From Singapore to Japan: The Second World War in Asia in CWGC cemeteries & memorials

Join us on a journey from the frantic beginnings of the Second World War in Asia to VJ Day via CWGC cemeteries and memorials.

Commonwealth War Graves WW2 Cemeteries & Memorials in Asia

Why are there war cemeteries in Asia and the Pacific?

Image: The inscription carved into the Rangoon Memorial. It reads: The names of Twenty-Seven Thousand Soldiers of Many Races United in Service to the British Crown Who Gave Their Lives in Burma and Assam but to Whom the Fortune of War Denied the Customary Rites Accorded to Their Comrades in Death

The Second World War was a truly global conflict. In addition to the battlefields of Western Europe, the Soviet Union, the Mediterranean, the Arctic, and North Africa, fighting also took place across Asia and the Pacific on an epic scale.

Some of the largest Commonwealth forces of the Second World War clashed with the forces of Imperial Japan on land, air, and sea in Asia and the Pacific. Between late 1941 to August 1945, war raged across Asia and Oceania. Across the rugged highlands of Burma (present-day Myanmar) to the steaming jungles of the Pacific Islands to the vast glistening expanses of the Pacific Ocean and its endless skies, they fought and fell in a bitter campaign.

That’s why you’ll find CWGC cemeteries and memorials in sites throughout Asia. These poignant permanent places of commemoration for the fallen are more than just reminders of the world’s most deadly conflict; they tell the story of the campaign from its bloody beginnings to its bitter end.

How many Commonwealth servicemen and women died in Asia and the Pacific in the Second World War?

Image: The original grave markers at Chungkai, representing the cost of victory in Asia. (AWM P02310.12)

It’s estimated that Commonwealth casualties across Burma and the Pacific War resulted in upwards of 190,000 deaths at the higher estimates. These figures include combat deaths, those who died in captivity as prisoners of war, and those who succumbed to disease.

Together, some 91,000-165,000 British and Indian servicemen died in the Burma Campaign, representing the largest chunk of Commonwealth deaths in Asia.

Counted in the British armies in Burma were men from East and West Africa, around 29,000 of whom perished during the war.

Australia took the heaviest losses during the campaigns in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and locations closer to home. Fighting on their proverbial doorstep, the Aussies suffered some 27,000 combat deaths throughout the Pacific on air, land, and sea.

Canadian and New Zealand casualties for both campaigns are comparatively much smaller. Approximately 290 Canadians fell in the defence of Hong Kong, for example, and a further 265 died in captivity. Total New Zealand casualties for the Pacific War are estimated at just over 500, and mostly navy or air force personnel.

Where possible, these men and women are buried in purpose-built CWGC cemeteries across Asia and the Pacific. Those with no known war grave are commemorated by name on our magnificent memorials.

The War Against Japan in CWGC Cemeteries & Memorials

Imperial Japan attacks

Sai Wan War Cemetery

Image: Sai Wan War Cemetery with the Sai Wan Memorial at the top of the hill

8 December 1941 is a momentous day in Second World War History. On this day, not only did Imperial Japan attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, bringing the United States into the war, but it also launched its assault on Hong Kong on this day too.

With these twin attacks, Imperial Japan made its Asian ambitions clear. 

Controlled by the British Empire, Hong Kong was an international city, reflected in the makeup of its defenders. The Hong Kong Garrison, made up of Indian, British and Canadian troops, alongside locally raised volunteer units, fought determinedly but was unable to stop the Japanese assault. 

After a brief but intense period of fighting, Hong Kong surrendered. Like was seen in Europe during the early phases of the Second World War, Britain’s war in Asia was off to a bad start. 

Sai Wan War Cemetery, nestled in the hills surrounding Hong Kong city, is the final resting place for many who died in the defence of Hong Kong, or in captivity as POWs during Japanese occupation. Nearly 1,500 servicemen are buried at Sai Wan, 450 of whom are unidentified.

The Sai Wan Memorial stands close to the cemetery entrance, bearing the names of more than 2,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died in the Battle of Hong Kong or subsequently in captivity and who have no known grave. 

Kranji War Cemetery & the Singapore Memorial

Image: The headstones at Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore

With Hong Kong in Japanese hands, Imperial Japan continued its seemingly unstoppable sweep across Asia, heading towards the Southeast. Following the fall of Hong Kong, mainland Malaya (present-day Malaysia) was taken too.

