by the arrival of several thousand Dutch and 113 Royal Air Force personnel from a camp in Bandung. By this stage, every couple of days a POW was dying in the camp, mainly due to dysentery. By Christmas, conditions had improved somewhat and Blackburn was able to gather enough funds to purchase food for a Christmas dinner. On 28 December he was driven out of the Bicycle Camp to continue his internment elsewhere. The unit historian of the 2/2nd Pioneers later wrote of Blackburn's time at the Bicycle Camp, "His quiet dignity, masking an unquenchable spirit of protest against Japanese injustices, earned him the admiration of the officers and men who shared with him the humiliation of captivity". Changi, Japan and Formosa Blackburn and some other senior officers were transferred from Java to Singapore by ship, arriving on 1 January 1943, and Blackburn was briefly held at the Changi POW Camp. His time there was much more relaxed than on Java, and he enjoyed freedom of movement and the ability to catch up with friends, including his World War I platoon sergeant. There were no beatings, and few Japanese were seen, as the guards were mainly Sikh defectors from the British Indian Army. On 7 January a party of 900 POWs arrived from Java, including a large number of 2/3rd men, led by the surgeon Lieutenant Colonel Ernest "Weary" Dunlop. This group soon ended up on the Thailand-Burma railway with the 2/2nd Pioneers. Blackburn's stay ended on 10 January, but not before Dunlop had given him a list of men who he recommended should be promoted or receive awards after the war. Along with other senior officers, including Sitwell, ter Poorten and Searle, Blackburn was sent to Japan by sea, arriving in Moji on 19 January. After a short stay in a camp that held American and Indian POWs, the party of senior officers left Japan by ship on 25 January, and four days later disembarked in southwestern Formosa (now Taiwan). On arrival at Karenko Camp, the party were paraded before the commandant and ordered to make an oath that they would not try to escape. Blackburn said that he would only sign under protest and duress, and asked what the penalty was for not signing. He was beaten and placed in solitary confinement, and the Japanese subjected him to sleep deprivation. Two days later he signed the oath and