大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from Lincoln CSV Action Desk by Pat Pilling and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Pilling fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

This story was told to me by a man just before he died in 1998 about his time in the hands of the Japanese at the prison camps along the River Kwai, where he was forced to build the railway to Burma.

He was taken prisoner in Singapore in 1942 and marched up through Tailand loosing many men along the way. They were made to work 13 hours a day, seven days a week on very little food but with constant beatings and after being a prisoner for 11 months he leveloped a foot ulcer caused by bamboo. The doctor at the camp hospital tried to heal it with many different remedies, but to no avail until one day a guard ordered his foot to be amputated. This was to be performed by guards and without aneasthetic but as they were preparing to carry out the procedure, the doctor arrived and persuaded them that he could heal it. In retaliation, the Japanese Commander ordered him back to work that afternoon even though he could hardly walk. It never did heal until he came home, but he survived.

The day beofre the Americans liberated the camp, he lost his best friend to malaria and on his return home to England he went to see his friend's wife to give her letters and a copy of a map which they both drew up whilst they were imprisoned in this desperate place. It depicted where the track was going with dates and camp names, just in case they could get it smuggled out by the very helpful Thai's.

He became very friendly with his dead friend's wife after the war and married her in 1948, the marriage lasting 48 years.

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