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My father, Harold Ernest Darville, was employed by a subsidiary of British American Tobacco as a Lithographic Printer. He was based in Shanghai from 1924 and in 1934 was transferred to the Singapore factory of London and Eastern Printing Company to take up the post of General Manager.

We lived with our mother Edith in Westcliffe-on-sea and with signs of approaching war in Europe my father thought we would be safer with him in the Far East. After many cables to and fro my mother was finally persuaded to take the family out to join him. (the family consisted of Edith (40), Sybil (17)
Natalie (15), Audrey (11) and Ann (23months).

I left school (St Hilda’s School for Girls, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex) in the summer of 1939 at the age of 17 and eventually we sailed from Tilbury aboard the SS Narkunda on November 13th and travelled eastwards via the Suez Canal arriving in Singapore on December 16th.

We settled at 14, Anderson Road, Tanglin and a few days later on New Years Eve at a Dinner and Dance at the Singapore Swimming Club I met the young, tall, good-looking RAF Pilot Officer who was eventually to become my husband. The story of our love affair is yet another story!

On 28thJune1941,18 months after our initial meeting, we celebrated at the Swimming Club as our engagement was announced. Plans were made for our wedding at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore on 28thFebruary1942.

Entries from entries in my fiancé’s Log book show War was declared on 8thDecember1941 while he was serving with 62 Squadron at Alor Star. The next morning they evacuated down country to Butterworth where he was injured in a Japanese dive bombing raid on the station.

Due to circumstances it was to be 2 years (December 18th 1943) until the marriage was able to take place in a very different part of the world!

My fiancé was transported by ambulance down Malaya stopping at various hospitals over a 2 week period and just ahead of the Japanese. He reached Jahore Hospital on December 22nd where my father was able to drive me to visit him several times. On 16th January 1942 he left on a hospital ship for the British Military Hospital in Karachi, India.
(31st January 1942 British and Commonwealth forces withdrew from the mainland to Singapore)

My mother and two younger sisters (Audrey and Ann) left Singapore on December 22nd (the same day as my fiancé reached Jahore Hospital) and sailed to Perth, Western Australia with other families.

My sister Natalie (17) and I (19) had to remain with my father and things became very chaotic in Singapore.

The Japanese were about 10 miles from the house and had started shelling the Island. Natalie and I did try sleeping under a mattress on the floor but it was too hot.

I was secretary to the Controller of Foreign Exchange in the Union Building on the seafront having left my job at RAF Headquarters.

Natalie remained in her secretarial job with the RAF and was given a gun when in trenches during raids! Eventually she came and stayed with me in the Union Building.

My father had been making plans to get Natalie and myself away and had cabled his company (BAT) at all branches around the Far East to look out for us and to help us with accommodation and money.

We had been due to leave earlier as 3 large ships were to be filled but when we arrived at the docks at the appointed time the ships had left half empty because the docks had been heavily hit and on fire.

We were in my office when my father walked in and announced that a Chinese evacuee ship was due to leave and we were to be on it. We couldn’t go back to the house but did have a small case each for such an emergency. Mine contained letters, wedding dress material, veil and head dress.

Later I couldn’t remember if I had said goodbye to my Boss! He was a prisoner of the Japanese and after the war was Governor of Hong Kong — Sir Robert Black. Only recently I looked up his address in Who’s Who and wrote to him and apologised. Had a lovely letter back!

On board my father handed me his Parker Pen as mine was left in the house. He left with Natalie’s fiancé John Jacklin, who had spinal trouble, and was off flying. War changes everything — she was allowed to become engaged at 17.

F/lt J. E. F. Jacklin survived the war but unfortunately the engagement did not. Both John and Natalie went on to marry different partners.

Queuing up to show our passports to the Purser I noticed the assistant Purser. I checked with an officer as to where the familiar face came from and was not surprised that he came from Westcliff in Essex. We had been to the same Prep school when we returned from Shanghai. He and the officers looked after Natalie and I who were the youngest of about 12 other Europeans. The rest of the passengers were Chinese.

We were told we would be going to Batavia (Now Dakarta) and my father had said that if we landed in India my fiancé and I should marry and look after Natalie.

(British Steam Navigation Company Line, SS Madura, 9875 tonnes, was launched in 1925 and survived the war to be finally scrapped in the UK in 1953)

We were one of 6 ships and once away from Singapore it wasn’t long before the klaxon horn sounded to indicate an air raid. Natalie and I were in the bath having been warned to stay together.

We were told to go to what was considered the safest place on the ship, the dining salon, and spent some time sheltering under the tables. We were hit by Japanese planes twice.The first bomb hit the side of the ship killing the Doctor and damaging the ships medical room.

The ship was on fire so we found ourselves on deck in only dressing gowns and life jackets. We Europeans formed a chain and passed pails of water to the source of the problem.

