大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with George and Peggy Lapsley, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
====

The Japanese had very few prisoners, because the Japanese believed that if you鈥檙e taken prisoner it鈥檚 ignominious and you can鈥檛 go back to your family. So a lot of them would save the last bullet either for themselves of to kill a British soldier and then they knew they鈥檇 be killed. So there was very few. But there was a few of them worked in the hospital who had given in. And these Jap conquerors became totally and utterly subservient. They worked in the hospital, I was in the hospital, and they鈥檇 do all the menial tasks, cleaning and so on. But after you had the meal, any meal, they would come round with a dish, a bowl or a tin and took all the food that was left. It could be rice, meat, scallions, it could be anything, but it all went into the same bowl. And then they wolfed it. So these Japanese didn鈥檛 starve. These thin starved Japanese, became quite big bloated people from the food they鈥檇 eat. There was no fear in them.

They drove their own lorries for a while. Until we stopped it. We had to get a soldier or somebody, a sailor to go with them driving these lorries. Because as they were driving those big lorries along the street, don鈥檛 forget, the houses were made of wood. They would see a common or garden soldier, not a private but a Lance corporal. And of course, the jap driver, one hand went down and the other hand went up. And the lorry just go and knock down the houses and so on. This was the conquerer being saluted. And we had to stop. We had to get a man to grab the wheel while they were doing all this saluting. But they were subservient.

I hate them to this day. And yet I met, we met when we were on holidays once we met 6 lovely Japanese girls who were very nice and came down to kissed me bye-bye. But still, the Japanese were really, really cruel. We went to Changi jail and we went here there and everywhere. The Japanese were really, really cruel. Cruel people. The Bushido, I think they called it. They would kill. But they couldn鈥檛 go home, so they ...
I had a charpoy, which is a bed, and I used to work, and during the middle of the day you would lie down. It was too hot to work in the middle of the day. So I鈥檇 go down to my bed and lie in my bed. It was under an awning, which meant it was cool. But we got a new recruit, who of course, we鈥檇 say his knees weren鈥檛 brown, that meant he鈥檇 just come out. He said 鈥淧addy, can I have a loan of your charpoy?鈥� And I said, 鈥渟urely鈥�. But what he did was, he took it out into the sun to get more sunshine. There was a Jap in the school opposite. In the tower, who鈥檇 been there for days and days and days. And he shot him. And then the army came along and blew the top off this tower. That鈥檚 a cruel story, but there you are.

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