Between
two shores.

William H. McDougall Jr. · 1942–1945

Six Bells off Java

An escape from Java became the beginning of another ordeal. American reporter William H. McDougall survived the sinking of his evacuation ship and reached Sumatra, where Japanese forces imprisoned him until 1945. His memoir Six Bells off Java tells his survival story through a personal religious perspective. A later edition of his wartime letters and recovered diaries, If I Get Out Alive, lets readers distinguish the contemporary record from the postwar memoir. This is one journalist’s experience, not an account of every camp.

Memoir and wartime diaries — Publisher description of primary writings; full memoir not consulted.

Antonie (Anton) Roodhuyzen · 1942–1945

A sister becomes a shelter

Illness, child separation

Anton Roodhuyzen remembers internment through family separations. After his father was taken away, he entered Karees with his mother and sisters, then moved to Tjideng. His mother and eldest sister were later sent to other camps because they were ill. His remaining sister, only twelve, tried to care for him while he suffered dysentery. Liberation did not instantly repair these ruptures: when his father returned, Anton struggled to recognise him. His account makes survival a story of children’s care and uncertain reunions, as well as imprisonment.

Retrospective first-person memoir — Account compiled in 2006 and republished on 8 July 2026.

Joseph DeMott · 1942–1945

The airman who could not evacuate

Injury, malnutrition, lasting trauma

A wound left Joseph DeMott behind when his squadron departed Java. The American radio operator recalled being shot during a mission and remaining in a Dutch hospital at Malang when Japanese troops arrived. He later recovered enough mobility to work in captivity, but malnutrition damaged his sight. In his museum interview, DeMott also reflected on friendships and the enduring psychological burden of imprisonment. His testimony connects the air campaign with a much longer struggle inside camps and after the return home.

Museum oral history — Museum oral-history annotations consulted.

Agnes Betty Jeffrey · 1942–1945

Letters three years late

Illness, death, starvation

Betty Jeffrey’s diary holds both deprivation and moments of connection. In 1945 the Australian army nurse described an exhausting transfer of sick prisoners in rain. Later, letters from home finally arrived: some had been written years earlier. Family photographs offered comfort while making the prisoners’ hunger painfully visible by comparison. These entries were written during captivity, rather than reconstructed decades afterward. They preserve a nurse’s attention to vulnerable companions and to small links with the life beyond the camp.

Wartime diary excerpts — Transcribed diary extracts consulted.

Robert Hanley · 1942–1945; interview 2018

After Houston went down

Naval combat, captivity

Robert Hanley served aboard USS Houston as a pharmacist’s mate. His interview follows the ship into the Battle of Sunda Strait and then beyond its sinking: capture, imprisonment and efforts to provide medical care to fellow prisoners. Later captivity took him to Thailand, where he was liberated. The museum preserves both a recording and a transcript, allowing readers to follow his own account. This witness brings a caregiver’s perspective to naval battle, reminding us that the loss of a ship was not the end of its survivors’ war.

Recorded interview and transcript — Primary interview catalogue description consulted; transcript available via source.

P. R. S. Mani · September–November 1945

Dispatches from a fractured peace

Combat, civilian deaths

Captain P. R. S. Mani recorded the uneasy weeks after Japan’s surrender. An Indian officer writing from Batavia and Surabaya, he questioned British decisions and documented the dilemmas facing Indian troops amid Indonesia’s struggle for independence. His papers include diary entries from 25–28 October and dispatches following his own brief internment. Reports of efforts to rescue endangered civilians sit beside accounts of destructive fighting. Preserved by UTS Library, these documents show why “the end of the war” did not mean safety or peace for everyone.

Contemporary dispatches and diary — Archive catalogue and scope note consulted; downloadable primary documents linked.

Mrs S.M. (archive anonymisation) · Independence war, 1945–1949; interview 2013

A child remembers Malang

Bombing, civilian injuries

In an interview preserved by Leiden University Libraries, a Chinese-Indonesian woman identified as Mrs S.M. recalled a Dutch air attack on Malang when she was four. Her family hurried outside; she remembered their building being destroyed and clinging to her pregnant mother. She carefully distinguished fragments she remembered herself from details her mother later told her. That distinction matters: this is a childhood memory, not a complete military reconstruction. Her account centres civilians whose homes became part of the battlefield.

Oral-history excerpt — Published transcript excerpt consulted.

Dr Go In Tjhan · 1937–1946

A doctor between loyalties

Imprisonment, persecution

Doctor Go In Tjhan’s life crossed several overlapping wars. After medical relief work in China, he became involved with anti-Japanese resistance in Java and was imprisoned. In interviews and a 1946 article, he discussed both his own experiences and the precarious position of Chinese communities. Maya H. T. Liem’s heritage essay brings these writings together without treating his life as representative of everyone. His testimony asks readers to consider how humanitarian choices and competing loyalties could expose a Chinese-Indonesian doctor to danger.

First-person writing and interviews in scholarly heritage essay — Essay includes attributed excerpts from 1946 writing and 1980/1991 interviews.

Suharti · Japanese occupation; interview 25 March 1996

A promise of schooling, a stolen freedom

Sexual violence and coercion; non-graphic

Suharti recalled being taken from East Java after officials promised schooling or training. Her father objected, but the village was under pressure to supply young people. Transported through Surabaya to Borneo, she was instead subjected to sexual exploitation by Japanese military personnel and civilians. Her testimony also describes hunger and displacement before the occupation ended. The published interview identifies its interviewer, editor and translator. Presented without graphic detail, it preserves an Indonesian woman’s account of coercion that cannot be reduced to the history of European internment camps.

Translated survivor interview — English translated interview text consulted.

Edward “Weary” Dunlop · 1942–1943

Keeping the hospital together

Illness, forced transfer

Doctor Edward Dunlop remembered the Japanese entry into Bandung and the struggle to protect hospital patients after capture. In archival audio presented by the Australian War Memorial, he describes gaining time to arrange the movement of very sick people before a forced transfer. The programme places that recollection alongside the later movement of prisoners from Java to Thailand. Hearing a doctor’s account changes the scale of the story: military surrender also meant beds, patients, instruments and urgent decisions about care under a captor’s authority.

Archival interview excerpts in museum podcast — Published podcast transcript distinguishes Dunlop’s voice from historians.

Maria and Theresia Sprengers · 1942–1945

An apron that kept a memory

Civilian internment

Maria Sprengers and her sister Theresia made and decorated an apron while interned at Tjideng. The surviving garment, now held by the Australian War Memorial, offers a different doorway into camp history: something women created and kept rather than a later spoken account. The museum records Maria’s work typing internee lists and her postwar reunion with her future husband, a former POW. The apron is presented as material evidence with documented provenance, not as permission to invent the sisters’ thoughts or conversations.

Surviving object with museum provenance — Museum object and provenance record.