大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Three Counties Action, for Mark Barker, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

WE GO UNDERGROUND

On Christmas day 1943 the Emperor - in his generosity - said, 'All men, no work Christmas day'. Three of my best friends and myself decided that we would take this opportunity to find the underground place where the stores for the big guns had been kept. We got up very early, before proper daylight, nipped under the wire and followed the railway track for a quarter of a mile. We came to a huge shaft, 25-30 feet across. Huge! No top on it at all.

We paused. From the top to the bottom of the shaft there were rows and rows of large U bolts embedded. Standing on a bolt you could reach another one and gradually work your way down to the base, which we did. Just at the bottom we found three huge tanks lined up - like the tanks that deliver fuel oil. We checked and two of them were empty, but the third one had oil in it. Fortunately for us it was diesel, So we quickly filled up our containers and lined them up.

Then we thought we would take a look around. We were amazed! It was like a little village underground. Every thing was just as it had been left by our troops, sleeping accommodation, well equipped kitchen, rest rooms, games rooms, library... everything you could think of. Very interesting! Nothing edible, sadly. I suppose that during their tour of duty our men would have lived here. This was to support 'the ring of fire round Singapore', but the guns were pointing in the wrong direction.

Now we had to climb back up. It was the end of Christmas day and we'd had no breakfast of course. Nothing to eat, but never mind, we'd got what we wanted. But just as we were on the point of leaving we heard voices and clanking. It was people walking towards us, half a dozen Japanese officers all done up in their best, with their clanking swords. We had to get to the back of the tanks and hide there, hoping they'd soon go back up. Unfortunately they stayed there until it was dark. They didn't see us and we thought they would never go, but eventually they did.

We gave them about ten minutes or so, then I said, 'You stay here. I'll nip up and see if the coast is clear', which I did, quietly. As I looked out of the shaft I got the shock of my life! About fifteen feet away from me were three or four Japanese officers, chatting away, backs to me fortunately. A little way away from them was a Chinese man ...and he saw me. I looked at him and he looked at me, then he pointed down for me to go back down, which I did very hurriedly. They didn't go for some time and we realised that if we didn't get back soon there would be no food left for us. At last we made a move and as we came up over the top the Chinese man was still there, in between us and the Japanese, still with their backs to us. He signed to us to get gone along the road quickly, which we did.

We went under the wire, back into the camp and went to the cook-house. 'Any chance of a meal?' we said. The reply was, 'No, you've already had it.' 'No we haven't,' we said, 'We've been out'. 'Sorry, there's no rations left over', we were told.

We said 'Right!' But we did find a couple of coconuts, broke them up and that was our Christmas dinner. Going down that shaft had been a bit hairy. There was a price on your head of 100 dollars if you went under the wire. We would have been shot if we'd been spotted.

Life as a prisoner of the Japanese was very hairy at times, but we never said 'If' we get back home, it was always 'When'. Our group that went on to building the railway - mostly Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Regiments - were sixty in number when we first left Changi. When we came back there were only thirty survivors.

I suppose I was fortunate. I managed to hold on to a fair bit of the money from our last pay parade. I had it all sewn into my shorts. My shorts were long and the bottom part came up and fastened with press studs. They were meant to be turned down in the evening to keep the mosquitoes away. I managed to conceal the money in the double bit. Our pay from the Japanese was five cents a week. Ten cents would buy you a coconut. With my little wad, up on the railway, if I saw someone wandering about, selling something, I'd creep away and buy two or three hard boiled eggs. I didn't like the smell, but it was food.

The main problem in Thailand was the lice. We only had what we stood up in. It got very tatty but as long as it kept you decent it didn't really matter. You didn't need it for warmth. Our officers never worked, but even their clothes got tatty towards the end. There was always one officer with a group and we got to know the officers well. One chap named Smythe, Norfolk Regiment, was in charge of our group. He had many a thrashing from the Japanese because he tried to take liberties with them on our behalf. He would insist that someone wasn't fit for working and they'd kick him in the shins. He was treated brutally at times.

You had to be careful if you started chatting near a Japanese. A few of them could speak English and might pick up on you, and that would put the cat among the pigeons. The only radio I ever heard of any camp having was one that we had hidden in the bottom half of a water bottle. Being a signals unit we had some clever chaps there, but they had to be very careful as the Japanese were hot on repressing news.