On 8 February 1942, Japanese forces launched an invasion across the Johore Straits against the Island of Singapore, among Britain’s most prized Asian colonies.

She was defended by Indian, British, and Australian units, but most of Singapore’s defences were focused on the sea. The Japanese attacked by land.

A week of bitter fighting followed, but the Commonwealth forces suffered dwindling supplies and, crucially, water. With the supply situation untenable, Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942. 80,000 of its defenders were taken prisoner.

The Kranji area of Singapore was used as an ammunition store and military camp before the Second World War. It was turned into a small cemetery for Prisoners of War during the conflict and, post-war, was greatly expanded.

Graves from across Southeast Asia were transferred to Kranji War Cemetery. Today, there are over 4,400 Commonwealth casualties of the Second World War buried or commemorated here. More than 850 of the burials are unidentified.

Within the grounds stands the Singapore Memorial, commemorating 24,000 Commonwealth servicemen and women who died across Southeast Asia who have no known grave.

Jakarta War Cemetery

Image: Over 1,100 servicemen lie in Jakarta War Cemetery

Jakarta, then known as Batavia, on the island of Java, was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. After the Japanese attacks on British and American territory, the Netherlands declared war on Imperial Japan on 8 December 1941.

The Dutch East Indies, occupying most of modern-day Indonesia, was rich in natural resources that Japan lacked at home, particularly oil and rubber. Its natural wealth made the Dutch East Indies a major prize.

On 13 February 1942, with Singapore all but captured, Japanese troops invaded Dutch Sumatra. The small Commonwealth force stationed there was forced to withdraw to Java.

A second Japanese invasion force headed for Java was intercepted by Allied vessels on 27 February at the Battle of the Java Sea. The Allied flotilla was defeated. Japanese troops landed on Java on 1 March.

Dutch, British, Indian, and Australian defenders were quickly overwhelmed. Japanese flags fluttered over Batavia on 5 March 1942. A week later, the last Allied troops on Java surrendered.

Several POW camps were established around Batavia, and inmates began small cemeteries to house the dead shortly after.

After the war, these graves and those from other battlefields were concentrated into Jakarta War Cemetery. Later in the 1960s, further graves were brought in from across Sumatra. Today, the cemetery holds over 1,100 Second World War burials, close to 950 of which are identified.

The War in Burma

Taukkyan War Cemetery

Image: Within sight of the Rangoon Memorial lie thousands of fallen Commonwealth servicemen, buried at Taukkyan War Cemetery

Burma was invaded by Japanese forces in December 1941, kicking off one of the longest and most arduous British campaigns of the war.

The Burma Campaign was fought up until the very end of the Second World War. It took place in a land where the weather and terrain were just as formidable opponents as the Japanese.

In 1942–1943, a series of minor battles were fought, resulting in many setbacks and defeats for Commonwealth forces.

In early 1944, Japanese forces attempted an invasion of India along the coast but were held at the Battle of the Admin Box. Further attacks were launched to the north but were first held then beaten back at Kohima and Imphal. Commonwealth forces then went on the offensive, and by August 1945, Japanese forces had been roundly defeated in Burma.

Taukkyan War Cemetery is the largest of the three war cemeteries in Burma (Myanmar) and the third largest CWGC Second World War cemetery.

It was begun in 1951 to take graves from across Burma, including the four major battlefield cemeteries at Akyab, Mandalay, Meiktila and Sahmaw, which were difficult to access and could not be maintained. Taukkyan War Cemetery now holds over 6,300 Second World War burials from the fighting in Burma.

Rangoon Memorial

The Rangoon Memorial, complete with grand rotunda and strong marching columns, stands in the heart of Taukkyan War Cemetery.

As the largest of all CWGC Second World War memorials, the Rangoon Memorial commemorates almost 27,000 men of the Commonwealth’s land forces who died during the Burma Campaign but with no known grave.

That so many died with graves being lost, unfound, or unidentified is a testament to the exacting, arduous nature of the Burma Campaign.

