British and Australian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore and transported to Korea in the prison ship Fukkai Maru, march through the streets of Fusan, Korea, October 1942. Many men collapsed during the march from sheer fatigue after the gruelling six-week sea journey in the crowded ship.

Pig raising at Taiwan prisoner of war camp No 3, Formosa, June 1944. The scene had been mocked-up for the visit of a delegate of the International Red Cross who was inspecting conditions at the camp. The pigs were removed after he left.

Keijo camp in Korea was a Japanese 'show' camp where approximately 90 Australians, together with approximately 300 British prisoners grew vegetables and raised rabbits to supplement their diet.
The Japanese took these photographs to use as propaganda. They were circulated to show the 'good' conditions and the variety of foods available to the POWS . The Keijo camp was also used to demonstrate the POW's living conditions to visiting International Red Cross Committee (IRCC) officials. Of course the Red Cross officials were never shown the POW camps in South-east Asia.

A group of civilian internees at Yangchow Internment Camp standing in front of House II, Camp C.
Once Japan declared war on the west, Japanese troops occupied Manchuria, formerly a free zone administered by Britain and other treaty powers. Although the families were under restrictions, and forced to wear enemy alien armbands they were not interned in camps until March 1943. Then, more than 750 men, women and children were housed in Yangchow Internment Camp C.

A civilian enemy armband issued to Allied nationals after the Japanese takeover of Shanghai and other outposts in China. They were for quick identification before their internment, when they were free to walk around the city. It was hoped that the armbands would make them an object of ridicule to the local Chinese population – it didn’t – as well as to ensure their exclusion from places of entertainment and the use of public transport.

POWs recently liberated from Fukuoka Camp 17 in Japan, where they laboured in a coalmine and zinc foundry, travelling by hospital train to Nagasaki, September 1945.

Australian ex-prisoners of war having their first shower in years as they go through ‘processing’ at Yokohama, Japan, 1945. Most of these men of the 8th Division were made prisoners after the surrender of Singapore in February 1942.