大象传媒

In late 1941 I was living in Gopeng, Perak State, Malaya with my parents Dag and Eileen Gee. My father was a tin mine manager. I was seven years old.

Suddenly one day the usual routine was completely overturned. People were packing suitcases in a great hurry. I was told we had one and a half hours to leave the house. The Japanese were coming. I vaguely knew about the Japanese making war but I had no idea they were so close.

We drove a long way in the car to Kuala Lumpur. People must have been told to go to the museum. I was surprised to find myself in a room with a stuffed rhinoceros. My Mother telephoned friends called Mr. & Mrs. Kerridge and they offered to have us to stay. My father had to leave us at their house.

My Mother and I stayed with the Kerridges for a while. I know it was over Christmas 1941. The news was getting worse apparently though I was not told anything much.

One day I was out for a walk with the Chinese amah (housemaid). The Kerridge鈥檚 houseboy ran after us and told us to return to the house, 鈥淨uick, quick鈥�. In a short time we were packing again and going to the railway station in K.L. My father and Mr. Kerridge saw us off. They did not come with us. Us was Mrs. K, her daughter, Helen, my Mother and I. We did get seats. I know my father joined the Malay Volunteer Corp. (I learned after the war that he had used his mining skills to blow up bridges and godowns (warehouses) to try to slow the Japanese surge down the peninsular).

It was night as the train went towards Singapore. The Japs bombed it on the causeway linking Singapore Island to the mainland. But we reached Singapore.

In the city crammed with refugees of every colour, we were directed to a Chinese mission school where we had two beds in a dormitory with several other women and children.

While there, a bomb was dropped on the school but it failed to go off. We were crouching behind some sandbags. As the bomb was coming I had the weirdest sensation, as if some huge animal had grabbed me by the spine and was shaking me furiously.

One night all the women rushed off to go to the shipping office. My mother succeeded in getting us two places on a ship called The Duchess of Bedford. My father was there to see us off. One day while in Singapore, my Mother had seen him in his car. We ran to catch him up and only succeeded because he had to stop for a traffic light. I was surprised to see him in army uniform. He still had our dear Cocker Spaniel, Sam, with him. We were so happy to have found each other. I think we celebrated with tea at the Raffles Hotel.

On the ship we found we were sharing a cabin with another lady and her son, called Barry. We were lucky. A lot of people were sleeping in holds and passageways.

As the ship left Singapore my Mother cried. Well she might. She was leaving her husband to the tender mercies of the Japanese and had lost her home and everything in it.

Not long after she sailed from Singapore, the ship was bombed. She sustained some damage which was repaired in a place then called Batavia, which I believe is now called Sumatra.

The ship had carried Indian troops out to Singapore. They, poor men, were dumped on the quay in Singapore just before the city fell to the Japanese. It was two weeks from when we left until the island finally fell to the Japs. My Father did manage to push his Ford car into the sea at Singapore so that the Japs would not have the benefit of it.

The ship took eight weeks to get home round the Cape of Good Hope as we could not use the Suez Canal. She had to do a ziz-zag motion all the way around to try to foil submarines torpedoes we were told. I remember stopping at Columbo where we spent a few hours on shore and a day or two at Cape Town where we all had to stay in small hotels round the city while the ship was fumigated. It was overrun with lice.

We finally got home to Liverpool in mid-march 1942. It was very cold and I remember being sick on the dock. We caught a train to London and went to stay with my aunt for a short while. God knows what my poor Mother was feeling. Though I did not know for a while, my Father was a Prisoner Of War with the Japanese at best and dead at worst. It was a long time before she found out he was a prisoner in the terrible Changi jail in Singapore. That was the good bit. He was subsequently one of thousands made to work in inhumane conditions on the Burma Railway. He did survive but minus a leg, which had to be amputated without benefit of anaesthetic, in the P.O.W. camp.

'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of Susan Pugh and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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