THE WAR ENDS

Towards the end of the war the Japanese were very bad tempered. The first we knew that something serious had happened, that being the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan, was when we discovered that there were no guards on the entrances and exits of the camp. They had all disappeared! We began to go out for walks, which made a nice change, but we didn't go far because the Japanese were still around and they were not very happy.

Then we heard on our radio that the war was over and the Japanese had unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. They refused to admit it to us because they couldn't bear losing face.

Almost immediately we had a huge surprise. A helicopter came down in our camp and out jumped the pilot and Lady Mountbatten! She was a lovely person, very natural and friendly. She said, 'You'll soon be home now, boys. It won't be long now'. Then she told us we were filthy - which we were - and we said we were waiting for the monsoon to start and then we'd get some nice, warm water off the roofs and wash ourselves.
From then on it was a bit of a Fred Karno! There was only one person taking down notes. He gave me some kind of a medical card and wanted to know what illnesses I'd had. By the time we'd finished the card was full. I've still got that medical card. It says: 'Dysentery, Dengue Fever, Malaria, Beri Beri, Jaundice, Ulcers of legs, Marked weight loss. Fit to proceed on leave.'

GOING HOME

Anyone capable of walking had to get themselves down to the docks. There was no transport. Many were so ill that they were not fit to travel for quite some time. Between forty and fifty of us had our pockets filled with tablets - anti malaria, vitamin B and whatever - and marched down to the port.

The boat we came home in was The Monoway, a cigar shaped boat, long and narrow. It was a poor old thing!. It used to dive forward and come up, dive sideways and come up and then go backwards and come up. It did the same, no variations, all the time. Front, side, back - front, side, back. You had a job to stay in your hammock at night without being pitched out. Fortunately the seas weren't particularly rough, but it was a slow boat, very old. I suppose there weren't many boats left after the war, we had so many sunk. I think they had great difficulty getting ships to bring troops back from so many places.

Eventually we arrived at Liverpool. It was late evening when we berthed in the docks and they said we would be getting off in the morning. We were looking forward to that. In the morning they took us to the station and said, 'Tell the clerk where you want to go to and you'll be given a ticket to take you all the way'. It didn't cost anything - we had no money at all. I was given a ticket to Kings Cross. When I got there, having no money I supposed I would have to hitch-hike home but as I was walking up the platform a chap came along and said, 'Are you one of those P.O.W's come up from Liverpool?' I said 'Yes'. 'Right', he said. 'You come with me. Tell me where you want to get to.' I said, 'Well, I want to get to Finchley'. 'O.K.' he said, 'I'll soon get you there'. I popped into his taxi and off we went. It was nice of him. There must have been a bit of publicity in the newspapers about us P.O.W's.

When I knocked on Miriam's mum's front door, where she and the twins had been staying for the duration of the war, Miriam was out, but my twins were there. They had been thirteen month old babies when I joined the army and now they were little girls of seven.

AFTER THE WAR

We had got a nice, modern, semi-detached house in the borough of Kenton that joined Harrow, but when I left home to join the army in 1940 Miriam had gone to live with her parents with the two little ones. She had to find an estate agent to let our empty house. London was being bombed at that time so it was difficult to find tenants, but eventually some east-enders moved in. They didn't actually pay enough rent to cover the mortgage.

Anyway, we made an application to recover the house and get back home. We got a solicitor to handle the affair and when the case came up we were told, 'No, no, no! There's a family of nine people living in that house. They need it more than you do. You will have to tell your wife their need is greater than yours'. Charming! A real smack in the eye! So, I joined the Far East Prisoners of War Association in London and asked their advice. They said it was a totally ridiculous situation, so they took on the task of recovering our house and did an excellent job.

Unfortunately the house was left in a terrible state. I think they must have been employed by the old tramways department. Every room was painted in the old tram colour - dark brown. They'd done nothing to the outside. There'd been nine of them living in it, mum and dad, a couple of sons and a daughter and their little ones. It was in a state! It took six months to get back into it again.

I went back to work hair-dressing again. The family grew and the years passed. I am sure that my experiences as a P.O.W. affected my health as I got older. I was advised by a friend who was in the Burma Star Association that I should have been receiving a pension like so many others, so an application was made. Various people and doctors came to take down particulars and I was awarded a pension, almost a full one, dated back to ...... 1996! It was very welcome.

For the next instalment go to Olaf Chapman Part Six (A4919457)

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.