Australian WWII Prisoners of War

Australian Prisoners of War (POW) during WWII

• Over 30,000 Australians became prisoners of war during WWII.

Survival Rates of Australian POWs

• 97% of the 8,591 Australians captured by the Germans survived the war.
• Of the 21,467 Australians captured by the Japanese, almost 8,000 died in captivity, mainly from executions, beatings, slave labor, starvation, and disease.

Treatment of Australian POWs in Asia

• Most Australian POWs were held in camps in South-East Asia, Korea, and Japan.
• The Japanese military showed little respect for prisoners' rights.
• Thousands of POWs and conscripted Asians were forced to build the Burma-Thailand railway.
• Starving men, some with tropical diseases like malaria, dysentery, cholera, and tropical ulcers, were forced to work at least 12 hours a day.

Sandakan Death March

• North Borneo was the location of the worst single atrocity against Australian and British POWs.
• 3,000 POWs were sent by the Japanese to construct an airport.
• In January 1945, 470 POWs were forced to march 260KM to Ranau; 350 survived.
• In May, a second death march was ordered for the remaining 500 Sandakan POWs.
• Those with little food who collapsed were killed; 203 survived.
• By the end of July, only 30 POWs survived in Ranau, and the remaining prisoners were shot on August 1st.
• Of the original 3,000 POWs, only six Sandakan POWs survived.
• Seven escaped into the jungle and were cared for by villagers, and one died before rescue.

Conditions in Japanese POW Camps

• Japanese officers believed in the bushido code, considering prisoners disgraced and unworthy of compassion.
• Food was scarce; each prisoner received one cup of water, a small portion of corn, soy meal, and rice daily, with no meat, fruit, or vegetables.
• Rations were halved towards the end of the war.
• Japanese did not recognize Australian nurses as military personnel, denying them rights such as Red Cross packages and writing home.
• At least 12 First Nation Australians servicemen were among the prisoners.
• Escape was possible but resulted in certain death if caught.
• Forced labor included clearing land and building railroads and bridges.
• Payment sometimes came in the form of cigarettes, leading to a black market.
• Punishments included food withdrawal, forced labor for the sick and injured, confinement in bamboo boxes in the sun, beatings, or death for disobedience.
• Camps were disease-ridden due to malnutrition, mosquitoes, poor sanitation, and overwork.
• Many arrived with combat injuries that went untreated.
• POWs with medical training provided care with limited supplies.
• Australian soldiers maintained mateship under difficult circumstances, sharing food, money, and workload.

Private Stan Davis' Account

• Private Stan Davis described the POWs as covered in scabs, very thin, with no muscle, making their survival appear impossible.

Sylvia McGregor's Account

• Sylvia McGregor, an Australian Nursing Army POW, noted the hunger and lack of food and how Indonesian women helped by indicating edible plants and leaving food by the fence, risking being shot.

The United Nations (UN)

• The Allied leaders agreed to replace the failed League of Nations with the UN.
• The UN was formed to settle disputes and work toward freedom and prosperity.
• In 1945, the UN Charter expressed its determination to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war".
• The UN supported the Allied decision to try Nazi leaders for war crimes against humanity, peace, and conspiracy.

The Geneva Convention

• Attempts were made from the late 19th century to lessen suffering by imposing legal limits on warfare.
• The Geneva Conventions of 1864, 1906, and 1929 sought to protect civilians and POWs.
• Many atrocities were committed during WW2.
• The Japanese military and German Nazis deliberately enacted the most cruel and horrific acts.
• The Geneva Convention enabled perpetrators to be tried and punished for war crimes.

Nazi and Fascist Crimes

• Treatment of conquered peoples and POWs was largely based on Nazi racial ideology.
• Western European, British, and American POWs were treated reasonably well unless they attempted escape.
• Racism influenced events like the shooting of North African troops in the French military after France's surrender.
• Acts of resistance in Western Europe resulted in savage reprisals, such as executing ten or more civilians for the death of a single German soldier.
• German forces treated Eastern Europeans with extreme ruthlessness, deeming them racially inferior.
• Hitler demanded brutality against Slavic "sub-humans" and "Jewish-Bolshevik" leaders during the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.
• Special SS forces were ordered to kill all Jews, Communists, and Partisans.
• Approximately 9 million Soviet soldiers and twice as many Soviet citizens died during the war.
• Two-thirds of the 5.7 million Soviet POWs in Nazi hands were murdered, starved, or worked to death.
• Entire towns and villages were massacred when Soviet or other Slavic civilians resisted.

