大象传媒

We were marched off to the barracks at Changi. After a few days, we were off again - this time to Singapore to work on the docks, unloading ships to clear the warehouses which had been bombed. We helped ourselves to much-needed clothes and boots, and we managed to get some Ovaltine tablets, which we crushed up and put in our rice to give it a little flavour. We left the docks in steel railway trucks, not knowing where we were going - 30 soldiers to a truck. We were travelling for 5 days, some of the lads had dysentery and we had to open the doors of the trucks and hold them out in order for them to relieve themselves. It was red hot during the day and freezing at night. We had one meal a day, and that was rice!

Eventually we arrived at Banpong, where we slept in Atap huts and worked in water all day long. The next day we were marched up country to Kachanaburi. Some of the lads were weak, and fell by the wayside. We weren't allowed to hepl them; we had to leave them to die where they had fallen. We were marched on again to another camp, Wompoh, and we had to leave more lads by the wayside to die.

At Wompoh, we worked hard on the railway. Our next stop was Tarsao, which was a big camp with a hospital. Here I met quite a lot of my own Batallion, the Royal Norfolks. Our own Colonel was in charge, and he was beaten nearly every day for disobeying orders and arguing with the Japanese.

Some nights we had camp concerts with the lads dressed as girls; you can imagine the wolf-whistles they got! Then it was back to work on the railway with tools which were absolutely useless. We had to dig 1-metre squares of soil, put the soil on the embankment and put sleepers on it, which we had cut out of trees in the jungle. The work was hard, and the rations were very poor. We bathed, swam and washed our clothes and blankets in the River Mekon, which was close to all camps. We had one day off in ten. When you passed a Japanese, even a private, you saluted him. If you didn't, you would be beaten and kicked most mercilessly.

At Wompoh North, we were building a bridge around a cliff. We had to drill through the rock, with your mate holding the drill and you striking with a 14lb hammer. If he was weak, he would move and you would hit his wrist - sometimes breaking it. Then it was "Speedo"! The Japanese would bring the lads who were sick to hold the drills, and the lads who couldn't move out of the way quickly enough would be blasted to death. The Japanese just laughed, and pushed the dead over the side into the river below. Then we cut trees out of the jungle to make a trellis bridge; all the timber was green, making the work difficult and hard.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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