‘It would be impossible to describe our feelings’: the recovery and demobilisation of Australian prisoners of war after the First World War

Abstract

This article explores the process by which Australian military prisoners of war were recovered from enemy captivity and returned to Australia after the First World War. Release from captivity was a pivotal moment for prisoners of war; letters and memoirs suggest that prisoners fixated on the prospect of their release from the moment of capture. The somewhat haphazard planning and execution of the recovery of Australian prisoners of war after the cessation of hostilities, however, suggested that Australian military and civilian authorities were less preoccupied with liberating their men from captivity. Despite general concern for prisoners of war, the demobilisation of combatants took precedence over the recovery of prisoners, and recovery operations aimed to amalgamate prisoners of war quickly with their combatant counterparts after their release from captivity. At this point, prisoners of war were considered indistinct from their combatant counterparts. The process of recovery, demobilisation and return to Australia offered little space for returning prisoners of war to make sense of their time as captives, and public narratives about war service did not easily accommodate wartime captivity. Captivity ultimately added an additional layer of complexity to the difficult task of reintegrating into civil society after the First World War.