HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

The Plight of the Australian Pacific Theatre Prisoner of War: Myth, Narrative and
Censorship.
Introduction:

The First World War had brought forth a sense of national identity in Australia. The ANZAC’s had

affirmed the Australian as an egalitarian, courageous, unauthoritative but loyal bunch that would

fight against the odds with ferocity. War had now precipitated itself in Australian society as a

ritualistic trial of masculinity- a proving grounds to display a man’s courage and bravado against an

enemy who would threaten their life. But throughout the Second World War, these ideals of the

ANZAC narrative were still heavily resonant in Australian society- Identity had been established only

20 years prior after all- and with the birthing of another mass conflict, this brought forth another

generation an opportunity for Australian’s to prove to the world the collective quality of the ANZAC’s

stayed strong in Australian society of the day. The predominant focus of this piece will be on media

publications, with an emphasis on photography during the war, and publications in the years that

followed. To preface- to photograph is to set a frame, and to frame is to showcase as much as it is to

excludei. As is nature with a photograph, we must also establish the framework for how the

censorship of war-related media content was established, to understand it in the broader context.

It was apparent from the word go that the government and public media would push the ANZAC

narrative to instil enthusiasm for the wars continuance, but the lack of exposition and the distance

from home the front-lines were would facilitate a disconnect amongst the general population from

the happenings of the war altogether. As the Menzies administration and public media outlets would

seek to sensationalize war activities to facilitate enthusiasm in the public, what would eventuate

would be the absolute presence of censorship of the true horrors of war. Instead of detailing the

events of the war, the push would be focused on the juxtaposing of the new soldiers, to the

ANZAC’s. These omissions would perpetuate a false narrative associated with the Second World

War- one of adventure, romanticism, admiration and tradition; Instead of one focused on delivery of

information during the conflict, and reparation of the societal fabric post war; where the focus was

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

on the psychiatric rehabilitation and readjustment of those whom served back into society. This

wouldn’t be identified until decades later.

During the war:

In 1939, when Australia was again to aid Britain in the war efforts, the

Menzies government feared the eventual slip into another depression

and formulated the best possibility of keeping the public calm was a

‘business as usual’ schemeii. In a bid to satiate the public on Australia’s

involvement also, he created the Department of Information (DoI); of

which was purposed to deliver an unbiased detailing of the events

unfolding in these war timesiii or: “to tell the truth about the cause”,

and to “keep the minds of the people enlightened and their spirit Figure 1: The resurgence of the
ANZAC tradition at the beginning of
WW2: Today's Digger: 16 December
firm”iv. With the front lines of war being so far away, the public were 1939

seemingly unconcerned with what was happening over in Europe, the middle-east, and north-Africa-

and appeared all too complacent with their day to day livesv. It was in Menzies best interest to

develop public enthusiasm towards the war efforts, and in a bid to do so, he sent photographers out

to capture some shots of Australian troops. What would eventuate would be a campaign to

juxtapose the Australian diggers of this era, with those of the first world war, to pay homage and

compare this modern soldier to the collective quality of the ANZACs (see fig. 1). The purpose of

these images was not to illustrate or record military action like Menzies had suggested the DoI

would do, instead it was to celebrate the character and national identity that these men embodiedvi.

This would contradict what he would suggested the organization would be used for in the first place.

This theme would continue throughout the war, even after Menzies would be voted out of office in

1941- but would be exacerbated when the Japanese took Singapore, and bombed Darwin in

February of 1942. With the front-lines of war so close to home- a very real and potential threat had

established interest in the military proceedings in the pacific theatre.

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

From 1942-1945 the Australian forces were largely focused in the

Pacific Theatre of South-East Asia, fighting against the Japanese

enemy. The proximity of the warfare had established a new-

found interest in the war. Largely the censorship methods were

to focus away from any failures or depictions of death of

Australian troops and focus on the association with the ANZAC

tradition and accomplishments of Australian diggers in the media.

Representations therefore were generally conservative in nature-

Figure 3: Norman Bradford Stuckey
photographs Sapper S. Smith on with clearly exhausted and malnourished figures covered to
Tarakan Island, Borneo 30/4/1945.
Conditions so bad he had to strip to get photograph, and generally consisting of righteous achievements
through the mud.
of the diggers. This shielding of information would further

perpetuate disassociation of the public to instances where wartime photography would exemplify

the quality of the Second World War Digger, and one that is

now associated with ANZAC characteristics in present day.

