Abstract: When the Japanese entered the war in 1941, some 20,000 British civilians in the European colonies in Asia were rounded up and marched off to concentration camps where they were to remain for three long years. Over 3,000 of them were children. Living on what effectively became the frontline of a war, in daily contact with an enemy whose values were totally alien, they witnessed acts of shocking violence. They had to cope with the knowledge that beloved family members had been beaten, and saw at close quarters the evil that human beings can wreak on each other. This is the first time their extraordinary experiences of suffering, endurance and bravery have been collected together.