ABSTRACT
Japanese-occupied Asia. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan and Taiwan, others to labour on the ‘Death Railway’ between Thailand and Burma. Some camps had death rates of below 1 per cent, others of over 20 per cent. Some camp guards compounded bad conditions with personal brutality; others acted with restraint. Civilian internees, meanwhile, usually remained in the area where they were detained, in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, China or the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), only to suffer increasing shortages as the war wore on.
