大象传媒

We know very little of escapes of ex-Japanese prisoners and to hear of one, I imagine, must be something worth listening to. So here is my story of this event, 45 years ago, just as it happened. Though it is a bit dated now it was, nevertheless, a grave decision for me at the time.

I mention the following because it is really the beginning; I was stationed in Maymyo, a Hill Station above Mandalay in peace-time Burma in March 1941 after being conscripted in 1940. Before being captured I had already travelled much of the country from Mandalay to Toungoo, Nyaunglebin, Pegu and also from Mandalay down the west road to Yenaungyaung (Allanmyo, Magwe and Prome, which is east and west of the Pegu Yoma 鈥� a small mountain range). Naturally, I didn鈥檛 think of the ominous consequences Yenaungyaung held for me. I also travelled east to Taungyi, Heho and Kentung in the Southern Shan States and on the Thailand Border, having crossed the Salween by raft. The reason I did so much travelling was because I was the driver for a Brigadier with his staff car and this was ultimately the reason for my capture 鈥� I used time to immobilise the car. The order had already been given, unbeknown to me, for 鈥渆very man for himself鈥�, but I was the last to be told, in fact, I was left waiting for the Staff Captain to return to collect money and documents from the car. I delayed a little 鈥� a little too long.

Meanwhile British and Indian troops crossed the Yin Chaung 鈥� a tributary that flows into the Irrawaddy. This was where Japanese troops were waiting, on horseback in the water with their swords and rifles, for stragglers trying to cross the Chaung.

I had travelled in a truck with Rajputs for a while, solely on my own. During the retreat from Burma in April 1942, I, along with 6 others, was travelling in a truck towards Yenang-Yaung oil fields when we ran into a mortar attack and the truck stopped 鈥� it was the only one moving. There were many, many other trucks nose to tail caught up in this road block, under mortar attack. That is the way things happened in 1942. We scrambled off the truck and dived underneath it as the mortars fell. Two men were seriously wounded. I suffered four shrapnel wounds. We scrambled over and under some barbed wire surrounding some fields but were eventually captured by the Japanese. We were locked up in an empty house along with some others, plus the wounded men, for two days without food or water. The seriously wounded men were a Signal Sgt from the Gloster鈥檚 whom I knew well as he was attached to No 1 brigade HQ. The other was a KOYLI. The two men were eventually shot, being unable to stand to face the march we all had to do. It could so easily have been me. Three others were unaccounted for and another Sergeant and myself were the only two survivors. I made signs to the Japanese that there was a wounded man by the roadside, - could I bring him in 鈥� and he nodded and I managed to do this. We also met some other men, about 25 of them 鈥� Inniskillins and Cameronians who had also been captured and we were all kept in this empty house. After two days we were ordered out and ordered to take off our boots 鈥� the laces being used to tie our hands.

There were only two battalions of British troops in Burma in the beginning and only four aircraft 鈥� Gloster Gladiators 鈥� and they were at Magwe, so this gives an idea of the state of unpreparedness we were in.

We were marched off 4 abreast down a stony track to Yenang Yaung village, hopping and scrabbling in our bare feet, to another empty house where we were kept for another further two days, still without food. There were also 2 more men in this house who were near to dying. Finally, we were taken to Rangoon jail after being locked up in Magwe jail overnight. In the jail we met more men who had earlier been captured. They were from the West Yorkshire regiment. A number of them had been physically beaten into submission to conform to Japanese orders and so the remainder of us followed suit 鈥� we had to. The beatings and humiliations of us all continued for two years on and off, so you can image our state of mind after three years. We learned orders 鈥榩arrot fashion鈥� in Japanese, but the language was a great problem. There were notices placed around to the effect that anyone raising his hand, for whatever reason, against a Japanese soldier would be shot. There was a man with me in my little party who was crucified upside down before my eyes and left for several hours in the hot sun, simply because he did not bow to a patrolling guard, and there were two men shot in cold blood. Just two examples of the cruelty of the Japanese.

