1945 Australian Red Cross Map of East Asia and Japanese POW Camps During World War II

This is a c. 1945 Australian Red Cross Society map of East Asia marking Japanese prisoner of war (POW) and civilian internment camps housing Australians. It is the only known example outside of Australia and a critical visual record of POW presence in Asia.

The Camps

Text boxes mark known camp clusters, such as around Shanghai, or in Japan itself: the 'Tokyo Group', 'Osaka Group' and 'Fukuoka Group'. Additional camps are identified in Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The Australian Red Cross was aware of further camps in Malaya, Borneo, Thailand, and Burma, but did not have reconnaissance on locations or numbers. A key in the bottom left lists known camps with coordinates.

Australian Red Cross

Formed in August 1914 just after the outbreak of World War I (1914 - 1918), the Australian Red Cross Society (ARCS) was originally a branch of the British Red Cross. It organized home front war-effort activities such knitting socks and rolling bandages. It also established a Red Cross Information Bureau, intended about Australians who died abroad.

Australian Red Cross During World War II

During World War II, the Australian Red Cross provided these same services and more. It assisted sick, wounded, and maimed individuals and their dependents. It set up hostels for those returning from war without living family or friends. Perhaps the most important service though remained the coordination of data related to Australian prisoners of war. The ARCS provided this 'humane and intimate administration' to over 58,000 families, helping to discover personnel lost in the combat zone. Each individual known to the ARCS, whether military or civilian, was assigned an index card and whenever information about an individual surfaced, their card would be updated and the information sent to the contact on file. These index cards are now part of the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Melbourne.

Publication History and Census

This map was produced by the Australian Red Cross Society and printed by Troedel and Cooper Pty. Ltd. c. 1945. We note six examples in OCLC, all of which are in Australia: Library of New South Wales, the National Library of Australia, Monash University, the State Library of Victoria, Deakin University, and the State Library of Western Australia.