Gavan Daws combined ten years of documentary research and hundreds of interviews with pows on three continents to write this shattering re-creation of the experience of allied pows of the Second World War in the pacific ...Gavan Daws combined ten years of documentary research and hundreds of interviews with pows on three continents to write this shattering re-creation of the experience of allied pows of the Second World War in the pacific -- British, Australian, American and dutch. The Japanese army took over 140,000 military prisoners, and one in four died at the hands of their captors.