The Holocaust

• The Holocaust was the most systematic of all Nazi war crimes, an act of genocide to wipe out European Jews.
• Nazi persecution of Jews, and the mass murder of Jewish people, intensified after the outbreak of the war in 1941.
• When Nazis invaded Poland and the Soviet Union, they killed anyone who resisted, but Jews were specifically targeted for destruction.
• Jews in Poland were forced into enclosed ghettos.
• Mass shootings of communists and Jews occurred during the invasion of the Soviet Union.
• In Latvia during 1941, 327,000 Jewish people were murdered in two mass shootings.
• The SS conducted experimental gassings of Jews and Soviet POWs in specially converted vans.
• In 1941, Hitler decided the ‘final solution_to the Jewish problem' would be mass extermination in SS-run concentration camps.
• Auschwitz was ordered to prepare for mass gassings.
• On January 20, 1942, an SS document called "Final Solution to the European Jewish Question," stated that healthy Jews would be exterminated through slave labor.
• Throughout the war, Jews were transported to death camps from Nazi-controlled Europe.
• The sick, young children, and elderly people were forced into gas chambers disguised as showers.
• Victims were gassed to death and then incinerated in gas ovens.
• Those fit to work were selected for slave labor but were killed when they became too weak.
• Thousands of prisoners could be gassed in a day in the largest camps, resulting in the murder of 6 million Jews.

Anne Frank

• Anne Frank, at thirteen, went into hiding with her family in Amsterdam.
• Three days later, she described the "secret annex" where she would spend the next two years during the Nazi occupation.
• The Franks' annex was discovered two years later, leading to Anne and her sister's deaths in Bergen-Belsen.
• Her diary became one of the 20th century's most significant documents of the Holocaust.

End of World War II in Europe

• During the last year of the war, vicious fighting occurred on both sides.
• Germany and Japan fought in defense of their homelands and did not give up easily.
• Since mid-1943, the Axis powers steadily retreated; Italy surrendered, and the German army was pushed back at Stalingrad.
• The Allies opened a second front in Western Europe.
• On June 6, 1944, the largest invasion fleet set sail from England to invade Normandy, France.
• Code-named Operation Overlord, the "D-Day" landings took place on five key beaches along the French coast.
• The landings resulted in heavy casualties but allowed the Allies to drive the Germans back.
• Paris was liberated on August 25.
• Another massive operation in the Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, was unsuccessful.
• In December 1944, the Germans launched their final major offensive through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium.
• In 1945, the Allies regained the initiative, crossed into Germany, and advanced to Berlin.
• Soviet troops captured the Reichstag on April 30, 1945, the same day Hitler committed suicide.
• Germany signed an unconditional surrender one week later, on May 7, ending the war in Europe after six years.

End of World War II and Australian Relations

• Relations with Britain were strained after the war.
• Australians had fought in Britain’s colonial wars out of loyalty.
• Australians believed that the Empire would protect them from invasions from Asia.
• When Japan swept south in 1942, Britain struggled for survival.
• Australia turned to the United States for help, marking a potential turning point in foreign relations.
• Short-term hatred for Japan was also included, and, the war left a longer legacy of trust with the United States.

Post-War Tensions and Australia

• Renewed international tension as the Cold War between the USSR and Western Bloc emerged after the end of the war.
• Tension increased after China’s communist government came to power in 1949.
• The Allies feared the spread of communism.
• Australia believed that the United States was the key to their protection as the US had previously done to save England.
• This led to Australia joining the Vietnam war in the 1960s-1970s.

Study Techniques

• Active Recall: Cover up your notes and attempt to recall to strengthen memory.
• Blurting: Close your book and write down everything to compare with your notes.
• Summarizing and Notetaking: Rewrite notes in your own words.
• Mnemonics and Acronyms: Use memory tricks to remember sequences or key points (e.g., MAIN: Military, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism for causes of WW2).
• Timelines and Mind maps: Visualize information and connect events.
• Teaching Someone Else: Explanation can help reinforce understanding.
• The Pomodoro Technique is: 25 minutes of study with 5-minute breaks (repeat four times) to prevent burnout.
• The Leitner System is a Flashcard system: Section 1 (review frequently), Section 2 (review every three days), and Section 3 (review weekly). Move cards depending on if you get them right or wrong.