Captures
More than 30,000 Australians became prisoners of war between 1940 and 1945. The Germans and Italians captured Australians during the Mediterranean and Middle East campaigns, and also at sea in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The Japanese captured 22,000 Australians: soldiers, sailors, airmen and members of the army nursing service, as well as some civilians. They were imprisoned in camps throughout Japanese-occupied territories in places such as Borneo, Korea, Manchuria, Hainan, Rabaul, Ambon, Singapore, Burma and Vietnam and also Japan itself, one-third of the prisoners captured died.
The Japanese captured 22,000 Australians: soldiers, sailors, airmen and members of the army nursing service, as well as some civilians. They were imprisoned in camps throughout Japanese-occupied territories in places such as Borneo, Korea, Manchuria, Hainan, Rabaul, Ambon, Singapore, Burma and Vietnam and also Japan itself, one-third of the prisoners captured died.
herbert Hawley
Herbert Hawley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 7 November 1939. Herbert arrived in Wolfburg prison camp in August 1941 and spent the next four years as a POW in Germany.
Charles Edward
Charles Edwards was taken prisoner at Parit Sulong in Malaysia in 1942. For decades, Mr Edwards stayed silent about his ordeal in jails, prison camps and time on the Thai-Burma railway, where he nearly starved to death and endured life-threatening illnesses and extreme brutality.