大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Three Counties Action for Mark Barker, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Preface by Mark Barker (Grandson)

"People 60 years ago seemed so much stronger than today. In the 1940's there was no NHS, no DHSS benefits, sick pay or injury compensation, those unable to work for whatever reason were deprived any income at all, so the family breadwinner being healthy was to stay out of poverty.
Government propaganda had sold joining the armed forces to Olaf. It'd glamorised fighting for their country being, so he didn't wait to be called up, he volunteered. He was told he'll be serving in the Far East and led to believe they would be fighting ill-equipped soldiers who were 鈥渕erely short-sighted little yellow men and all wore glasses.鈥�
Families back home had no idea of the true plight their menfollk were in as all mail back home was vetted. The opposing forces hadn't signed the Geneva Convention and were one of the most fanatical of any army.

Against all the odds, my Grandfather had survived and this is his true story, here it is told by his own words, transcribed from tape recordings made in 2002."

In 1940 I decided to volunteer. Being an enthusiastic motor cyclist I particularly wanted to join the Royal Corps of Signals. I filled in an application coupon that I'd cut out of a newspaper and, to my surprise, within a couple of weeks I had a date fixed for the medicals. There wasn't much time to organise what was happening at home. My wife Miriam decided that she couldn't stay on alone in the house with two babies, so she and the twins, who were thirteen months old, went to live with her mother and we decided to get an agent to let our house. So... that was what we did.

The Signals Corps was based in Derbyshire, at Bakewell, which is where we did our training. I don't know if you remember - most people do - the summer of 1940 was hot, very, very hot. We completed our training and the weather changed to the other extreme. By October we were under several feet of snow. You couldn't get in or out of the village of Bakewell for some weeks. We were living under canvas in big tents and it really was bitterly cold. We slept on tables, anywhere, in all our clothing. We had everything on, top coats, boots, anything. Even then, waking up in the morning it was a job getting up. When you put your feet on the deck you went crack, crack crack! All your joints had absolutely frozen.

That went on for some weeks, then eventually we were notified that we would have a few days leave and then we would be off. We had a few days leave then off we went. We got on the train at Bakewell station on a bitterly cold morning, at the crack of dawn. Let's see - we left about 8 o'clock in the morning and we didn't get to Glasgow till 12 o'clock that night. It was stop, start, stop, start. Interruptions every half-hour! It took an awful long time. There was a lot of aerial activity and of course there were a lot of trains shunting about and we were very, very glad to get there. We only had one break on the way and that was, I think, Hawick on the Borders, where we had a cup of cocoa and a pie of some description.

It took a long, long time for most of the chaps to get out of that train. Our joints were frozen as there was no heating on the train and of course as you moved about you could hear crack-crack-crack! Then we had to cross all the railway lines for about a mile, to get to the river Clyde.... and there, in front of us, was a beautiful big boat, The Empress of Japan (by coincidence). Twenty-six thousand tons of her!
She had been on a summer cruise. The government commandeered her, provisioned her and everything. We all went on board, which we did very slowly. Then we had to go down three or four decks. We were given hammocks and after a long time we managed to get them fixed somehow, with many fall-outs... Dreadful things to get into, unless you were expert at it. We eventually got sorted and turned in for a little while - not for long. We had to be awake quite early. Then off we went, down the Clyde to the sea.

CONVOY TO SINGAPORE

We went around Ireland to the Atlantic and in the next few days we became part of a huge convoy, at least fifty vessels of all descriptions. A lot of them seemed to have come out of the Ark. I should have hated to have travelled in them. They went up and down and sideways. It must have been dreadful!

Well, eventually we got into the warm climates. We approached the coast of Africa and our first port of call was Freetown. We stayed there for two weeks and it really was horrendous. The temperature was almost up in the 90s. To make matters worse the humidity was even greater. Oh, it was dreadful, all swampy, steam rising from the water. It was so hot! Coming from the other extreme we didn't take to it very kindly. I don't think much food was consumed for the next ten days. All we wanted to do was drink. Even moving around was quite an effort.

