Information sheets
Australian prisoners of war:
Second World War
Prisoners of the Japanese: Singapore (Changi and Singapore
Island Camps)
Important general background information - finding
your prisoner of war
Online resources
Official records
Private records
Books
Important general background information - finding your prisoner of war
The Encyclopedia entry Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese Second World War contains an outline of Australians captured by the Japanese, as well as entries on each location of imprisonment.
Online resources
The Memorial's website provides extensive information about our collections. This includes databases of the Roll of Honour, over 200,000 photograph and art images, and the film, private records, books, serials and sound collections. In addition, the Memorial's official records collection can be searched on the National Archives RecordSearch database. By consulting these databases, you can identify further information or particular items in the collections relevant to your interests.
Official records
AIF casualties: Malaya, Java, Timor, as known by 2nd Echelon AIF Malaya. Arranged alphabetically and by service number. Also supplementary roll. Includes force and fate. (Nominal roll). AWM54 171/11/2
[8th Division in captivity - Changi and Singapore Island:] Report by Brig F. G. Galleghan, Appendix 2-7. AWM54 554/11/4 PART 1A &1B
War crimes and trials. Affidavits and sworn statements. [F. G. Galleghan]. AWM54 1010/4/56
Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. AWM83
Records of the Adjutant General dealing with trials of war criminals. AWM166
Records of Australian Military Forces prisoners of war and missing, Far East and South West Pacific Islands. Contains nominal rolls and paybook photographs arranged by name, theatre of war and unit, location of prisoner-of-war camp. AWM232
Private Records
F. G. Galleghan (Brigadier, DSO, OBE, ED, 8th Aust Div, and prisoner of war, Changi). Summary of events, conditions and treatment in Changi. Galleghan's record of events. 3DRL/2313.
F. G. Galleghan (Brigadier, DSO, OBE, ED, 8th Aust Div, and prisoner of war,
Changi).
Notebook containing information on prisoner-of-war numbers, rations, Red Cross
rations, hospital cases, atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese, cemeteries,
and numbers left at liberation. 3DRL/2191.
Reginald W. J. Newton, (Captain). Records relating to officers and enlisted men of U Battalion and the 2/19th enlisted men of U Battalion and the 2/19th Battalion who were Japanese prisoners of war in Burma, Thailand, and Japan. The items include nominal rolls of killed, wounded and missing, and lists of unit members who survived the war. PR01596.
Charles Henry Kappe, (Lieutenant Colonel, OBE). Lieutenant Colonel Charles Kappe wrote The Malayan campaign while a prisoner of war in Changi and Thailand between 1942 and 1945. He drew upon Australian and British war diaries and recollections of fellow prisoners of war. MSS1393
Books
Stan Arneil , Black Jack: the life and times of Brigadier Sir Frederick Galleghan, (South Melbourne: Macmillan, 1983)
Hank Nelson, POW Prisoners of war: Australians under Nippon. (Sydney : ABC Enterprises for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1985).
David Nelson, The story of Changi, Singapore. The story of the UK Bureau of Record and Enquiry set up in Changi. (West Perth, WA: Changi Publication, 1974). [The appendices contain a detailed record of the movement of prisoner-of-war parties, commanders of prisoner-of-war parties ex Changi, and Java parties to or via Singapore and Sumatra].
A. W. Penfold, W. C. Bayliss, K. E. Crispin, Galleghan's greyhounds: the story of the 2/30th Australian Infantry Battalion, 22nd November 1940 - 10th October 1945. (Sydney: 2/30th Bn AIF Association, Halstead Press, 1949)
Allan S. Walker, Middle East and Far East, Australia in the war of 1939-1945, Series 5 (Medical), vol. II (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1953)
Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust, Australia in the War of 1939-1945, Series 1 (Army), vol. IV (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1957)
Related: National Archives of Australia, Fact sheet 61 – World War II war crimes
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