大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's War site by Helen Oram of Scotland CSV on behalf of Alistair Urquhart and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

TRAINING AND DRAFT FOR SINGAPORE

I was conscripted three weeks after war was declared and did six weeks training at the Bridge of Don Barracks in Aberdeen, then put on the draft for Singapore. Our departure was delayed by terrible snowstorms which sealed off Aberdeen for three weeks, during which time we were billetted in Linksfield School hall.

There were no seats on the train to Dover. We sat on our kit-bags. At Dover we were put on a trawler for Cherbourg. This was the first time I had ever been sea-sick - it was horrible. From there we went by French train to Marseilles where we boarded the "Andes". The journey took three weeks, through the Mediterranean to Calcutta and on to Singapore, zigzagging to avoid submarines. By then it was December 1939. We joined the Second Battalion Gordon Highlanders which had been in Singapore since 1937.

I was struck by the order to be in bed between one and three pm, the hottest part of the day. Would the enemy also stop activity between these hours?

FORT CANNING

In early 1941, I was called to the Orderly Room, ordered to pack my kit and go to Fort Canning (General HQ) to take over the duties of the garrison's adjutant clerk, a job that required authority. I was compulsorily transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps in the rank of Corporal. At heart I was still a Gordon Highlander. The pay was a shilling a day, which couldn't even buy a pint of beer.

The first bombs fell on 8th December 1941. The Battalion sent me three boy soldiers to look after. Two were brothers, aged 14 and 15 with the surname Brind and the third boy was aged 16. They had been in the band of our regiment. My hut was built on the Singapore water reservoir. The boys were mischievous: they found their way to my hut, got in, rummaged through my kit and were playing music on a gramophone I had bought.

When the Japanese started bombing Headquarters and the reservoir, the safest place was in the basement.

TAKEN PRISONER

The boys were taken prisoner at the same time as me. The Japanese marched us back to to the barracks. At the start of our imprisonment, the Japanese wanted us to sign a form, stating that we would not escape. Had we signed, we could have been court-marshalled. We were herded into the Barracks square, packed with 30,000 people, for three days. There was no room to lie down. The Japs threatened to bring patients from the hospital to the barracks at bayonet point. The Colonel then ordered us to sign, thus absolving us. We were then distributed.

We stayed in the barracks with the other Gordon Highlanders. The Gordons education officer asked me to take the boys and school them to pass the General Certificate of Education. This was to occupy their minds. Although I was not a teacher, I gave them lessons and eventually gave the Brinds a General Certificate of Education.

The Colonel offered the boys the opportunity to change into civilian clothes and be returned to their family. To their credit, because they had joined up, they refused. Both the Brinds went through the railway and survived. After our homecoming Freddie would phone me every night: the prison camp was constantly in his mind. He died after five years. His brother is still alive.

THE HAMMER BLOW

The Japs needed 600 men to build a railway in Thailand. It would be a holiday camp, we were told, with three days work and three days rest. Unfortunately I was one of the 600.

We were taken to the railway station in Singapore and loaded, 40 at a time, into steel-sided trucks. The doors were closed. The journey in the intense heat lasted five days. There was a small gap near the door. We arranged to move round so that each man in turn got half an hour's oxygen. You can imagine the smell, since bodily functions had to be performed in situ. Men were dying.

POW CAMP

We arrived at Ban Pong, at the start of the railway.

We were told that we would walk 50 kilometers per day till we reached the work camp. We had to hack our way through impenetrable jungle. If you fell by the wayside, unless someone carried you, you were left to die. We lost quite a few on the way.

Five days later we came to what was to be our camp. We had to clear jungle to build huts of bamboo, with attap (palm-leaf thatch) roofs. The following morning, we thought we would be carrying on building the huts. No! We had to go with pick and shovel to where our part of the railway was to be. Dense jungle had to be cut through. Worse still,we had to blast through solid rock. Then the rocks had to be broken with sledge-hammers.

All we got to eat was a small handful of rice and to drink, boiled water with leaves - we never did discover what they were. No salt or sugar. It was a great treat if we got one of the big colanders in which the rice was cooked and ate the burned rice in it. The River Kwai was out of bounds.

There was no medical help. The conditions were appalling. We suffered from malaria, dysentery,lice,scabies,dengue fever, ringworm and tropical ulcers. Due to the lack of vitamins, we suffered from beriberi, which affected the muscles. My legs and body started to swell.