Further memorials within Taukkyan include the Taukkyan Cremation Memorial, commemorating more than 1,000 Second World War casualties whose remains were cremated in accordance with custom and their faith, and the Taukkyan Memorial, which commemorates 46 servicemen of both wars who died and were buried elsewhere in Burma but whose graves could not be maintained.

The Death Railway

Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery

Image: Thanbyuzayat war cemetery was one of several CWGC sites built to hold fallen Japanese Prisoners of War

Immortalised in The Bridge over the River Kwai, the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway by forced labour is one of the Asian War’s most infamous episodes.

The railway was built to connect Japanese supply bases in Burma and Siam (present-day Thailand). It was built by captured Commonwealth, US, and Dutch prisoners of war alongside local slave labourers.

Those working on the railway endured brutal conditions: starvation, sickness, and guard violence were all rife. It’s estimated that some 13,000 POWs perished in the railway’s construction, alongside hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Thanbyuzayat became a POW administration headquarters and base camp in September 1942, with a hospital added in January 1943. The camp was close to a railway marshalling yard and workshops. Heavy casualties were sustained among the prisoners during Allied bombing raids in March and June 1943. The camp was then evacuated, and the prisoners, including the sick, were marched to camps further along the line.

Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery was created after the war by the Army Graves Service, which transferred to it all the graves along the northern section of the railway, between Moulmein and Nieke. Today, this tranquil cemetery is the final resting place of some 3,150 Commonwealth and more than 620 Dutch servicemen.

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

Image: The bronze plaques of Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is only a short distance from the site of the former 'Kanburi', the prisoner of war base camp through which most of the prisoners passed on their way to other camps. The cemetery was created by the Army Graves Service, to hold all graves along the southern section of the Burma-Siam Railway, from Bangkok to Nieke.

There are over 5,000 Commonwealth casualties of the Second World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, alongside nearly 1,900 Dutch servicemen.

Some 300 men who died (most from a cholera epidemic in May/June 1943) at Nieke camp were cremated. Their ashes now lie in two graves in the cemetery. The names of these men are inscribed on panels in the shelter pavilion.

Within the cemetery entrance building is the Kanchanaburi Memorial, recording the names of 11 men of the Indian Army who were buried in Muslim cemeteries in Thailand, but whose graves could not be maintained.

Chungkai War Cemetery

Image: Stone of Remembrance and Cross of Sacrifice overlook the war graves at Chungkai War Cemetery

The first Allied POWs arrived at Chungkai, also known as Thai No.2 Camp, in October 1942. Chungkai was one of the base camps on the railway and contained a hospital and church built by Allied prisoners of war.

By the time the camp closed in June 1945, nearly 20,000 patients had been treated at the hospital. The war cemetery is the original burial ground started by the prisoners themselves, and the burials are mostly of men who died at the hospital.

There are now over 1,425 Commonwealth and 310 Dutch burials of the Second World War in this cemetery.

All three of the cemeteries commemorating the dead of the Death Railway were designed by Colin St Clair Oakes, one of the Commission’s chief Second World War architects.

India’s War

Imphal War Cemetery

Image: Imphal War Cemetery houses those who fought in arguably British and Indian miitary history's greatest battle

With the conquest of Burma in 1942, Japanese armies could now threaten Britain’s chief imperial possession: India.

Defending India and keeping a position from which to retake Burma became chiefly important to British and Indian military planners. Imphal, capital of Manipur State near the Burmese border, held important road, rail, river, and air links, which made it the Japanese invasion force’s main objective.

Fierce and bitter fighting raged at Imphal for months as Fourteenth Army grimly hung on until the Japanese were defeated at heavy cost. The victory at Imphal ranks as one of the most important battles in Indian and British military history.

There were originally some 950 burials in Imphal War Cemetery, but after hostilities had ceased, the Army Graves Service brought in graves from two smaller cemeteries in Imphal and from isolated positions in the surrounding region. The cemetery now contains 1,600 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

Imphal Indian Army War Cemetery & Imphal Cremation Memorial

Image: Those cremated in accordance with their faith are commemorated on the Imphal Cremation Memorial, demonstrating CWGC's commitment to commemorate all fallen equally

The Indian Army was a multi-faith fighting force, and this is reflected in the ways fallen soldiers of the Burma Campaign are commemorated. We can clearly see this at Imphal.

