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This story is transcribed by me , Graham Shepherd , from discussions with and notes provided by Edwin Kearsley and will be added to the site with his permission . He understands the sites terms and conditions .

Immediately we got to Changi Barracks in February 1942 - where we stayed until June 1942 - we went out on working parties daily , working under the Japanese we were loading and unloading ships , clearing rubble and rebuilding the blast sandbag walls .

In June 1942 I was included in a party of 2000 POW’s to go to Thailand , leaving Changi by truck for the railway station . I was allowed one army pack , a water bottle and utensils - that was the most which most men had . Officers in the party took kit bags full of clothes , camp beds etc . 32 men were enclosed in each covered goods truck and the journey took 6 days , the train stopping twice a day for a meal of rice and vegetables and water . We managed to scrounge some hot water from the engine driver to make tea . For toilets you were allowed to go to the edge of the undergrowth . At night and when the train was moving you had to hang out of the door with other POW’s hanging onto your hands until you had finished . Conditions in the truck were very bad .

We arrived at our destination - Bampong , Thailand - a small village , which had a large Buddhist Temple . We marched 4 miles to our POW camp which was built on a paddy field close to the railway line to Bankok , the accommodation consisting of bamboo shelters and attap roofs . We had 18 ins. per man and slept on bamboo platforms which were infested with bugs and lice , which got into the seams of our clothing and had to be squashed .

The latrines were 5 ft. deep trenches with a covered top with openings cut in . The camp flooded twice while we were there , due to no drains , and the latrines got flooded and the contents came into the flooded huts , including snakes .

Water was carried into the camp and we were allowed 3 pints /day . Two men who tried to escape were paraded before the camp , then taken away by the kempi ( military police) - we heard that they had been shot .

Meals were very bad - not enough to eat - and consisted of : morning meal - a pint mug of what was called " pap" rice ( ¾ watery ) , one mug of so-called tea : midday meal - mug of rice which usually had maggots in it , half a mug of watery stew : evening meal - same but sometimes we would receive a rice rissole or half a scotch egg .

After a few weeks I went to work in the cookhouse . My first job was to make tea - one small bag of tea leafs dipped into each of the 10 one gallon containers of tea for 3 meals . We dipped the bag into each container until the water looked brown - no milk or sugar . The tea leaves were then dried and used to make cigarettes using whatever paper was available , including hymn books and bibles .

Other POW parties started to come up from Singapore , on their way to Kanghanaburi to work on the railway ,so I had to work in the cookhouse at night . The Thais used to hang around the camps to buy watches , pens , cloths etc from men who wanted to get money to buy eggs and any other items . When they left most of them had sold their spare clothes and their own private items .

In October I was moved up to Kanchanaburi with a party of 125 men . We were taken by boat to the other side of the River Kwai , then marched to the No.4 base camp at Chungkai . Accommodation was huts holding 200/250 men , which were over run with bugs and lice . Food consisted of maggoty rice and vegetables ( which included sweet potatoes , lettuces , pumpkins - though not on the same day -. A live water buffalo would be brought in every so often , which had to be killed by one of the POW’s and divided out amongst the cookhouses for their huts - we saw very little meat , since the camp held over 2000 .

At Chungkai I started having tropical ulcers on my legs , which started growing bigger ( no sleep at nights , terrible pain ) and in December I was sent to hospital for treatment . The hospital was short of medicines , bandages and had very few medical instruments . My ulcers kept getting bigger , so they tried another treatment which if it failed would result in my leg being amputated . A number of POW’s had already suffered amputations .

My ulcers started to improve , but one morning I woke up with a feeling around the ulcers and having taken the bandages off , they were swarming with maggots , caused by a dirty bandage . They had eaten into my leg and were removed using tweezers over the next few days . My leg was left with a large deep wound . I was eventually discharged from hospital after 5 months .

During that time someone had stolen my blanket , so I had to get a rice sack to use as a blanket . By the middle of 1943 the camp had now grown in size to around 12,000 , mainly as a result of sick POW’s from up country who were building the railway . Amputations were now increasing and with beri-beri , malaria , dysentery and a lack of food adding to the problems , deaths were becoming more frequent . Around 25 a day was not unusual .

I was placed , together with my mate , on 3 days ‘ confined to barracks ‘ by a Royal Marine Officer after being put on a charge for not doing PT . Laughable really , since we were still on the sick list due to our leg problems and not fit to do it and neither were we out on a working party .

Concerts were allowed in the camp every month and during one of them a song was used to get a message around the camp . The concert party kept singing and acting over and over " Antonio and his ice-cream cart" which was to tell everyone that Sicily had been invaded.
This was a great boost to our morale .

During one concert an allied bomber flew very low over our camp on their way to bomb Bangkok .

On one occasion three men got caught near to the Burma border trying to escape and were brought back to camp where they were continually beaten up by the guards for at least three days and nights . One morning they were taken out of the camp and made to dig their own graves before being shot .

I was moved from Chungkai with 49 others in early 1944 to help build a hospital camp at a small village called Nakom Paton , where we were joined by a further 450 POW’s . There was no running water etc. and this had to be brought from the village taps in water tanks . Food was very poor and there was very little of it being mainly watery stew and maggoty rice .

Our main job was to level the paddy fields and a party of 30 men with spades , chunkels and small baskets had to dig out 32 cubic meters of earth and carry it to where it was wanted . The camp was regularly flooded since there was no drainage and a 6/8 inch mud quagmire formed .

In June 1944 I left with a party of 250 men to return to Singapore and they reported that all the camps were overrun by lice , bugs , shortage of water and food and a lack of clothing . Most of the prisoners clothing including their shoes had rotted away . On the way back to Singapore we were sent to another camp at Non Pladuk for 6 weeks . I had caught yellow jaundice which was getting worse and was ordered to go to hospital , but I refused as I wanted to stay with the party going to Singapore particularly since I met two of my old section from before we were taken POW’s .

We left for Singapore in goods wagons - 42 men in each one - which were very hot and airless during the day and at night when the doors were closed it became very hard to breath . The journey took 7 days and we got two meals a day including 2 pints of water . It was July when we arrived back in Singapore and we were taken by truck to a camp at River Valley Road . This was good accommodation , had running water , electricity and consisted of wooden huts with two tier bedding platforms and housed 300 men . Unfortunately the food here was just as bad and very little of it . We were issued with clothing etc. since we were going out on working parties . The working parties varied and whenever possible we would try and do as much damage as possible and stealing what we could , like palm oil , sugar , tobacco and salt .

If caught at the search , you would be beaten by the guards and made to eat or drink until you were incapable of taking any more . Unloading coal boats was one task and working in the holds was terrible and at the end of the shift you were as black as a native . No masks were issued . Other tasks included making the ground level for oil tanks , clearing rubber bales and dried copra bags .

Like all other POW’s I was always hungry and would eat anything available . Dried copra ( coconut) was stored in bags and we would steal from the bags . We would also put it in the fire and burn it black - it tasted like burnt toast . When we went on working parties to remove car and truck engines from damaged vehicles we would damage them as much as possible or remove parts from them .

If we got hold of any food we would hide it in containers with false bottoms and water bottles . If caught at the second search at the camp entrance you were beaten up outside the guardroom where you had to stand for about 4 days without food and water and at every changing of the guard you were beaten again .

Another Christmas passes - same old food - same old beatings - and sickness .

Hope 1945 will see some change .

Story continued in Part 3

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