大象传媒

During the building of the Thai Kwai Railway, conditions under which we were living were becoming desperate. 1943 saw the intense pressure by the Japanese to complete the railway into Burma. My friend and I whilst working near the river, had noticed that the Japanese in their cookhouse, which overlooked the river, would throw waste food down into the water, which would then be carried away by the current. This seemed to offer some way of obtaining an addition to our diet. Charlie suggested that if we left the camp during the hours of darkness, made our way to the river below the Jap cookhouse, we could collect most of the rubbish being discarded. The thought of being caught out of the camp at night was a sobering deterent. The brutality of the Japanese and in particular the Korean guards towards European prisoners, was well known to us, but we were slowly dying of starvation, and the risk seemed worthwhile. The first attempt was very successful. We made our way down to the river under the cover of darkness, and settled down in the water up to our necks. We could hear the Nip cooks laughing and joking, as they threw their rubbish into the river. Our collection was increasing, cabbage leaves, bits of pork fat and skin, chicken heads and feet, fish heads and tails, to us a veritable banquet was spread before us. We carried as much of our spoils as we could back to the camp, quite a hard task, as the bank was very steep, and we were in poor physical condition. The next problemt was how to cook our capture? After some hard bargaining with a POW who owned a petrol tin, (the ultimate POW luxury), we made a very acceptable stew.

A sad note was that my great pal, Doug Newton, was too far gone to take any food, and died shortly after. Charlie Hewitt didn't make it back either.

We made several trips after, but the risks became too great.

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