Imphal Indian Army War Cemetery was started during the fighting, and later, the graves of soldiers of the Muslim faith were brought in from several civil cemeteries in the district.

The graves are mostly those of soldiers of the army of undivided India, but a small number of East and West African soldiers who were also of the Muslim faith are also buried there. The cemetery now contains 828 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

At the southern end of the cemetery stands the Imphal Cremation Memorial, which commemorates 868 soldiers and airmen of the Hindu and Sikh faiths, whose remains were cremated following custom and their faith.

Kohima War Cemetery & Kohima Cremation Memorial

Image: Kohima War Cemetery preserves its unique battlefield features

The Japanese advance into India was halted at Kohima in April 1944. Garrison Hill, a long-wooded spur on a high ridge west of Kohima, saw perhaps Burma’s bitterest fighting when a small Commonwealth garrison held out against repeated attacks by a massed Japanese force.

The fiercest hand-to-hand fighting took place in the garden of the Deputy Commissioner’s bungalow, around the tennis court, but the heaviest casualties on both sides occurred after relieving forces reached the garrison and the Japanese were driven off the ridge, so re-opening the road to Imphal.

Kohima War Cemetery lies on the battlefield of Garrison Hill. No trace remains of the bungalow, which was destroyed in the fighting, but white concrete lines mark and preserve permanently the historic tennis court.

The cemetery now contains 1,420 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War and 1 non-war burial.

At the highest point in the cemetery stands the Kohima Cremation Memorial commemorating more than 915 Hindu and Sikh soldiers whose remains were cremated per custom and their faith.

Chittagong War Cemetery & Chittagong 1939-1945 Memorial

Image: The multinational war graves of Chittagong War Cemetery represent the diverse fighting force that served in Burma

Chittagong, the nearest port to northern Burma, was evacuated in May when a Japanese invasion of India seemed imminent. When this threat diminished, the port was reopened and later greatly expanded to meet operational needs in the Bay of Bengal and Burma. The area also became an army training centre, airfields were established, and hospitals opened.

The cemetery was created by the army, and originally contained about 400 burials. After the war, it was expanded when graves were brought in from southwest Bangladesh. Today, it contains 730 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War.

Amongst the graves of Indian and British servicemen are 100 African servicemen, who served in India and Burma from 1943, and 36 Australian, Canadian and New Zealand airmen. The cemetery also contains the graves of one Dutch seaman and 19 Japanese prisoners of war.

Within the cemetery will also be found the Chittagong Memorial, which, together with the Bombay 1939-1945 War Memorial, commemorates over 400 sailors of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) and nearly 6,000 sailors of the Indian Merchant Navy who were lost at sea.

During the war, the RIN serving onboard sloops and minesweepers served in convoy escort duties in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Cape stations as well as in the Indian Ocean, where they were also heavily involved in combat operations as part of the Burma Campaign.

The Indian Merchant Navy served across the globe, braving attacks by enemy ships, submarines and aircraft to ferry supplies and service personnel to support the war effort.

Australia’s War

Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery & Port Moresby Memorial

Image: Port Moresby (Bomana) contains some of the earliest casualties of Australia's Pacific War

After Japanese landings at Lae and Salamaua in northern Papua New Guinea in March 1942, Port Moresby was their chief objective. A Japanese naval expedition was defeated at the Battle of the Coral Sea, after which the Japanese attacked overland.

Between July and November 1942, Australian forces fought a desperate defence along the Kokoda Track back to Port Moresby, aided by Papuan and New Guinean carriers and labourers. Australian troops then began to push the Japanese back along the track to their beachheads at Buna–Gona, which held out until January 1943.

Elsewhere, early in 1942, Japanese forces occupied Bougainville, the largest and most northerly of the Solomon Islands. This they held until Americans and Australians began offensive operations towards the end of 1943, when Bougainville was the only one of these islands remaining in Japanese hands. By August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, most of the island had been recovered.

Those who died in the fighting in Papua and Bougainville are buried in Port Moresby (Bomana) Cemetery, their graves brought in by the Australian Army Graves Service from burial grounds in the areas where the fighting had taken place.

The Port Moresby Memorial stands behind the cemetery and commemorates almost 750 men of the Australian Army (including Papua and New Guinea local forces), the Australian Merchant Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force who lost their lives in the operations in Papua and who have no known graves.

