Most were taken to Tantui camp (pictured) In February 1942, about 1,100 men of Gull force, consisting of the 2/21st Battalion supported by anti-tank artillery, engineers and others, surrendered to the invading Japanese on Ambon. In February the next year an Allied air raid blew up a munitions dump at the camp and the only Australian doctor officer was killed.ĭespite the best efforts of a Dutch doctor and an Australian dentist rates of death and illness kept rising and a back-breaking work regime commenced. In October, 263 of the Australians at Tantui, including most of the senior officers and medical personnel were taken to Bakli Bay camp at Hainan. Two other groups escaped home to Australia by island hopping across the Arafura Sea but the rest were imprisoned in a camp at Tantui (sometimes Tan Toey) near Ambon town.Ĭonditions at Tantui were at first tolerable but after rapidly deteriorated after another successful escape by a small band of Australians in March. Two companies of Gull Force were immediately massacred after their capture at the island's airfield. Australian prisoners are pictured laying tracks in Burma Many of the prisoners who passed through Changi were sent to work on the Thai-Burma Railway and died of disease, starvation and beatings. About 8,000 - more than one in three - had been killed or died in the camps. There is no such confusion about the horrors experienced by the 13,000 Australians who laboured on the 415km long Thai-Burma Railway in 1942-1943, most notoriously at Hellfire Pass.īy the war's end some Australians were being held as far away as Burma, Thailand, Korea and Japan. While the overcrowded prison's brutal reputation is well-deserved, the Selarang camp was relatively comfortable until near the end of the war. 'Changi' is used to describe both Singapore's Changi Gaol and the much larger Selarang barracks camp where 15,000 Australians were taken in February 1942. About 13,000 Australians were among the Allied prisoners forced to carve the 415km line through the jungle These three prisoners pictured at Shimo Sonkurai No 1 Camp were deemed fit to work on the Thai-Burma Railway.