Norman Bradford Stuckey photographed the Royal Australian

Engineers after their successful breaching of Japanese wire

defences. He captured the true difficulty these soldiers faced, Figure 2 Damien Parer, reconstructed image of
Australian soldier engaging in sparrow tactics,
12/12/1942
even when not engaged in gunfights (see figures 3-10); a rare

glimpse into the clearly difficult and atrocious conditions these men- even out of combat were facing

and a typographical example as to how war photography should be conducted. Unfortunately, not

all combat photographers would have the same integrity as Stuckey. Prevalent throughout the

Second World War were accounts of photographers like Damien Parer in 1942. Parer had

manipulated imagery to photograph to look like action shots for a ‘sensation hungry audience’vii. The

reconstruction was done as it ‘preserved the sparrow tactics the Australian’s used against the

Japanese’ before fighting shifted to a broader proxy civil war conflictviii. This deception is categorized

almost perfectly through just this photo though: it would be released after the Australian troops had

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

departed from Timor (the place of its capture), to persuade the Japanese

to believe that Australian commandos remained on the island and

leading to fear for attack at any given time. A reconstructed photograph

had now cemented itself as both a historical and propaganda document,

and both the reasons it has retained memory is based on false pretences

of its creation. Combat photography would have this resonant theme

throughout the entirety of the Second World War- This being the premise Figure 4: Stuckey 1945, even in
these extreme conditions, this
soldier still grins.
of inconsistency, and omission of crucial details of combat to fulfil a

propaganda fuelled political agenda.

Figure 5: Stuckey, 1945- Exhausted men resting for a

Figure 7: Stuckey, 1945: the trepidation moment after traversing the bridge depicted in figures
inducing bridge the soldiers would have 6 and 8
Figure 6 Stuckey captures the to cross dozens of times a day.
men looking over at something
that has caught their attention
in the distance- safe to assume
gunfire or some sounds of the
combat at large.

Figure 10 Stuckey 1945: The full length of
the bridge the men would have to walk on
to carry supplies
Figure 9 Stuckey, 1945: The men all gather on the
bridge to listen to instructions
Figure 8: (right) Stuckey, 1945:
This image is perhaps the most
powerful of the collection. We
see this soldier's weathered
back, pants and arms covered in
mud- but still moving forward.
Not looking back.

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

When the fighting stopped:

Once fighting had ceased, Australian forces- both fighting and

interned were finally returning home. Photographers would

be positioned to capture the liberation efforts of the Prisoners

of War under the Japanese- but again these men and women

would be subject to their stories being censored. Whilst the

public, and therefore public media were ecstatic to have their

family members and

Figure 12 One of the rare photographs of
the emaciated bodies of the men, after
liberation from a camp in Changi, 1945. It is
friends return home, again,
important to note though, the distance from
the camera of the men, and that the the full brutality of the
majority are covering up in one way or
another.
internment would be

masked by these instances of photography. The men, once

dominating in their stature, had been starved to the point of

fragility. The Japanese had emasculated the Australian digger to
now be a direct contradiction to what the ANZAC figure would
Figure 11 A more typically found photograph of soldiers
returning from internment: bodies covered by clothing or
other body parts, showing of laughter and therefore
larrikinism- A typographical ANZAC quality.

typographically embodyix. This was something the Japanese fully intended to do to the Australian

troops- and in efforts to avoid dismay to the public, both media and government administration

would find it necessary to subdue as much of this content as possible. As such, images of these

emaciated bodies would be a rare occurrence in media form in the years following the warx (see fig

12 for reference). However, what would facilitate from these omissions would be of significance to

the mental health of the Prisoner of War in the years following the war.

The psychology of the returned serviceperson was a heavily considered topic following the war.

Where there were debates between psychiatrists and politicians about the due course of action for

ensuring the best process for reintegration of the soldier, both suggestions in one way or another

would ostracize these servicemen and their overall wellbeing. The idea prevalent amongst

psychiatrists would be that all returning servicemen should be indoctrinated into 12 months of

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

psychiatric re-evaluation and help readjusting to societal constraints post warxi. Politicians however,

considered the psychological and devastating political ramifications of prohibiting families from

reuniting for a further 12 monthsxii. This presented a paradox in Australian society- whilst mandated

to undergo psychiatric help, a feeling of inferiority breeds in these subjected to psychiatric

assessment, but in the politicians’ case- immediately returning the servicemen from the events of

war would consequentially result in inappropriate psychiatric care. There was no way to ensure the

appropriate return of the Australian POW’s in the psychiatric regard.

The importance to this process applies quite heavily with returned Pacific Theatre Prisoners of War.