Labuan War Cemetery

Image: A multi-ethnic force is commemorated at Labuan, often dying in captivity in appalling conditions

Strategically important, sitting between Singapore and Australia, North Borneo was the first British colonial possession to fall to the Japanese in the Second World War. A token force defended the colony, alongside Dutch troops in neighbouring Dutch Borneo, but by March 1942, the Indian, British, and Dutch defenders were defeated.

Borneo remained in Japanese hands until the end of the war. During that time, thousands of Australian, British and Indian POWs were sent to camps across Borneo.

Here, they suffered appalling conditions and horrendous treatment, many perishing due to illness, starvation, or at the hands of their captors, including in the infamous Sandakan Death Marches in 1945. In a series of marches, over 2,400 Commonwealth POWs were marched into the jungle to their death.

Borneo was liberated by Australian forces in 1945. After the war, graves from across the island were initially brought into the POW cemetery at Sandakan including those victims of the death marches and other battlefields across Borneo.

However, this flat coastal area is subject to heavy flooding, and so a new cemetery was built at Labuan in 1949, and graves from across Borneo, including those at Sandakan, were transferred. Today the total number of burials at Labuan is just over 3,920.

The Labuan Memorial commemorates nearly 2,300 men of the Australian Army and Air Force, and 3 New Zealanders, who died while prisoners of war in Borneo and the Philippines or during operations for the recovery of Borneo in 1945, and who have no known grave. It also commemorates some 60 men of North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei who died on war service and who have no known grave.

Plymouth Naval Memorial & UK Naval Memorials

Image: More than 1,700 Australian sailors and naval personnel, hundreds who fell in the Pacific, are commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial

Control of the seas was vital to the war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In 1941 and early 1942, the Allies suffered several defeats at sea: at Pearl Harbour, the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse off Singapore and at the battles of the Java Sea and Sunda Strait.

It wasn’t until the Battle of the Coral Sea, in May 1942, that the seemingly unstoppable Japanese advance was first checked and then decisively beaten at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. After this, the Allies gained the upper hand, outnumbering the Japanese in crucial aircraft carriers whose aircraft could project power out across vast distances of the Pacific.

For much of the war against Japan, the Royal Australian Navy operated in conjunction with the much larger US Navy. Not until late 1944 was the Royal Navy free to form the British Pacific Fleet for operations in the seas off Southeast Asia and in the Pacific.

Plymouth Naval Memorial commemorates over 1,700 Royal Australian Navy personnel of the Second World War, many of whom died in Asia or the Pacific. 

The CWGC Naval Memorials commemorate tens of thousands of seamen who served in the Commonwealth’s navies during the World Wars, acting as permanent points of commemoration for those with no known grave but the sea.

Prisoners of War & Victims of the Hell Ships

Ambon War Cemetery & Ambon Memorial

Image: Notice something different about the Stone of Remembrance pictured here? We use different materials and stones for different climates, such as Ambon, Indonesia

Australian forces arrived on the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) in December 1941 to reinforce the Dutch garrison protecting the important airfield at Laha. On 29 January 1942, Japanese forces invaded the island and quickly overwhelmed defenders, who were forced to surrender on 3 February.

Over the next two weeks, some 300 of the prisoners who had defended Laha were summarily executed and buried in unmarked mass graves around the airfield.

A former Dutch army camp on the island was used to hold Allied prisoners of war, captured during the invasion. Ambon War Cemetery was constructed on the site of this camp (known as Tan Touy) after the war and graves were brought in from the surrounding area and islands.

The cemetery contains over 1,900 Commonwealth servicemen, the majority of them Australians, who died during the Japanese invasion of Ambon and Timor, plus those who died in captivity in one of the many camps constructed by the Japanese on the Moluccas Islands, including many British prisoners who were transferred from Java to the islands in April 1943.

Standing alone before the cemetery is the Ambon Memorial, which commemorates 442 men of the Australian forces who died in the region and have no known grave.

Yokohama War Cemetery

Image: Yokohama War Cemetery is the only Commonwealth War Graves site in Japan

As well as camps across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Allied prisoners of war were taken to toil in factories and fields in Japan. As early as March 1942, they worked in camps across Japan, and some even witnessed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Following the Japanese surrender, Commonwealth forces were stationed in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) from 1946.

