Suspicious Minds: Australian Korean War POWs, Commonwealth Intelligence Services and the Cold War

Australian POW studies have been dominated by the Second World War experience of captivity under the Japanese. The current understanding of the Australian POW experience in the Korean War is one of physical and mental hardship, framed by their captor’s attempt to indoctrinate them into communist ideology, and their subsequent celebration for withstanding the rigours of confinement. However, this narrative fails to take into account the underlying current of fear in Australia regarding communist intentions both locally and internationally, which fuelled official wariness towards the POWs during and after the war. Recently declassified documents shed new light on the attitudes of Australian authorities towards these men and reveal that not all Australian POWs resisted indoctrination, and that ongoing surveillance of the men after their return was not out of the question. In turn, the suspicions raised by the men’s behaviour within the POW camps in Korea merged with their actual captivity experience and created a lasting legacy in the form of revised ‘conduct after capture’ protocols and training for later generations of Defence Force personnel. Through examining the post-conflict lives and legacy of these men, this thesis expands the narrative outside of the traditional confines of their experiences of captivity and presents a more nuanced appreciation of this particular episode in Australian POW history. By drawing upon new evidence to examine the Australian POW experience and the post-war treatment of the POW cohort through the lens of Cold War communist paranoia. In doing so, this thesis highlights the inconsistencies between the previously held consensus regarding their experience and offers a new perspective on captivity in the Korean War, and its legacies.