We had to put up with continual bombardment of the Allied navy. The French were bottled up in the harbour at Dakar and they were given the choice of joining the Allies, or of being sunk. Some of them came out and joined the Allied fleet. Those who wouldn't were bombarded for several days, day and night, and it put paid to most of them. That was their choice!

While we were anchored at Freetown the natives used to come out in their canoes with all kinds of fruit and vegetables and anything you can think of. The little children were very good swimmers, marvellous children, like fish in the water. We used to throw money down to them and they'd dive down and come up with the coins.

There were bargains to be had on these boats beside our big ship. You told them what you wanted and they'd put it in a basket, throw a rope up to you and you would pull it up. Chap next to me went and got his greatcoat. 'What are you going to do with that?' I said. He said, 'I'm going to swap it for fruit. I shan't need it'. Anyway, up came the basket with fruit in it and two or three coconuts. When he picked the basket off the rope one of the coconuts fell off and fell down 50 to 60 feet, straight onto the head of the coloured chap standing up in the canoe. He looked up at us and said something - I know it was a swear word - in his own language. You could tell it was from the way he looked at you. He shook his head and carried on. Amazing! If it had been a European it would have killed him. He just shook his head and carried on. We took the fruit and threw the greatcoat down to him. He stood up in the boat and put the greatcoat on, in a temperature of about 100 degrees, plus humidity. But he sat there in the canoe, with this great big greatcoat on, proud as Punch!

We were mighty glad to get away from there - mighty glad! Next call Cape Town. You can see it miles away - Table Top mountain. You can recognise it! By that time we were in tropical kit and our time out there was very pleasant. There was plenty of sunshine, no humidity, lots of breeze. We had a wonderful time in Cape Town. We stayed there for nearly a fortnight or so, provisioning. A few people got off, many more got on.

HAPPY DAYS IN CAPE TOWN

Every morning people used to drive down to the boat to take us soldiers sight-seeing. We were very fortunate. The man who picked us up was a hides exporter - can't remember his name - a lovely chap. He used to pick us up every morning and take us into Cape Town. The first thing he said was, 'Now, you can't wander about the place like this'; so we had to be kitted out with light-weight tropical shirts and shorts and sandals and all that. There were four of us! He said, 'Now you look more like human beings'.

So, we went on a tour of Cape Town and he took us out to lunch. I remember the name of the street - Adelaide Street. He took us home and we had tea in the afternoon and he showed us around his patch. Every fruit tree you can imagine grew in his garden! Peaches - pears - apples - grapes - lots and lots of grapes. We had a lovely day until about 8 o'clock. It was a good start. He came to meet us every day for a fortnight - took us somewhere. We were very fortunate.

Time came to say goodbye, and off we sailed. Our next port of call was.... a very busy port.... can't think of the name. They shipped slaves from there in the slaving days... Durban! Didn't stay there long. Off we went again - next port of call Bombay. Very, very hot there, nice dry heat, no humidity. We didn't stay there long. Away we went again, to Colombo in Ceylon. Ceylon's called Sri Lanka now. (I don't know why they change all the names). Most of our passengers had been dropped off here and there. We were the last. We set sail, the only ship left in the convoy. They were in a hurry, you could tell by the drumming of the engines. It was full steam ahead and we guessed we were heading for Singapore, several days journey.

We'd had a wonderful time really, since we'd left home two days before Christmas 1940. A group of us, friends, had volunteered to be mess orderlies, as they had lots of privileges The food on the boat was very, very good - marvellous food. There was quite an altercation between the Captain of the boat and this senior officer of ours. This officer said, 'The chaps are putting on too much weight'. He was going to start us marching and drilling, but the Captain said, 'Now look here! I'm in charge here and you'll do nothing without my permission! Is that understood? I'm not having any marching going on on my boat. These chaps...you don't know where they'll be in a few weeks time. If we're able to feed them well we will, and they'll be eating the same food as you!' That put him in his place, and that's how I believe it should be, not one lot of food for officers and another sort for the men.