Whilst US forces were responsible for THE military government of Japan, BCOF, with its headquarters at the naval base at Kure, was responsible for supervising demilitarisation and the disposal of Japan’s war industries. Yokohama War Cemetery was built after the war by the Australian War Graves Group to commemorate Commonwealth servicemen who died as POWs, or as occupying forces post-war.

Australian, Indian, Canadian, and New Zealand servicemen are buried here. The total number of burials exceeds 1,550. The cemetery also contains the Yokohama Memorial, which commemorates 20 members of the Army of Undivided India and the Royal Indian Air Force who died while serving with the occupation forces in Japan, for whom no burial or cremation information exists.

The Yokohama Cremation Memorial, a shrine which houses an urn containing the ashes of 335 soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Commonwealth, the United States of America and the Netherlands who died as prisoners of war in Japan, also stands within the cemetery. Their names (save for 51 who were not identified) are inscribed on the walls of the shrine.

Singapore Memorial

Image: Tens of thousands of men and women of the Commonwealth are commemorated by name on the striking Singapore Memorial

The Singapore Memorial, whose sweeping curves rise above Kranji War Cemetery, commemorates over 24,000 servicemen and women of the Second World War who died across Southeast Asia who have no known graves. While some died because of combat, their remains lost or rendered unidentifiable by the cruel fortunes of war, many others died while prisoners of war of the Japanese.

Some 80,000 Commonwealth servicemen and women became POWs following the Fall of Singapore, while many thousands more were captured as Japanese forces overran much of Southeast Asia. The Japanese treated their prisoners, military and civilians, deplorably, subjecting them to brutal treatment, torture, execution, malnourishment, medical experimentation and forced labour.

To fuel the Japanese war machine, prisoners were transported to camps to work across Japan’s newly conquered empire. Crammed aboard makeshift transport ships, prisoners were often forced to endure suffocating heat in dark, humid and fetid conditions with little to no sanitation.

At sea for weeks on end, hundreds persisted in these “Hell Ships”. More tragically still, the Japanese did not mark the vessels as carrying POWs and several were attacked and even sunk by Allied aircraft or submarines.

Thousands of victims of these Hell Ships are commemorated by the Singapore Memorial, alongside many thousands more who died toiling on the Burma-Siam Railway, or in other work camps whose remains were never recovered.

The Empire at War

Nairobi War Cemetery & East Africa Memorial

Image: Even in Africa, such as here on the East African Memorial, Nairobi, Kenya, victims of the war in Asia are commemorated

The Commonwealth Forces in Asia drew on manpower from across the British Empire. Over 90,000 troops from East and West Africa served during the Burma Campaign.

They were recruited from Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (Ghana), Nigeria, Northern & Southern Rhodesia (Zambia & Zimbabwe), Tanganyika (Tanzania), Uganda, Nyasaland (Malawi) and Kenya. Formed into three infantry divisions, they served in India, Ceylon and Burma from 1943 and fought with distinction until the end of the campaign.

During the war, danger was not just limited to the front lines. Of the 2,200 names on the East Africa Memorial in Nairobi War Cemetery, Kenya, 864 belong to those lost in the sinking of the SS Khedive Ismail on 12 February 1944.

The Khedive was carrying men of the 301st Field Regiment, East African Artillery, plus support troops, as part of a convoy between Kenya and Ceylon when she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the Maldives. Sinking within minutes, of 1,500 men and women aboard, only around 200 survived. 

In addition to those 864 named on the East Africa Memorial, nearly 400 others are commemorated on memorials in the UK, India and Bangladesh.

Take a virtual tour of CWGC Asia sites with the For Evermore App

We are very excited to introduce our new For Evermore mobile app available on iOS and Android!

Bridging the gap between virtual and digital commemoration, this new app puts some of our most iconic cemeteries and memorials in the palm of your hand.

Explore our sites virtually with virtual tours powered by Memory Anchor, curated by expert CWGC historians. From the Western Front to the Pacific Theatre, explore historic sites at your leisure.

The app draws in thousands of stories from For Evermore: Stories of the Fallen, our online digital archive.  Now you can visit a site and scan a headstone to see if we’ve got a story about them.

Download the app today and began your own For Evermore journey.