The Japs would beat you up for any reason. Their bamboo rods were like razors. The injuries led to ulcers. The only way to treat them was by applying maggots, which ate the rotten flesh, otherwise you developed gangrene.

Amputations were carried out by an Australian surgeon, Colonel Dunlop, a marvellous man. There was no anaesthetic. Men with amputated limbs walked with bamboo crutches.

Because the railway was not progressing quickly enough, the Japs made us carry the sick down to the railway to break up stones.

Our task then was to build the first bridge over the River Kwai. I was given a severe beating for failing to bore through a 12-inch diameter tree-trunk. The two holes did not meet in the middle. In exasperation I said to the Japanese in Scots, "You do it". The Japanese officers, educated at Oxford and Cambridge, understood what we said. They were the worst and the most brutal.

As we built the bridge, we sabotaged it. Any time we saw the chance, we would saw through bolts. Once the bridge felt the full weight of a train, it came down. The whole camp got punished.

We were made to stand in the sun all day and all night. But they wanted us back on the railway and so we had to go back to work in the morning.

IN A BAD WAY

I was sent to another camp which we had to build. The Japanese officer in charge was a sadistic brute. Ten or twelve men would die every day. Men went mental. To save them from harming themselves, we put them into bamboo cages that we built.

One night, going to the latrine, I stumbled into a Japanese guard, who proceeded to make sexual advances to me. I kicked him in the place where it hurts most, and all hell broke loose.

I was dragged in front of the Japanese officer. I was beaten. I was made to stand all day in the sun holding two large rocks above my head. When I fell down I was beaten and forced to stand up again. One of our officers remonstrated and he too was beaten. Suddenly, close to sunset, a Japanese guard dragged me over to my hut and left me. By then I was completely out of my mind.

Then comradeship came in. The medical people, who of course had no drugs, got to work. They sponged my body and cared for me. Some of the men were occasionally able to get some duck eggs and goat's milk. I was given a wee bit of this food. Gradually I was able to get rice again. My broken bones took a long time to heal. My teeth were knocked out. I got to the stage I could hardly walk due to beriberi.

I went to Chung Kai where Colonel Dunlop was based. There I was taught to walk again, using bamboo support bars. I had no better diet unless there there was some milk or eggs to be shared, and sometimes a honey type of substance. These treats were given in small quantities to those who were in a bad way.

BACK TO SINGAPORE

When the Japs decided I was fit to work again I was sent back to Ban Pong. Once again we were put into the steel trucks, to endure the nightmare journey back to Singapore. Again we lost men on the journey.

I was put to work on the Singapore docks, loading and unloading ships. If you did not work fast enough, you were beaten up.

One day I was put on board a trawler. We were crammed together in the hold, with batons placed over it. The ship sailed. We had no idea of our destination.

TORPEDOED

After five or six days sailing, the ship shuddered. It had been torpedoed by an American submarine. Someone took the batons off the hold. The ship was sinking rapidly.

I finished up in the water, in a sea of oil, swimming in my weakened state. It was dark. I swam as hard as I could to get away from the undercurrent of the sinking ship.

I got on to a raft. When dawn came, there was not another soul to be seen. My body was covered in oil, burning in the scorching heat. I was naked apart from a "jap happy" (loin cloth). I was suffering a torment of thirst and pain. I had the sense to stay awake. From my Boy scout training, I knew better than to drink the sea water, though I was surrounded by it.

Five days passed. My tongue was swollen and I was unable to speak. All the way through, I kept saying to myself, "I'm going to beat this". All the way through my prison camp experiences, I had said to myself over and over, "Survive".

I saw a ship, a Japanese whaler. I cannot remember how it happened, but they took me off the raft.

They dumped me on the deck and left me. They did nothing for me. They took me to a Japanese town - Omuta.

I was put into a prison camp, which was surrounded by high board fences. For the first time, I was given a suit of some green material - the type worn by Japanese labourers - and a pair of rubber boots.

I was put to work in the coal-mines. Conditions were very bad. The rations were cut. We got only boiled rice.

When I got back to the camp from the coal-mine, I would go to the hospital and help to care for the patients, washing them, etc.
The doctor was Dr Mathison, from Paisley. He devised a means of distilling water which was injected into patients subcutaneously.

I got to know Dr Mathison well. He also had been on the railway and realised the effects of the conditions there. I always remember his advice: if you ever get
out of here, you won't be able to eat normal food. A square of chocolate could kill you. These were sage words.

