Feigning death in the waters off Indonesia was what saved Australia's Vivian Bullwinkel as Japanese soldiers fatally machine-gunned a line of women into the sea beside her during the dark days of World War II.
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Sister Bullwinkel, who enlisted as an army nurse aged 25, was the sole survivor of the Bangka Island massacre which saw 21 of her fellow nurses murdered in February 1942.
Days earlier she had fled a hospital in Singapore aboard the doomed SS Vyner Brooke, which was attacked by Japanese troops and sunk. Survivors drifted in the water before climbing ashore on the island.
After Sister Bullwinkel survived the shootings, she surrendered and endured three years of brutality as a prisoner of war.
Her experience is one of more than 20,000 Australian stories documented among one million prisoner of war records of World War II service men, women and civilians published online for the first time today.
The release of thousands of documents will shed light on the wartime experiences of ancestors for many Australian families and historians who will have fresh access to records, diary entries and photographs online.
Online genealogy service Findmypast.com and The National Archives in Britain published the records to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of Singapore's notorious Changi prisoner of war camp.
The records cover the period 1939 to 1945 and include the names, ranks and locations of prisoners of war, as well as information about the length of time spent in camps, number of survivors, details of escapees and the nationalities of prisoners.
While the vast majority of people included were British, there were also records for the Dutch, Americans and Australians. About 40 per cent of records don't have a confirmed nationality.
The collection comprises 360,000 images that include pages from personal diaries and photographs from some of World War II's most infamous prisoner of war camps.
Findmypast.com military expert Paul Nixon said given many official World War II records remained classified, the release was an invaluable resource that allowed people to research relatives and other wartime captives.
Mr Nixon said many people captured during World War II endured barbaric conditions and found it difficult to talk about their experiences when they returned home.
"Today's publication allows the public to explore their story, and learn more about this dark period."
National Archives military records specialist David Langrish said the publication of the files was a significant development.
"Extraordinary stories of ordinary men and women whose lives were caught up in the calamities of war have been told for years, but the online publication of these records makes it much easier for a wider audience to research this period and even find members of their own family."
