大象传媒

DIARY OF TOM MATTHEWS

1941

Oct 29 Set sail from Liverpool on 鈥楬MS Andes鈥�

Nov 10 Arrived Halifax, Canada

Nov 12 Left Halifax on 鈥楿SS Manhattan鈥� 鈥� afterwards renamed 鈥楿SS Wakefield鈥�

Nov 20 Arrived at Port of Spain, Trinidad. Gunner Hutchinson, who has gone insane is taken ashore. Leave Trinidad on 22nd. Cross equator on 24th November

Dec 08 Japan declares war

Dec 13 Arrive at Cape Town. Wrote to Ethel (wife) and then went to pictures with Sid

Dec 14 Hundreds of women came to the docks with their cars to take us to their homes for the day. Went to Wynberg

Dec 15 Rick picks us up in a Cape Town restaurant and takes us to look over his confectionery factory in a little town called Muzemberg. Went to cinema with two elderly Scottish nurses.

Dec 16 Meet a Frenchman, wife and children in a hotel. Drinking until 12. Riots and fights all over Cape Town between Yanks and British drunks

Dec 17 Left Cape Town for Libya, but convoy received orders and is diverted to Bombay

Dec 28 Arrive at Bombay

Dec 29 Went inland to camp Kirkee

Dec 31 Went to barracks at Poona

1942

Jan 18 Arrive at Bombay

Jan 19 Set sail on 鈥楿SS Wakefield鈥�

Jan 29 Arrive at Singapore

One night in Singapore we got news that the Japanese had broken through everywhere, so we took up positions and waited for them. Some of the men in houses, a Bhuddist temple, and I was in a churchyard, crouched behind a tombstone with another chap. When we saw dark forms in front and a few shots were fired. We started the battle, thinking they were Japs. After we had been shooting and killing for some time, a loud voice shouted through a loud speaker, 鈥淪TOP SHOOTING YOUR OWN TROOPS鈥�. We ran across the road and found they were a troop of artillery getting into a new position. Anyway it was good training for meeting the Japs the next night

Feb 15 Taken Prisoner of War at Singapore

Feb 16 March to Changi prison camp. From now on, starvation diet

Mar 13 March to prison camp in Singapore

Aug 26 Sent back to Changi with dengue fever and tropical ulcers

Oct 29 Left Singapore in cattle trucks 鈥� 34 men to a truck

Nov 03 Arrive at Cambini at the edge of the Siamese jungle

Nov 06 Forced march through jungle to Raga on River Menim

Nov 07 March to Tardan

Nov 08 On to Tarsoa. Hundreds die through fever, dysentery and starvation

Nov 15 Arrive at Tonchan, wearing only cotton shorts, having sold shirts, boots and hat for food. Working on railway, cutting through jungle. Our huts are built with bamboo poles, with dried leaves (called atap) for a roof. Inside we sometimes build a raised platform with bamboo poles to sleep on, but they soon get full of lice and bugs, and most of the time we sleep on the ground in the open

1944

------- to death or shot for not working as hard as the Japs would like, for stealing food because they were starving, and some because they were found with radios, or for trying to escape, and dozens of other things. Sometimes when we were working on the railway on a cliff side, they would push a man over the edge into the ravine below just for fun. During the 20 months in the jungle I have eaten monkey, python and dog. Of the three I think monkey tastes the best. Bamboo here, grows up to a foot in diameter and a hundred feet high

Jun 25 Left ------ in cattle trucks. All one thinks about nowadays is freedom and big piled up plates of food

Jun 29 Arrived in Singapore prison camp. Work in the holds of ships at Singapore docks loading or unloading ships of coal and rice. Food is now less than ever. We have to live by stealing pieces of Japanese dried fish, rice and palm oil from the dockside, although we risk our lives in doing so. When the day鈥檚 work is finished and we are back in camp we start picking weeds and leaves off trees and boil them in old rusty tins to appease our hunger

Sep 06 Left Singapore on Japanese cargo ship 鈥� 鈥楻ayoyu Maru鈥�, 600 British and 750 Aussies jammed into holds and on forward deck

Sep 12 At about 5 a.m. I watch the ships getting torpedoed one by one, (by the Americans) Some exploding and sinking immediately, some burning and some sinking slowly. So Ethel will be a widow after all, I thought. I had thought this many times before, but this time I thought it was a sure thing. At 5.45 a.m. we got two torpedoes. Luckily only a few got killed in the explosion, and the ship did not set on fire, but started to sink slowly 鈥� very slowly. Hundreds were already dead in the water, through hitting lifeboats and rafts when they jumped over. I slipped down the side of the ship into a very small lifeboat. (The Japs had already got away). Eventually, the lifeboat got so crowded that the top was almost level with the water. All this time we were drifting towards a burning ship, and some of us began to wonder if we could swim back to the ship and get a bigger lifeboat, which we could see on the after deck. Then fate decided for us. The lifeboat got full of water and overturned. Six of us got back to the ship. We got the lifeboat lowered into the water, plugged up a leak with a blanket, lowered biscuits, water and two Jap women into the boat and set ------

The diary finishes here in mid-sentence

Thomas Matthews was liberated October 1945

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by June Woodhouse of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Thomas Matthews and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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