NAGASAKI

One day a plane flew over, low enough for us to see American markings. Though we did not know it, we were about 12 miles from Nagasaki.

We observed that the Japs were nervy and less belligerent. When we went to the coal-mine the next day, a lorry cornered sharply and the tyres squealed. The Japs ran away, such was their state of nerves.

A few days later, the Japs had gone. The Americans arrived at the camp. They took us to Nagasaki, where we saw the devastation. We had no idea of the nature of the bombing and couldn't understand why there were no bomb craters. The atomic bomb saved the lives of many Japanese POWs.

A SHOWER WITH SOAP

After three and a half years as a POW I was dirty, stinking,demoralised and degraded as a human being. I weighed 5 stones 12lbs.(I had been 9 and a half stones when I joined up). I was bald, my hair having fallen out at the shock of being sunk. The oil I had swallowed had burned my vocal chords. To this day I have problems with my vocal chords.

The luxury after all that time of a shower with soap! The Americans said "Hurry lad", but I couldn't. I was deloused, debugged, de-everything.

We went to an American aircraft carrier. We had camp-beds - heaven. Our first meal was breakfast. Boiled eggs rolled down chutes from the galley and the Navy lads told us to help ourselves. But I thought about Dr Mathison's advice, after existing on a diet of a handful of boiled rice per day. Some men took six eggs - and died.

That night was a beautiful moonlight night and the band on board the carrier played "Moonlight Serenade" and "Sentimental Journey". They have become my favourite songs and the organist at my church plays them for me.

I was in hospital in Manila for 3 weeks, then taken on to Hawaii where I was in hospital for one week. Then San Francisco for a further 4 weeks in hospital. The ward sister introduced an elderly lady, Miss Ash, the Matron of a recuperation home, who had volunteered to take patients out for the day. Most of my comrades were unwilling to go out with her, but I did so several times. She took me to Hollywood, the Golden Gate bridge, Red pines,etc.

Then I was sent across the USA by train to New York, a 5-day journey. Miss Ash gave me a hamper with luxuries like sweets and cigarettes. As a non-smoker, I was a popular man. Again I was in hospital for three more weeks. The highlight of my stay was seeing a spectacular performance by Sonya Heine, a Norwegian ice-skater. I visited the Empire State Building.

HOMECOMING

I sailed home on the Queen Mary, which was then a hospital ship, reaching Southampton on 18th November 1945. The journey took 6 days.

It had taken a long time to get home, since our release in August 1945. I had been away from home for six years. The real reason was political: if we had returned in the condition we were in August, there would have been a public outcry. The Government wanted to resume trade with Japan.

I was given a rail warrant to Aberdeen via Kings Cross. There the Military police asked me to look after another Gordon Highlander who was travelling to Aberdeen. He had gone mental and I couldn't make head or tail of what he was saying. I spent all night talking to him.

At Aberdeen Joint Station my mother, father,sister,another man and a lady with a young baby were waiting. Many tears were shed. I was shocked to see, after six years away, how my parents had aged with the ordeal of knowing I was a POW.

I hugged my sister Rhoda and asked if the man next to her was her boyfriend. No! This was my brother, who had been a little boy when I last saw him six years ago. The lady introduced herself as the wife of my older brother, Douglas. They had called their baby Alistair after me, since they had thought I would not be returning.

THEREAFTER

After my return I got no official help whatsoever. I ended up in Stracathro hospital for 3 months, while they tried to get me to eat. I needed to eat rice. To this day, I have a physical need to eat rice three times a week. I have to take care what I eat.

It took me years to readjust. I suffer many illnesses as a result of my POW experiences. I still have nightmares.

I have written my memoirs but have not published them as I did not wish to profit from these experiences.

This is my story - but I have not told you the half of it.

Even after 60 years since returning to Scotland from Japanese Prisoner of War camps in Singapore, Thailand and Japan, the scars both physically and mentally are still haunting me.

To this end, it is my intention to continue to expand "Survival" and record the aftermath of my life 1945 to date, bearing in mind, no help or consideration has been given to surviving Japanese prisoners of World War Two, other than monetary award at a very late stage in our lives.

This story is linked to A8435018 - "Survival" (Part 2) and A8684355 -"Learn Direct Champion Learner 2005". Both have photos of Alistair.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.