Prisoner-of-war school: Java

    "Some good Shakespearean plays were produced..."

After becoming reluctant prisoners of war in Java on 9 March 1942, the men of the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion and other Allied POWs were eventually moved to the former Dutch army barracks at Bandung in June.

    At Bandung as at the earlier transit camp, the POWs established what became known as the 'University of Bandung'.

      "We created a vast prison organisation for the re-education of ourselves, a sort of prison kindergarten, school, high school, technical college and University rolled in one."

      (Laurens van der Post, The Night of the New Moon ...cited in From Snow to Jungle)

    Among the 2000 Allied troops were many experts such as Laurens van der Post (later to become a famous author and scholar); 'Oxbridge' university scholars and lecturers; and Australians such as Bob McPherson, who shared his knowledge of banking, and Alf Sheppard, who gave classes in motor engineering.

    The POWs could choose from a curriculum of modern and ancient languages, history, literature, accountancy and technical subjects, or primary and secondary school subjects. While some prisoners learned how to read and write, others studied undergraduate level Arts degrees (many of these qualifications were recognised after the War).

    The prisoners also organised plays, debates and a camp newspaper, Mark Time. Van der Post wrote:

      "One of the main functions was to keep alive in our men their sense of continuity. The greatest psychological danger threatening men in the conditions of imprisonment we had to endure was the feeling that imprisonment was a complete break with their past and totally unconnected with their future lives."

    However, many of the 2/3rd POWs did not spend long at Bandung. In January 1943, a large number of them were shipped out of Java and sent to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway.


Battalion Formation and Training | Middle East | Java | POWS
POW School | Burma-Thai Railway | Weary Dunlop | New Guinea
War's End