page_title: Batu Lintang camp
section_title: Clothing
hierarchical_section_title: Batu Lintang camp / Daily life in the camp / Clothing
caption_attribution_description: Australian War Memorial Caption: "Kuching, Sarawak. 1945-09-13. Private J. M. Curry, 2/10th Ordnance Workshops, who was cook for Australian Officers Prisoners of War in the Kuching Prisoner of War Camp. He is wearing the lap-lap issued to him by the Japanese, his sole clothing issue in two years."
context_page_description: Batu Lintang camp at Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo was a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War. It was unusual in that it housed both Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees. The camp, which operated from March 1942 until the liberation of the camp in September 1945, was housed in buildings that were originally British Indian Army barracks. The original area was extended by the Japanese, until it covered about 50 acres. The camp population fluctuated, due to movement of prisoners between camps in Borneo, and as a result of the deaths of the prisoners. It had a maximum population of some 3,000 prisoners.
  Life in the camp was harsh, with POWs and internees alike forced to endure food shortages, disease and sickness for which scant medicine was made available, forced labour, brutal treatment, and lack of adequate clothing and living quarters. Of the approximately 2,000 British POWs held there, over two-thirds died during or as a result of their captivity.
context_section_description: Clothing wore out quickly: the tropical climate meant that clothes had to be washed every day, and the rigours of labouring in them meant that they soon became torn, worn and threadbare. An enterprising male internee, J. R. Baxter, entered the camp with two pairs of shorts; as they wore out he constructed a new pair from them by glueing together the constituent parts with latex from the rubber trees growing in the camp. The Japanese did not provide replacement clothing for the prisoners when their clothes wore out. After a period male internees and POWs were issued with a loincloth and perishable rubber shoes, which soon degraded and meant in effect that most prisoners went barefoot. The women fared a little better, often bartering possessions for material: clothes were fashioned out of whatever material was to hand, such as sheets and breakfast cloths.  Many of the women kept their best clothes unworn in readiness for their expected eventual liberation, while their other clothes became more and more shabby.
  Prior to their liberation, supplies were dropped by the Australians. Hilda Bates recorded: "The soldiers received shorts, shoes, and blankets with instructions not to appear naked in future!".
caption: Private J. M. Curry, who was cook at the Australian Officers' camp, wearing the loincloth issued to him by the Japanese, his sole clothing issue in two years.
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