisoners and the romusha, the Asian labourers forced to work for the Japanese.4

While they were prisoners of war, Australian encounters with local populations could further enhance or reinforce attitudes toward particular groups. During the campaign and battle for Singapore some were paranoid about Malayan fifth columnists, whom they perceived as deviously waiting at the ready to sell information about troop movements to the enemy.5 In Singapore one suspect caught carrying a mirror (which it was believed he used to signal the enemy) was executed.6 This was not an isolated case. Such treasonous behaviour was confirmed for Braddon when marching into captivity at Pudu Gaol in Kuala Lumpur; he described streets lined with Malays ‘who only a fortnight before been hysterically pro-British’, but who now flung stones and spat at the line of British and Australian prisoners. It is of little surprise that, later on in their captivity on the Burma–Thailand Railway, prisoners who had their few remaining possessions stolen by the locals felt that ‘as a nation we found the Thais excessively dishonest and thieving’. However,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.