This is the story of a dozen Australian soldiers of the 2/40 Battalion - mainly Tasmanians - who were sent to garrison an airfield in Dutch Timor immediately after the Japanese entered the Second World War. Assigned a hopless military task with a misguided strategy, they were captured a week after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. For the next three and a half years they were more thoroughly scattered in prison camps throughout Asia than the men of any comparable Australian unit. Their experiences represent a microcosm of the experience of Australians in Japanese hands in the Pacific theatre.