earlier inflicted heavy casualties upon the Japanese during the fighting, were ordered to move the battalion's carriers, before being tied up and executed. Four other 2/18th soldiers were killed in the massacre at the Alexandra Hospital. The surviving members of the battalion were then marched to the prisoner of war camp at Changi. Shortly afterwards, the men were split up and sent to various locations to serve as forced labourers. The majority of the 2/18th's personnel were sent to Blakang Mati, but some remained in Changi, while others were sent to Japan or were sent to work on the Thai–Burma Railway. A total of 174 men were sent to Borneo where in 1945 they were subjected to the Sandakan Death Marches, which only about ten percent of the 2/18th men survived. Despite being separated, though, wherever possible the 2/18th men sought to stay together in their groups and the battalion structure was maintained even in captivity. The battalion's first commanding officer, Varley, was one of those sent to Burma where, as senior Allied officer, he worked to secure the welfare of over 9,000 men working on the railway, including many from the 2/18th. He was later sent to Thailand before being brought back to Singapore once work was completed. In late 1944 he was transferred to Formosa. On 12 September, while en route, SS Rakuyo Maru, the transport ship on which he and around 1,250 other prisoners were travelling was torpedoed by a US submarine, USS Sealion. Varley took charge of several lifeboats of prisoners during the evacuation, attempting to lead them to safety. They were never seen again and are believed to have been machine-gunned several days later by Japanese frigates that were in the area. During their time in captivity, men from the 2/18th undertook a number of subversive activities including building a radio transmitter, which they used to contact local resistance groups who provided them with assistance in the form of medicine and intelligence. They were also involved in numerous escape attempts, some of which were successful, alongside Australians from other units. One of these successful escapes involved a group of eight men who escaped from the camp on Berhala Island in two groups. One group escaped while out of camp on a work detail, while the other simply walked out the front gate to use the ablutions and never came back. After meeting up outside the