This article argues for the need to historicize the use and reception of photographs taken of Allied POWs upon release from Japanese prison camps at the end of World War Two. Photographs of semi-naked, emaciated POWs at the time of their liberation were extremely unusual images of white men in a state of almost complete abjection. They provide an opportunity to explore the links between masculinity and war with particular reference to the way visual images—in this case photography—inform and shape that relationship. The images convey contradictory messages to the viewer. They undermine the hegemonic masculinity of the virile male warrior yet unmistakably invoke the power of a quite singular cultural referent: the suffering body of Christ. The argument to be explored here is that this duality of transgression and redemption has contributed to the images' iconic status in collective memories of Australian participation in the Pacific War.
Adam-SmithP. (1992). Prisoners of war: From Gallipoli to Korea. Ringwood: Viking. Age. (1945, September 3–20).
2.
AIF ingenuity made POW life bearable. (1945, September 10). Sydney Morning Herald, p. 1. Argus. (1945, September 7-October 8).
3.
BatchenG. (1997). Burning with desire: The conception of photography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4.
BarthesR. (1977). The photographic message. In Image/Music/Text (pp. 16–20). New York: Hill and Wang.
5.
BeaumontJ. (1988). Gull force: Survival and leadership in captivity, 1941–45. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
6.
BeaumontJ. (2005). Prisoners of war in Australian national memory. In MooreB. & Hately-BroadB. (Eds.), Prisoners of war, prisoners of peace: Captivity, homecoming and memory in World War II (pp. 185–194). Oxford: Berg.
7.
BowdenT. (Producer & presenter). (1984). Lost years and wounded minds (speaker unidentified). In Prisoners of War: Australians under Nippon [Sound recording]. Melbourne: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
8.
BonnellV., & HuntL. (1999). Introduction. In BonnellV. & HuntL. (Eds.), Beyond the cultural turn: New directions in the study of society and culture (pp. 1–34). Berkeley: University of California Press
9.
BrothersC. (1997). War and photography: A cultural history. London: Routledge.
10.
ClarkeH. V., & BurgessC. (1992). Barbed wire and bamboo: Australian POWs in Europe, North Africa, Singapore, Thailand and Japan. St. Leonard's: Allen & Unwin.
11.
ConnellR. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.
12.
CooperE. (1995). Fully exposed: The male nude in photography. London: Routledge. Courier-Mail. (945, September 7).
13.
DowerJ. D. (1986). War without mercy: Race and power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books.
14.
EvansK. (1999). The shadow of the photographer: Images on paper. In CurthoysA. & SchultzJ. (Eds.), Journalism: Print, politics and popular culture (pp. 131–141). St Lucia: UQP.
15.
Evidence of suffering in prison camp. (1945, September 14). Sydney Morning Herald, p. 4.
16.
FriedlanderS. (Ed.). (1992). Probing the limits of representation: Nazism and the final solution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
17.
GartonS. (1996). The cost of war: Australians return. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
18.
GersterR. (1985, October). The rise of prisoner-of-war writers. Australian Literary Studies, 12(12), 272.
19.
GersterR. (1987). Big-noting: The heroic theme in Australian war writing. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
20.
HarriottG. (1945a, September 14). Australians won victory in Japanese hell. Sydney Morning Herald, p. 2.
21.
HarriottG. (1945b, October 12). Returning POWs are cheery, normal Australians. Sydney Morning Herald, p. 2.
22.
HartmanG. (1996). The longest shadow: In the aftermath of the Holocaust. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
23.
HarveyK., & ShepardA. (2005). What have historians done with masculinity? Reflections on five centuries of British history, circa 1500–1950. Journal of British Studies, 44(2), 274–281.
24.
HilvertJ. (1984). Blue pencil warriors: Censorship and propaganda in World War II. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
25.
HirschM. (1997). Family frames: Photography, narrative and postmemory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
26.