One month after being taken prisoner, whilst still in a fit condition, I was taken with 23 others to another part of the prison to become a guinea pig for Japanese doctors. We were subjected to 3 injections of Dengue fever, blood tests and temperature checks. These experiments lasted for a period of 4 weeks. Two men died later but the cause was unknown. The men in the experiments were from West Yorkshires, the Inniskillins, Cameronians and the Glosters. I was the only KOYLI at that time in prison.

The food in prison consisted of rice and dahl (split peas), later to improve to rice and watery vegetable stew. This was our staple diet for three years and I worked it out at over 3000 meals of rice for each man. Incidentally, the food we were given during the guinea pigs stage was rice and jagri lumps (a form of solidified raw sugar), but day in day out, year in year out, the food was the same 鈥� steamed rice with a few vegetables. Hard labour, short on food, short on clothing, no material things such as string, paper, nails or even forks, simple basic things, anything at all 鈥� anything except what we were able to obtain ourselves, but gradually books began to appear due to our own efforts in stealing and thieving. Water we had to obtain from a well. Later due to bombing raids the electricity and water supply broke down so we carried on in pitch darkness after 9 p.m. for two and a half years.

After two and a half years the Japanese decided to pay us for our labour, 1 rupee per month due to the 鈥楽pirit of Bushido鈥� 鈥� a Japanese mythical spirit 鈥� a sentiment similar to our own self consciousness to do things right. This money all went into a main fund and we were able to buy cheroots and then share them 鈥� about one per week each, and we broke them into little pieces and packed them into bits of paper 鈥� any sort of paper, which we rolled into tubes and stuck down with rice to make rough cigarettes.

We used to sleep on three planks of wood which were supported by two blocks of wood, but there was no bedding at all of any description until later when we were given washed hessian rice bags and a few blankets which were full of holes. Later on more KOYLIs arrived having been captured earlier at Moulmein, and I had to go with them. We slept on the wooden floor and that was how things remained until the very last; just sleep and work, sleep and work and be ready to jump if a Jap appeared.

The days didn鈥檛 vary much. It was work all day, supper at 8 or 9 p.m. Food didn鈥檛 vary either. It was always the same 鈥� sweepings up of rice with maggots and mouse droppings; rice for breakfast and dinner; and rice with watery vegetable stew for supper.

After six months in the prison, the officers who were captured in early 1942 were released from solitary confinement. There were about 16 of them, including three doctors, two of whom, among other things, eventually successfully amputated a leg of each of two of the prisoners, with any anaesthetic. They also attended to all kinds of other illnesses 鈥� jungle sores, cholera, dysentery, beri beri etc as best they could with no medicines of any sort. Lice infected everybody about this time, but we eventually overcame that problem.

Finally, after enduring the rigours of three years of Japanese prisoner of war life, the Commandant ordered 200 men, fit and not so fit, to get ready for a march on 29th April. The 29th April 鈥� that was the fateful date - the date when the Japanese began to evacuate Rangoon, a process which was to continue for a week or more. I had just completed my 3rd year as a prisoner of war and during the early part of my captivity I used to lie awake at night thinking of how I would try to escape if a certain situation arose. This situation did arise on 29th April 鈥� very similar to the one I had so often thought about.

Before commenting on events, just a few more words on life as a prisoner. Generally speaking it was very rough indeed 鈥� degradation, illness and death for some and not a scrap of any material thing whatsoever, the only thing we owned was our skin. We had tropical sun, flies and hard labour. Rice was our food, cooked the best way we knew how 鈥� which was a failure every time in the early weeks. Later on we became perfect 鈥� myself included 鈥� cooking rice for 200 men three times a day in near naked conditions. There were no such things as plates, we used corrugated iron cut and hammered into shape with a large stone, very primitive indeed, and my first meal for 4 days was a rice-ball eaten off a banana leaf. We used tin cans for water etc but later on we were given mess tins.

