大象传媒

This account was provided by Ted Staveley and recorded by Denis Price of the 大象传媒 People's War Team at the 大象传媒 Open Centre, Hull.

One of the most momentous events for me in the Second World War was to be present in Singapore in 1945 among other Royal Navy personnel. We were lining and guarding the Municipal Building where Lord Louis Mountbatten accepted the surrender of Singapore and Malaya from the Japanese Military.
Our main job in going ashore in Singapore was to take control and keep order when the Japs had laid down their arms. I clearly remember groups of well dressed ( better than us) Japanese soldiers wandering about aimlessly. These we rounded up and handed over to the Australian Army. As order was being restored a surprising amount of traffic began to appear on the roads so I was quite amazed to be ordered to do 'point duty' at a busy crossroads in spite of my protestations that I'd never done it before (or again). As 'can't' isn't a word in the Royal Navy's vocabulary I was ordered to try! It didn't work out too badly but it didn't earn me any promotion.
With the liberation of Singapore came the liberation of its POW Camp known as Changi Jail and its many Allied prisoners who'd suffered terribly at the hands of the Japs. Each of us sailors 'adopted' a newly released prisoner and took him back on board our ship, HMS Khedive. When on board we treated them like Royalty. All were in a sad physical condition. Our ship's cook had prepared a gigantic special meal for them which many couldn't eat. All us sailors gave these chaps our ration of rum, which bearing in mind the condition they were in, and being well meaning, was probably the wrong thing to do.
We then escorted them back ashore to the newly liberated Changi.
Of all the events in the war, what we did on this day gave me more pleasure than anything.

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