大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV on behalf of Luther Stafford and has been added to this site with his permission Luther fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

I served in the East & West Yorkshire Regiment as a ships cook on minesweepers during the war. Shortly after the war ended we were ordered to pick up prisoners from Burma and bring them back to Singapore but when we arrived we were diverted to Botavia now Jakarta to bring back mainly Dutch women and children held in prison camps throughtout the war.It was the Dutch East Indies before the war, a Dutch Colony.

Many of the children had never seen an Englishman, some had been born in the camps and none knew what milk and fresh fruit was having lived on rice and whatever they could forage. You can imagine the fuss we made of them and as ship's cook I took particular pleasure in finding the best I could for them and watching their little faces.

We made two wonderful but sad trips. On the second trip we were ordered to the foc'csle where the children were waiting to say their thankyou's to us.They ended by singing Silent Night - I shall never forget that moment for as long as I live.

At this point Luther with tears in his eyes proceeded to sing Silent Night

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