Then we set about dealing with the dead and wounded. We used empty Australian jars/tins filled with sea water to wash wounds, tore up sheets off the bunks for bandages. We were lucky as we had a Doctor’s wife aboard and she organised us. They had to give injections with a crooked hypodermic needle found in the bombed surgery.

I was looking after one of the crew who had internal bleeding and was taking off his shoes when he died. In shock I offered to sew him into a sack for burial but my offer was refused.

I spent the time afterwards looking after an officer in his cabin; he was semi-conscious, had shrapnel in his head and body and his hair had been burned off. He was calling me Mary, the name of his wife.

An older Australian woman who had been drinking and lurking since the ship left Singapore kept coming in and stroking the officer’s head. In the end I asked Natalie to report the woman and an officer arrived and removed her.

We had to proceed to Palembang in Samatra to leave the wounded who needed hospital treatment. Because of the hole in the ship the passengers were given the option of going ashore to proceed overland down Samatra before crossing the Sunda Straits to Java. The officers begged passengers not to leave them alone and after discussion Natalie and I decided that we would stay aboard as the ship, in spite of the gaping hole in its side, had at least got us that far.
(a dented pewter hip flask engraved ‘SS Madura’ still survives.)

Things were alright as we passed down the Java coast and eventually we reached Batavia where we saw many familiar RAF uniforms.
We were told we were to stay with a Dutch couple until there was a ship leaving for Australia. This proved difficult as they spoke very little English and did not seem to realise the seriousness of their position in view of the imminent fall of Singapore.

A few days later we were told we were to go up country to stay with another company family. Here it was peaceful and we were so well looked after by an English host and his Dutch Wife.

We travelled on an Indonesian Railway train which proved to be far superior to the trains in the UK. In one whole carriage there were 8 aircraft type reclining chairs and delicious food was bought to us. (1st Class train tickets Batavia-Semarang West survive)

The next message was to return to Batavia as there might be a chance of a ship to Australia.
We were met by 2 young men and later leaned they were expecting the 2 girls to be children!
We were told to expect 14 men for breakfast the next morning. All the men had evacuated their wives and their servants had run away. Our hosts were the only ones with a servant.

Talking to a fellow (working in something to do with oil) next to me I nearly fell off my chair as he had known my fiancé at school.

Our host were so kind and we had their car and driver while they were at the office. I recall we saw the film ‘No, No Nanette’ whilst we were there.

Sad that we received notice to go to the Docks at Tanjeng Priok as there could be a ship and we unable to say our farewells and had to leave a note of thanks.

Once on ship (SS Charon- Ocean Steam Ship Co) we were delayed by 4 hours but eventually sailed. It was to be over 40 years before we learned the reason for the delay and it came in a British American Tobacco magazine.
Maps of Malaya had been printed by the Manager of the London Eastern Printing Company (B.A.T.) ready for the re-taking of Malaya and Singapore at a later date and were being sent to Australia.

My father was the manager in question but as he was killed in an air raid, just before the surrender on February15th1942, he never heard that the maps had reached their destination safely.
The writer of the article apologised to all who had been kept waiting at the docks!

Unknown to us, due to lack of communications, my mother had met every ship that turned up and was told that the last expected had docked. She finally learned we had got a cab to where they were staying!

Having been reunited with her elder daughters Edith decided after a few months in Perth to return home to England so the family travelled to Sydney. Whilst staying at the Wentworth Hotel Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour.
We were staying at the Wentworth Hotel when the Japanese midget submarines entered the harbour. The manager of the hotel carried my younger sister Ann (then 4) down the street in an eiderdown and we sheltered in the crypt of what I now understand was St James’s Church. We could hear the trains crossing Sydney Bridge.
According to Australian sources: On the night of 31 May—1 June 1942 three Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour and attacked the shipping there. Neither of the principal targets (the cruisers USS Chicago and HMAS Canberra) was hit, with only the converted ferry Kuttabul sunk for the loss of twenty-one lives.
Ann was particularly distressed at being separated from her father and insisted a place at the meal table was laid for Harold. Whilst in Sydney she did not want to eat and lived for sometime on a diet of ice cream supplied by the hotel manager.
We returned to England in a meat refrigeration ship, the Denbighshire which was small (only a handful of passengers) but fast; because of this the Captain chose not to go in a convoy. We proceeded alone across the Pacific past Tahiti to the Panama Canal.
Here the GIs boarded the ship, put up a barrage balloon and stayed with us through the canal. On the eastern side they left with their balloon.

We travelled through the Caribbean and across the Atlantic to Belfast and eventually to Heysham where my mother was just quick enough to prevent our only box from going astray. Most of our belongings were given by the Australian Red Cross as everything was lost in Singapore.

They arrived in July in Heysham, Lancashire and traveled back, through a war torn England to stay with Edith’s mother in Pinner, Middlesex

In November 1939 the family had set out from Tilbury on the voyage to Singapore (via the Suez Canal) and less than 3 years later they returned to England (via the Panama Canal) having circled the world.

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