Whilst servicemen would seek to live out the same glory of the ANZAC’s, the POW’s faced an

alternative fate. Emaciated, pacified and defeated by what was at the time deemed as an inferior

enemyxiii- Australian captives looked nothing like the typographical stoic, manly and courageous

warrior that the ANZAC legacy embodiedxiv. The superior European race had now been humiliated by

the Japanese domination of European and Australian forces in the Pacific Theatre, and they were

sure to make their captives aware of this. War at this time was heavily attributed to masculinity, - an

almost ritualistic proving ground of sorts, and the actions of the Japanese towards these Australian

men was a deliberate attempt to undermine the calibre at which these men were consideredxv. The

Japanese had reduced these powerful Australian men to being feeble bodied and as passive as

women were considered- the power of their lives in enemy hands. Undermined by the Japanese

during the war, and unrecognized both during and following the war- unless the focus of some story

of exceptional circumstance, the general transpiring’s under Japanese captivity was left blanketed by

the desperation to retain the ANZAC legacy, and an understanding as to how these means were

perpetuated by the public media from the onset is paramount in understanding the effect in the

aftermath.

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

The years that followed:

In the decades superseding the war, incredible stories of courage,

bravery and gallantry have been iterated throughout the media and

society. Following the events of the Vietnam war, there was a

resurgence in the historiography of the Second World Warxvi. Prior to

this, generally associated with the war period were these stories of

triumph over their captors, escape stories, and overall egalitarianism of

the Australian troops in the pacific war period (see fig. 14). The public

had been fed a narrative about the war that was simply untrue- as Susan

Sontag argues: a “Camera-mediated

Figure 14: An excerpt from
Argus: 13/09/1945, about the knowledge of war”xvii. Where stories of
miraculous story of escape of a
POW involving a pigeon- Stories success were bombastically flooding
like these would generally flood
media outlets in the years
following the war.
through public media throughout, and

post war efforts, it only took the

cultivation of research of academics in these following decades to

identify the totality of information omitted throughout the war

period. From this cultivation of research/memoirs came one

suggested to possess the most notoriety. This is the story of Dr. Figure 13: Edward 'Weary' Dunlop-
Who's individual efforts personified
the characteristic of the ANZAC
Edward Dunlop. A physician POW whom even though being subjected legacy. Now associated with the likes
of John Kirkpatrick and his Donkey
to the same egregious and abhorrent means of torture and from the First World War.

persecution by the Japanese, focused on treating the ailments of his comrades. His tireless efforts

and superhuman resolve for his companions earned him the nickname of ‘Weary’. Dunlop’s actions

throughout his incarceration have had him associated with the true embodiment of the ANZAC

legacy- however, it was only in 1988 that his story had been uncovered (of which the cause being

himself declaring that ‘these publications might add further suffering to those bereavedxviii’).

Although one of these stories of individual grandeur, the details in Dunlop’s diary exemplifies the

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truly atrocious conditions in which Australian POW’s were subjected to, and the mass interest that

developed after the publication of his memoir is why this material is so powerful in establishing its

context and relevance, as it’s possible to surmise that the mass publication of his efforts/works was

the catalyst for society identifying the real plight of the Pacific Theatre POW, and not one hidden

behind a falsely presented narrative.

i
Foster, Kevin, 2016, p.254
ii
Crawford, Robert, 2002, p. 101.
iii
Crawford, Robert, 2002, p. 103.
iv
Robert Menzies, September 4th, 1939.
v
Foster, Kevin, 2016, p. 260
vi
Foster, Kevin, 2016, p. 255
vii
Foster, Kevin, 2016, pp. 269-270
viii
Foster, Kevin, p. 270
ix
Garton, Stephen, 2008, p. 49
x
Twomey, Christina, 2007, p. 296
xi
Garton, Stephen, 2008, p. 54
xii
Garton, Stephen, 2008, p. 54
xiii
Sobocinska, Agnieszka, 2010, p. 6
xiv
Twomey, Christina, 2007, p. 296
xv
Sobosinska, Agnieszka, 2010, p. 10
xvi
Beaumont, Joan, 2011, p. 6
xvii
Sontag, Susan, 2003, p. 21
xviii
Dunlop, Edward, 1988, p. 1

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HIS3MHI Research Project- Illustrated Essay Dylan McEune 18319708

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:
Dunlop, Edward, 1986 c2009, The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop: Java and the Burma Thailand Railway, 1942-
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FB8FFC34-83E8-780F-61D9-6BB9F9F60807

Menzies, Robert, 1939, Address to the Nation Announcing Declaration of War with Germany. Australian War
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