John Henry Peat

Left England on 3rd December 1941 and landed at Batavia (now known as Jakata, Indonesia) on 4th February 1942. Singapore fell 11 days later and on the same day the Japanese invaded Java. When the Dutch forces capitulated on the 8th March the few British soldiers on the island whose role was mainly airfield defense became P.O.W's.

Officially John died of maleria at Sandakan Camp (Sabah State, Malayasia) but many of the men in this camp died on the forced death marches or were excuted by the Japanese. The camp was a work camp to maintain the airfield but when the airfield became too damaged to repair and with Allied forces closing in the Japanese forced the men onto Death marches to other camps. Many died due to their poor conditions, diseases and malnutrition or were shot by their captors or left to die at the side of the road. The death toll for the camp went from 16 in Jan 1945, to 174 in Feb (when the marches began), 333 in March and 221 in April. By the end of July only 38 prisoners were alive and they were shot after the Japanese surrender on the 8th August. 6 Australian servicemen and 4 British servicemen had managed to escape from the death marches and their testimony led to the war crimes trial of the two commanding officers and their deputy. All three were found guilty and executed.

Unknown