Fury To Hell

For the men in faded blue battle dress their POW internment was highlighted by courage, and comradeship. It also meant enduring hunger, boredom, deprivation, cruelty, and neglect. Few did not lose 40 percent of their body weight; few did not suffer ongoing illness and depression. Some were killed by their own, caught up in the Allied advance, or the death marches, as POWs were forced by their captors through the harsh winter of 1944/1945 to deny their liberation. They returned to Australia in ignominy.

Ignored by the Government which had sent them to war, these RAAF ex-POWs were expected to reintegrate into a strange society and reconnect with families who could never understand.