You should read the Nevil Shute novel, A Town Like Alice. It is a story about British women, POWs, marching all over the Malay peninsula during WWII.
I’d have posted something very similar to that, if you hadn’t first. I really like Nevil Shute’s books.
A Town Like Alice is my favorite book of all time. I have made all my children read it as well as a number of friends. The beginning is very tough as it is during the Bataan death march and you feel like it’s going to be a horribly depressing book but that all changes and it is tremendously uplifting. Such a wonderful story!