大象传媒

I had several jobs here at Kanburi, such as welding and carpentry. The food was reasonable, usual rice with a watery vegetable stew, sometimes a bit of meat in it plus the odd bluebottle fly! I left this camp some weeks later with a party of prisoners of war and Japanese guards; we walked a considerable distance, finally arriving at a stretch of road near a river. This was the River Kwai. We lay down here in the open and fell asleep for the night; it was pouring with rain.
The next day we were split up into parties, each with a guard, and got aboard some barges, which were towed by a small motor launch, driven by a Thai. Parts of the river at that time had rapids and one of the barges capsized; we lost one prisoner and one Japanese guard. As we proceeded up the river you could see high up above the trees at intervals a red flag, these may have been markers for the railway or camps. Occupants from each boat were dropped off at intervals at specific places along the Kwai.
My boatload of POWs went into the jungle to build huts; I was left with two Japanese guards for a while. I became their cook and butcher (I did not know the first thing about butchering but the situation made you learn very quickly.) I used to sleep on the ground in the cookhouse area near the firewood pile, large rats used to run over me.
I later joined the main party, building huts, cutting bamboo, felling trees, clearing the jungle and carrying earth to build up the railway embankment. We worked from early morning and returned at night. While we were doing this work, other prisoners of war from Malaya, Singapore, Java and Sumatra were being force-marched up and through the jungle to work in the camps and on the railway. These regions in Thailand have the worst climates and every known tropical disease.
I was now at Kanu, having been at Banpong, Nong Pladuk and Kanburi. I had worked for a short time on a hillside alongside elephants; I felled trees and the elephants moved them down the hillside to the river for bridge building. Other camps I was at were Tamuang and Tarsoe.
I lost count of the number of times I went down with Malaria; we had very little, if any, medical supplies. Occasionally we might get a small dose of powdered Quinine. I also had several bouts of dysentery including amoebic dysentery. I developed a small lump in my groin, which was cut out without anaesthetic. I was in hospital several times with malaria at Tarsoe. For the railway work Japanese engineers demanded a certain number of men from the camp for each days work, irrespective of the number of sick men, and to make up the days quota the Japanese often forced totally unfit men from their hospital beds to make up the number.
The Japanese made attractive promises to the civilian population of Malaya and Singapore. Many of these natives, men, women and children were forced marched up country, through the jungle to work on the railway. Some POWs and civilians died on this forced march. Many more were to die when cholera broke out. Our food rations were small and medical supplies were pretty well nil.
The food was mainly rice, twice daily, and we worked at sunrise until sunset, sometimes returning in the dark. When building the railway the engineers were issuing orders to complete several meters of the railway or sections of bridges or spans in a certain time scale. The pressure was on, so the word familiar to us from the engineers or guard was 鈥淪peedo, Speedo!鈥� this also encouraged them to dish out more brutal beatings on the prisoners of war. As we got weaker and diseases increased, more men were unable to work and according to the Japanese, those that did not work did not eat. So those who were at work forfeited a proportion of their rations to feed them. Many men died constructing the railway in this inhospitable country; they died through malnutrition, exhaustion, ill treatment and sickness; ailments such as Malaria, Dysentery, Cholera, Beri Beri, and tropical ulcers. A lot of dead were buried alongside the railway track. It was estimated that twelve thousand allied prisoners of war died, one man for every sleeper laid.
We had no red-cross parcels or any news from home. The Japanese did pay us a few cents each week, whereby we could buy the odd duck egg from the Thais. During these days on the railway, some POWs would secretly flog their watch or ring or even the clothing they had to the Thais over the wire in order to buy a little food. Those that retained their clothing and footwear found they soon rotted away in this climate. All we had was a piece of cloth about six or seven inches wide supported by string around your waist, this covered your manhood. We also made a sort of flip-flop sandal out of wood for our feet.
I did various jobs when the railway was finished, but on one occasion I, and others, travelled up country by train to carry out some ballast work. On our journey back we were spotted by a single aeroplane, he took off but returned with the rest of the squadron. These allied aircraft bombed the train and the railway. While this was going on we panicked, ignored the guards and took off, hell for leather, into the jungle. I found a large fallen tree, under which I managed to crawl for protection from the bombing and machine gunning. A Japanese soldier came and tried to get under, I pushed him out, it was either he, or I. Afterwards, with my nerves shattered, I returned to the train, it was just as if you had taken all the rivets out of it. We lost a lot of our men plus some Japanese and their horses, which were in one of the trucks. You would not think you could see anything like it. It was a terrible, bloody night. We remained near the track until morning when we had the grim task of recovering and burying the bits and pieces of our colleagues. They were buried in the large holes, which had been made when taking the earth out to build the embankments.
On return to a down river camp, I again went on working parties; I also ended up slaughtering the odd bony bullock for the Japanese, I was able to gain access to a bit more food. At this camp I went down with Dysentery and Malaria, and whilst I was ill there were large contingencies of POWs leaving camp for Japan. I t has been known since that some of the ships that the POWs set sail in were sunk by American submarines.
Another move for me, this time again on a train, where we travelled to a point up to the River Kwai where the river was wide and the bridge wrecked by bombing. We unloaded at this point, I was never sure but this may have been the Bridge on the River Kwai. The Japanese or prisoners of war had built a bamboo walkway suspended on ropes; we had the nerve-shattering task of crossing the river with the equipment. After crossing to the other side of the river, we ended up in a tree-lined plantation, this was like a cesspit; we slept there that night being stung by mosquitoes.
The following morning we boarded another train on that side of the river and took us to what I know now, my last prisoner of war camp, Pratchi.
I had, in a previous camp, met a man who was in the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was, in civilian life, a cobbler and boot repairer; the Japanese had asked, on one of their parades, for shoe repairers, he said 鈥渃ome on, here鈥檚 a job for us, I will put you right鈥�. So off we went, he helped me a taught me secretly without the Japanese knowing, I was no boot repairer. When we had finished repairing and sewing the Japanese officers Jack-boots we would knock bed bugs from our seats and put them to bed in those boots!
All through our POW days we had no news, plenty of rumours some of which we thought to be true, when the Japanese turned nastier than they usually were. On this particular day the rumours were ripe, the activities of the Japanese were suspicious; when we woke the next day we found the Japanese had gone. Our officers told us that war was over, but to keep calm.
Two days later Lady Edwina Mountbatten arrived in a jeep with two or three Gurkas; we all gathered around when she addressed us. She lifted her skirt and said 鈥淗ello boys, it鈥檚 a long time since you saw a pair of legs like these.鈥� Over the next two days we were driven out of the camp in lorries to Bankok and the following day we boarded a Dakota aircraft, this aeroplane had no seats so we sat on the floor. We flew over the railway that we had worked on; the pilot told us that one of the planes carrying the POWs had crashed the day before.
At Rangoon we went into hospital for treatment. We were addressed in Rangoon by Lord Louis Mountbatten. After leaving hospital we boarded pontoon boats in the Irrawady River and boarded a ship for home. En route for England we went to Ceylon where we were kitted out, and from here we went through the Suez Canal to Liverpool, the very same Docks where I had left four years ago.
I was demobilised on 15th march 1946 at Hereford.

