Book Review: Christina Twomey. Australia's Forgotten Prisoners: Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War Two. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. Pp. x, 262. $31.99

Scholarly review of Christina Twomey on the historical experience of Australian civilians interned by the Japanese in WWII.

Extract
The relationship between war and national memory inevitably continues to engage historians; it is a topic that has both transnational significance and national particularities. In Australian history, debate continues around the battles of World War I (especially Gallipoli): their historical significance, their representation in national mythmaking, and recent developments in the pilgrimages that commemorate them now even more than at most periods in the past. Public debate surrounding Australia's experience of World War II is more muted, though the recently released film Australia by Baz Luhrmann (2008) dramatizes the 1942 bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in an unprecedented way. Australian national memory of the Pacific theater of war includes a few prominent features, such as the presence of American troops and, more searingly, the experiences of Australian nurses and troops who were captured or executed by the Japanese.

Christina Twomey's title Forgotten Prisoners establishes her central claim: that Australian civilians interned by the Japanese in World War II have been overlooked in national public memory. Around 1,500 Australian civilian men, women, and children were held captive in various prison camps. This figure stands in contrast with the 22,000 Australian POWs, whose story has been told by historians including Patsy Adam-Smith, Joan Beaumont, and Gavan Daws; Twomey herself has written about the Australian military nurses held captive. While constituting only about one percent of the total number of Allied civilians interned by the Japanese during the conflict, Twomey's concern is that civilian Australians' harrowing individual stories have been omitted from the national historical record and memory. The book's great strengths are her piecing together and evocative recounting of these rich stories, based on extensive research in the Australian War Memorial, the National Archives of Australia, other archives, and a variety of printed sources.