HughesG. (1992, February 15–16). Dignity outlives the horror. In The fall of Singapore: Supplement, The Weekend Australian, p. 20.
27.
InglisK., assisted by BrazierJ. (1998). Sacred places: War memorials in the Australian landscape. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Press.
28.
Japs did this to prisoners. (1945, September 15). Courier Mail, p. 1.
29.
JarvisC. (2004). The male body at war: American masculinity during World War II. Illinois: DeKalb.
30.
JohnstonG. (1945, September 7). Argus, p. 16.
31.
KennyC. (1986). Captives: Australian Army nurses in Japanese prison camps. St Lucia: UQP.
32.
LakeM. (1992). Mission impossible: How men gave birth to the Australian nation: Nationalism, gender and other seminal acts. Gender & History, 4(3), 305–322.
33.
LakeM. (1988). The power of Anzac. In McKernanM. & BrowneM. (Eds.), Australia: Two centuries of war and peace (pp. 194–222). Canberra: Australian War Memorial & Allen & Unwin.
34.
McCormackG., & NelsonH. (Eds.). (1993). The Burma-Thailand railway: Memory and history. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.
35.
McQueenH. (1991). Japan to the rescue. Melbourne: Heinemann.
36.
MitchellW. J. T. (1994). Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
37.
NelsonH. (1985). POW: Prisoners of war, Australians under Nippon. Sydney: ABC Enterprises.
38.
NelsonH. (1993). Measuring the railway: From individual lives to national history. In McCormackG. & NelsonH. (Eds.), The Burma-Thailand railway: Memory and history. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
39.
NyeR. (2008). Western masculinities in war and peace. American Historical Review, 112(2), 417–439.
40.
OlsenA. (1945, September 11). Men coming home to forgotten world. Argus, p. 16.
41.
POW: The story of Australians under Nippon [Advertisement]. (1984, June 2). Age, p. 4.
42.
RoperM. (2005a). Between manliness and masculinity: The “war generation” and the psychology of fear in Britain, 1914–1950. Journal of British Studies, 44(2), 343–63.
43.
RoperM. (2005b). Slipping out of view: Subjectivity and emotion in gender history. History Workshop Journal, 59, 57–72.
44.
RoseS. (2004). Temperate heroes: Concepts of masculinity in Second World War Britain. In DudnikS.HagemannK., & ToshJ. (Eds.), Masculinities in politics and war: Gendering modern history (pp. 177–195). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
45.
RyanJ. R. (1997). Picturing empire: Photography and the visualization of the British Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
46.
SekulaA. (1984). Photography against the grain: Essays and photo works 1973–1983. Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
47.
SeymourA., & NileR. (Eds.). (1991). Anzac: Meaning, memory and myth, London: Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, Institute of Commonwealth Studies.
48.
Solomon-GodeauA. (1991). Photography at the dock: Essays on photographic histories, institutions and practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
49.
SontagS. (1977). On photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.
50.
SontagS. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. London: Penguin. Sun. (1945, September 18–22). Sydney Morning Herald. (1945, September 1–19).
51.
TaggJ. (1995). The burden of representation: Essays on photographies and histories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
52.
ThomsonA. (1989, October). Steadfast until death? C. E. W. Bean and the representation of Australian military manhood. Australian Historical Studies, 23(93), 462–78.
53.
WaterfordV. (1994). Prisoners of the Japanese in World War II: Statistical history, personal narratives and memorials concerning POWs in camps and on hellships, civilian internees, Asia slave labourers, and others captured in the Pacific Theatre. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland.
54.
WillisA. (1995). Photography and film: Figures in/of history. In DevereauxL. & HillmanR. (Eds.), Fields of vision: Essays in film studies, visual anthropology and photography (pp. 77–93). Berkeley: University of California Press.
55.
ZelizerB. (1998). Remembering to forget: Holocaust memory through the camera's eye. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
56.
ZelizerB. (Ed.). (2001). Visual culture and the Holocaust. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
