大象传媒

Singapore's fall to the under-rated, not to say despised, Japanese was one of the blackest moments of the war. Whether or not the guns pointed immovably and helplessley out to sea, the military minds in charge of this outpost of the Empire failed to prevent the Zeroes from destroying the two battleships meant to protect it - The Repulse and The Prince of Wales. The rapid rate of advance down the Malay Peninsula, effected by soldiers on bicycles and familiar with the jungle, also caught the defenders on the back foot. Percival surrendered on the 15th of February 1942.
Six weeks earlier, on New Years Day 1942, my mother, my brother and myself were waving from the deck of a small Chinese coasting vessel, to my father waving back, feet wide apart and who knows whith what feelings of despair. "Women and children first", and out mother, were it not for us, was all for staying. (Our sister Betty, at eleven, was at boarding school in England.) My seven year old mind was on the Pinocchino book left behind. Five year old David remembers our father getting into a car (or taxi) and driving off.
It was a desperate parting: I quote from my mothers account: The captain took us out into the roads, avoiding a terrific air raid that night, and sailed at five in the morning. Ceylon-bound. Northwards, the Straits of Malacca were under Japanese control, so our course lay south, along the coast of Sumatra. To avoid minefields we stopped dead at night. During the frequent alerts we had to sit on the dining-room floor, relying on the three steel decks over our heads.
Normally the ship carried cargo and a dozen passengers. My mothers figures:166 Europeans, including 80 wounded soldiers; 4 families in our cabin, with floorspace, dressing space, for one at a time. Insufficient water, refrigeration, fresh food toilet facilities.
Trouble was anticipated going through the Straits of Sunda, between sumatra and Java. Such alarms as there were came from two waterspouts, one passing within spraying distance. Krakatoa, the volcano which had erupted in 1883 and sent it's ashes circling the earth, was also sighted.
Out into the Indian Ocean, we could breathe easier: less liklihood of mines, air attack and torpedoing. And I imagine piracy was discounted: I understood the spikes fanning out all round the ship were the equivalent of razorwire. But no anti-aircraft, or any other gun.
It took 14 days, as against the usual six, to reach Colombo, the only further alarm being talk of a submarine. "literally no accommodation": my mothers words. Then two days in a de luxe hotel. then into a "fifth-rate boarding-house" in Colombo. Finally, sharing a house "with a friend who used to live in Singapore".
Of Colombo I remember bullock carts, a ship on fire in the harbour and anti-air craft artillery bringing down showers of ceiling plaster. But not our whooping cough! Thenonto Natal, South Africa.
My father, William Alfred Corkill (born 25.2.1897, Liverpool) was a WW1 Private (under age?), machine Gunner Western Front and with Allenby in Palestine;. graduated Liverpool as a metallurgical engineer. 1922 he joined STC (Straits Trading (or Tin?) Co.). he was a captain in the Singapore Volunteer Force, later resigned. He was recalled WW2 as 10697 W.O.2 (C.S.M). POW on 15.2.1942 (fall of Singapore). he was in Changi Gaol then sent to labour on the notorious Burma Railway. he died 9.9.1943 (beri-beri or dysentery?). He is buried in Siam (Thailand), plot 201 St. Lukes Cemetery, Tarsao (Tarso?), later apparently moved.

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