大象传媒

My uncle who was born in Ireland, joined the Merchant Navy when he was quite young. He was trained to be a radio operator which he enjoyed very much, finally working on a big liner. Of course they were very involved in the war and at the time of Dunkirk, they were in Portsmouth. They took one of the big ships tenders to help with the evacuation of Dunkirk and were able to get many men on board. He said one of the nightmares was avoiding smaller craft in the dark. Each time he passed the mole Dunkirk he was the body of a colleague with whom he had worked for years. They made many journeys back and forth until it was finished. He had not been able to change for 10 days and when he got home he took his socks off and the skin came with them. Sadly his ship was sunk near Japan and he ws taken to the notorious Changi camp. They were treated very badly and ofcourse were starving. He always told the story of the camp commandant who stood on a box and they all filed past and he hit each one of them on the head with a heavy object. They had built a wall in the camp with the Red Cross parcels instead of giving them the food. When he got home finally he was a thin little irishman instead of the bluff one that he had been before. He used to cringe if anybody came near him. He had a big lump on his back but we never knew what caused it. For months afterwards he used to hide food.

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