大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Radio Suffolk on behalf of Mrs Joan Ince and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs. Ince fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS)in 1939. As I was not old enough to join, being only seventeen and a half,I added half a year to my age to enable me to get in. I was, at one time, called a country bumpkin and got into a fight over this and was brought up on a charge and sentenced to cookhouse duties. We were sent wherever we were wanted although I did not go abroad as I had promised my mother to stay in the UK. My last posting during the war was on Hampstead Heath. I remember the doodlebugs being dropped around us. One night a bomb exploded very close to where I was staying in rooms in Redington Road near Hampstead Heath. The vibration of the explosion caused the blackout curtain close to where I was sleeping to fall on me and I found myself completely entangled in it. My companions became concerned because they could not find me! Another incident I remember, was one evening while out walking on Hampstead Heath, a German plane flew over and actually began to shoot at me. My Canadian companion threw me on to the ground and protected me and I remember all these shots pinging on the ground around us 鈥� we were lucky not to have been hit. I also remember another time when I watched a German parachutist coming down on Hampstead Heath. He landed in a tree and the Military Police came and arrested him.

My husband, Thomas James Ince, had volunteered for a Suffolk Regiment and was sent to Singapore. He was then taken prisoner by the Japanese on February 15th, 1942. He was among the crew who helped build the Burma Railway. This was bombed as fast as they built it. As prisoners they had no clothes to wear, only a piece of cloth between their legs which they called 鈥渏aphappies鈥�. He was a prisoner for almost four years. The younger Japanese soldier guards were kinder than the older ones. The older ones would leave out dirty drinking water which would give their prisoners dysentery, beriberi, etc. but the younger guards would kick this over so that the men could not drink it. If they were caught doing this, they would be punished.

We were married in 1945. We had known each other for some years but met again at a 鈥榙emob鈥� party.

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