Work was hard, mostly digging always with the sun beating down, but the main thing was to try and keep well. Where there was life there was hope 鈥� though faint that was then 鈥� still always there. For many choosing life with hope was a bad bet with sickness and death as their companion. It would have been better for some to have died quickly rather than to suffer their illnesses.

Towards the end of 1944 prison life became easier, (but up to then it was quite terrible) no doubt because of organisation by the Japanese, British and ourselves. Even so, we had become well organised before then, under the circumstances, with bits of the basic material things of life taken from places where we worked. But 1942, 1943 and 1944 were grim years indeed.

The Japanese occupied all the land up to India and escape was totally impossible. During the latter part of 1944 we heard from local Burmese of the British advance into Burma, but we got very little news of any sort except Japanese propaganda. Not a word about Europe. The British attack in Burma was over some of the world鈥檚 worst terrain 鈥� mountains and formidable rivers, jungle and swamp 鈥� all of which were 800 miles from us. Eventually, one million men and arms gained the upper hand against 11 Japanese Divisions and the tide was turned, which brought our men, after having made gigantic efforts, with substantial loss of life, towards the Plains of Burma, south from Mytchina and Mandalay.

Time and work went on unceasingly, until on 29th April we set off on this march, most of us unshod, some half-dressed in various rags of clothing. I wore a Dutch army jacket and Rangoon fire service denims which had been given to me by a fireman at Rangoon Fire Station. I was well clothed in comparison to some of the others, but always you had to look after yourself. A motley crowd we looked to the local people who saw us go 鈥� 200 raggle-taggle British flanked by Jap guards. Most of the men were barefoot but we had been so long like that it made little difference. I was lucky, I had boots which I treasured and they were given to me by someone who knew he would not have need of them where he was going. I could still nevertheless, like all the others, have managed without them.

Behind us was the prison with its ugly high walls and rows and rows of two-tiered long buildings which had been our place of incarceration for 3 years. I didn鈥檛 look back. Incidentally the place was hit eleven times by the RAF and American bombers, killing British and Japanese alike whilst we were there, and we had to rebuild the thick walls which were demolished in the raids.
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We only had a vague idea of our destination but my mind was made up. I was not going to be taken across the Sittang River if we were intended to go to another camp out of the bottleneck of Rangoon. (The Sittang River was where a company of KOYLIs were left on the wrong side of the river after an officer had ordered the bridge to be blown up and they ended up in Rangoon jail with us).

The going wasn鈥檛 hard and we took turns at hauling the handcarts loaded with Japanese belongings and any bits of our own piled on top.

We were never told the reason for this march by our captors, and I assumed afterwards that we were to be used as hostages if things became too difficult for the Japanese in their retreat, bearing in mind the important thing that Rangoon is situated at the tip of a Peninsular, and to have a hope of getting out they must travel 40 miles to the main north/south road to Pegu 鈥� an important junction. Also, I found out later, there were 30,000 Japanese troops north of Rangoon between Nyaunglebin and Toungoo trying to join the main body across the Sittang River.

We plodded on our way quite cheerfully in the hot sun enjoying the tropical scene 鈥� it was a welcome change from the harshness of the prison. The march begin at 9 a.m. and was uneventful until late afternoon when we were spotted by an RAF reconnaissance plane 鈥� air activity had greatly increased 鈥� and sure enough RAF strikers followed later with some light bombing 鈥� they obviously thought we were a Jap column of some sort. Orders came for everyone and everything to take cover in the ample foliage of the semi-jungle which came down the roadside. Guards and prisoners worked hard to get everything under cover. We certainly did not want to get shot up by the RAF now.

Further raids followed, but by now the day was wearing on. I decided to have a look around our immediate countryside to see what the chances might be, and at the right moment I slipped away. I travelled a short distance through the undergrowth, tingling with excitement. Then I saw one of our men lying in a hollow in the ground terrified of the air strikes, so I jumped in with him. He was calling out hysterically 鈥淚鈥檓 not staying here鈥� and he asked if I would 鈥済o鈥� with him. Another plane came and, although its bombs fell wide, upset this man even more. In a flash, I made up my mind.
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see part 2

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