 During the fighting , out of a total of <unk> men deployed , the battalion lost 137 men killed in action and 106 wounded , while a further 24 suffered from shell shock . A total of 808 men were taken into captivity , including most of the wounded . Four men managed to escape to Australia but of the remaining men , 263 died while prisoners of war . Following their capture , the men from the 2 / 4th in Singapore were concentrated in <unk> prison , before being split up and sent to various prison camps around the Pacific , including Borneo , Burma , Thailand , Java , Sumatra , Japan and <unk> . There they were used as slave labour on the Burma – Thai Railway , in coal mines and on wharves , during which they were subjected to harsh treatment , starvation , disease and extreme brutality , which took a heavy toll . Many soldiers from the 2 / 4th were also killed while being taken to Japan , when the ships were sunk by Allied submarines . 