There were three swimming pools on the Empress of Japan, but not being a swimmer it didn't bother me a lot. We used to get up quite early in the morning, go on deck, get a nice cup of tea and biscuits... sit and watch the dolphins swimming in front of us. Marvellous how they could get within an inch of the boat and never touch it. Instinct! And of course the flying fishes. You see them come flying out of the water...They do look as if they are flying. They landed on the deck, quite a lot of them. It was sixty foot out of the water, top deck. They must have been travelling very fast to come out of the water and land on the deck. We threw them back...
Then we went down to the decks for breakfast and it was really marvellous the cooking, how it was organised. Breakfast would be porridge in big containers. We took it round. If they wanted porridge they could have it, or cereals, or whatever. Quite a choice. Pots of tea or coffee. They could help themselves. Bread and butter, jam, marmalade. Beautiful food! I know by the time I reached Singapore my weight, from nine stone ten ounces, shot up to eleven stone. It came in very handy later on, the extra weight.

ARRIVAL AT SINGAPORE

January 1941. We eventually arrived at Singapore - well into January '41. We went to a tent camp on the island of Singapore, not on the mainland. Big marquees, comfortable and dry. It was the end our of the monsoon season - fortunately. We had to wait for equipment to arrive - bit by bit.
In three or four weeks we were ready to move and a date was fixed. The convoy started off quite early in the morning, from the island to the mainland on the Causeway. On to the main land we went. The first estate in Malaya was well known for its pineapples. Beautiful pineapples... Titbits... Off we went, going for a couple of hours. Clouds came up. It got very ominous and within half an hour we got an endless downpour. Thunder and lightning, dark as night. My first experience of the monsoon!

It was pretty dreadful. Downpour so heavy that we couldn't see. People in trucks and wagons... windscreen wipers couldn't cope with it. Me on my motor-bike had no protection at all. The trucks were driving on radar I should think - weaving about. I thought, 'This is a bit iffy!" and I'd no sooner thought it than somebody bumped me from behind and I felt myself shooting out! Landed on my face! Head hit a tree! Bike gone somewhere I don't know where! I sat up and passed out.

When I came to I said, 'Oh dear! I can't see! I'm blind! I can't see a thing!' I expect it was the blow on my head. Anyway, the convoy had gone on, but one big vehicle had stayed behind. They helped me up and laid me on the floor of the vehicle and I was pretty uncomfortable. I was beginning to see a little bit, but by then I had a horrendous pain in the back of my ribs. I found out that when I landed on the ground, the revolver that I had - you didn't have a holster, you just put it through your belt on a lanyard - the barrel had stuck in the ground and the butt of it hit me in the back and bust several ribs.

For several weeks after that I was spitting up blood. I knew that a splinter or something had punctured my lungs and it was very painful. I didn't want to eat or drink - couldn't get comfortable. Anyway, after two hours we stopped. They took me out and I could see there was a little camp just off the road. There was a clearing in the jungle - a couple of huts made with palm leaves - and they left me there.

HOSPITAL IN KUALA LUMPUR

After a few weeks they said 'We're going to move you'. I think I was looking a pretty grim. They didn't want a corpse on their hands. Too much paper work to see to! They took me out and put me on a van and off we went again. After about two hours they pulled up and said, 'Here we are'. I said, 'Where are we?' and they said, 'It's a civilian hospital in Kuala Lumpur and we're leaving you there to get some treatment'. So I said, 'Thank the Lord for that!'

The first thing they did to me in the hospital was clean me up as best they could. I must have been in a terrible state! I had a few x-rays and they squeezed me and taped me up so I couldn't get a decent breath. I was panting - couldn't get any air in my lungs, but I was a little bit more comfortable.
As the days wore on I began to improve and was able to sit up. A Chinese boy - they were called 'boy' whatever age they were- - looked after me, gave me a bath every morning, shaved me, even brushed my teeth. I gradually pulled myself together, was able to sit up and later on I was walking about.

Every Sunday the hospital would be crowded with visitors and they would come and say, 'Hello, how are you getting on?' chat a bit, leave you grapes, oranges, bananas - every fruit you can think of. There was a lovely nurse there. I don't know where she came from. She was coloured, but a lovely honey colour She was studying for her final exams, then she would get out of the country and be a ward sister. I don't know how long I was in that hospital. Quite some time I should think.

For the next instalment go to Olaf Chapman Part Two (A4919709)

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