Like the other Allied personnel captured by the Japanese , most of the thousands of Australians captured in the first months of 1942 during the conquest of Malaya and Singapore , the NEI and New Britain were held in harsh conditions . Australians were held in camps across the Asia-Pacific region and many endured long voyages in grossly overcrowded ships . While most of the Australian POWs who died in Japanese captivity were the victim of deliberate malnutrition and disease , hundreds were deliberately killed by their guards . The Burma-Thai Railway was the most notorious of the prisoner of war experiences , as 13,000 Australians worked on it at various times during 1942 and 1943 alongside thousands of other Allied POWs and Asians conscripted by the Japanese ; nearly 2,650 Australians died there . Thousands of Australian POWs were also sent to the Japanese home islands where they worked in factories and mines in generally harsh conditions . The POWs held in camps at Ambon and Borneo suffered the highest death rates ; 77 percent of those at Ambon died and few of the 2,500 Australian and British prisoners in Borneo survived ; almost all were killed by overwork and a series of death marches in 1945
were held in harsh conditions
Japanese war crimes
Military history of Australia during World War II