A Letter to Mother

You may write a thousand letters to the girl that you adore, and declare in every letter that you love her more and more, you may praise her grace and beauty in a thousand glowing lines and keep the fondest memories in the back of your mind.
If you had the pen of Shakespeare, you would use it every day in composing written lyrics to your sweetheart far away, but the letter far more welcome to an older gentler breast is the letter to your mother from the boy she loves the best. She will read it very often when the lights are soft and low, sitting in the same old corner where she held you years ago, and regardless of its diction or the spelling or the style, although its composition would provoke a critics smile. In her sweet and tender fingers it became a work of art, stained by tears of joy and sadness as she hugs it to her heart. Yes the letters of all letters where ever you may roam, is the letter to your mother from the boy away from home.

This sentimental poem I managed to carry with me during my 3 1/2 years as a Japanese prisoner of war in Tailand.

Captain Graham Stedman
Warrant Officer Sewell
A Varham
Jack Buttolph
Bernard H Greengrass
Cyril Mon
K W Kemp
A Shortland
C W (Bill) Nicholson
Percy G Perira
Cyril Durden
L/Cpl H Chumbley
A Appleby
J Scott
J Doel
J Ridley
Edward (Ted) Clive
A E Mundford
J Whitmore
Private Bickley
D Fairman
E Gallow
J Unwin
F Earle
Padre Harry Thorpe. Australian Clergy

I have a small note book that I made from toilet tissue from one of the POW camps. The above names I wrote in it, and I make this tribute to those friends and comrades.

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