大象传媒

Our Officers, having agreed to surrender at a place called Garoot, gave the order that we had all dreaded hearing ...to spike all field pieces, destroy all small arms and get ready to move out. To this day I remember my feelings of frustration and despair as I wrapped the barrel of my rifle around a palm tree. I had carried the bloody thing a long way and used it too little for it to end its days bent round a coconut tree.

Our attitude to the Japanese was very cocky at this stage. We thought that the Americans would soon get us out of the mess we were in. When we reached Garoot we spent a lot of time cat-calling and jeering at any Jap soldier we saw. On Garoot station, as we waited for the train to pull out, a Jap assaulted a Dutch woman. When our blokes tried to climb out of the train windows to get at him he beat a hasty retreat.

On arrival in Batavia we were taken to a native prison called Boei Gladock. It was the real thing, with high walls topped with guard posts and the odd machine gun. For the first few days we were locked in cells, packed like sardines. A hole in the floor was the only toilet for about sixty blokes. The stench was unbelievable. The white washed walls were covered with bloody marks where bed bugs had been squashed.

After a couple of days we were allowed out into the prison yard and, despite threats, we refused to go back into the cells. Some, after cleaning the cells, did return but a number of us lived and slept outside until we left for Japan in October.

Boei Gladock was run as a British Military Camp with even janker parades and blokes doubling in full packs. We paid respect to our Officers and good discipline was maintained. The food was not good, but neither was it as bad as we were later to experience in Japan. Working parties were sent daily to the civilian aerodrome to fill in craters. The locals had a bit of a market on the edge of the aerodrome and fags, food and the odd bottle of wine coul be obtained either for cash or barter. I went on a few of these working parties and well remember seeing a huge poster outside the Rex Cinema depicting Tyronne Power in Blood and Sand - it was there for months to mock us.

A few days after getting out of the cells, some aircrew tried to escape, they were shot in the act. As I remember there were some beatings but not to the extent of later years. We were still cocky as far as the Japanese were concerned and took the micky as often as possible. Remember we were still under the impression that the Yanks were coming ... it was just a matter of time.

Disease was soon to become a big factor as weeks and months went by. Dysentery was the biggest killer and many died. Sanitary arrangements were not good, men could be seen all through the day and night straddling an open drain which ran through part of the camp. Medical treatment was crude as there were few drugs. Men died through the neglect of the Japanese. Batavia was a modern city and contained good doctors, drugs and an abundance of the type of food which would have benefited many of the sick. I,on one occasion, was saved by being forced to drink a cup of castor oil, we were also given charcoal biscuits to eat. Scabies became the biggest skin problem especially once we were in Japan; this was because of the totally inadequate diet, lack of medical supplies, soap and hot water. Tropical ulcers were very common. A graze or a cut would soon become septic. Treatment was often crude and had to be improvised but the doctors did a fantastic job caring for their charges. I still bear the scars of ulcers caused, in some cases, by my own awkwardness, other - on my shins - by contact with a Japanese squaddies steel tipped boot ... but that was later on the mainland of Japan. I remember being bitten by an elephantine red ant, whilst in Gladock, which caused an ulcer I still had when I was released some three and a half years later.

As time went on our treatment at the hands of the Japanese deteriorated. The guards became more butal and beatings were common place. Our officers were not exempt.

We had heard stories of Japanese `sleepers' - men who had lived amongst the civilian population prior to the war. A visiting Japanese Captain was recognized by one of our men - he had, apparently worked for the British as a photographer in Singapore.

Our senior officers in the camp were in the main men of high caliber, they fought hard for our benefit and won many concessions. Two stand out, the Senior Camp Officer, Group Captain Noble and the CO of the RAF personnel Wing Commander Harry Maguire. The advantages we received by having officers like Noble and Maguire were, I believe, mainly because of their insistence on maintaining discipline, which showed the Japanese that we were not just a mob and also helped our own morale. On one occasion a Japanese guard, who was beating up a POW, got the shock o his life when he was suddenly attacked by an enraged British Officer, the CO himself.

The war was always on our minds; the worry of how things were going on back home became an almost unbearable burden, especially to chaps more mature than I. Men who had wives and children or who had been the mainstay of a family had the worry of how their families were managing financially. I remember having attacks of homesickness, wondering about my brothers and sisters who were serving in various theatres of the war. I wondered whether my mother knew that I was safe. I found out later that I had been posted as missing believed to be a prisoner of war. It was a long time before the Red Cross were able to confirm that I was alive and by then a POW in Northern Japan.

A short while after arriving in Gladock I was asked to do batman's duty for Wg Cdr Maguire and his mate Sqn Ldr Henri De Gaspe Domville, a French Canadian. Sqn Ldr Domville was on one occasion severely beaten for failing to bow to a Jap soldier. His one ear was badly torn and he was then put into the condemned cell as a bit of a frightener.

One afternoon the Japs conducted a surprise search of the officers quarters. Knowing that the officers had a service compass, I took a chance and with a towel draped over my arm I casually walked past the Japs, who were checking the Sqn Ldrs gear, concealed the compass under the towel and sauntered out - no one took a blind bit of notice of me. On another occasion I managed to whisk a bottle of wine out from under the Japs noses. I walked out of the block swinging the bottle casually as I went - Domville saw me and called me all the silly so in so's you can imagine. He used to refer to me as that `arch bastard' Jeffries.

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