大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Jazzmyn, a pupil from Teversham Primary School on behalf of Doug Neaves and has been added to the site with his permission. Doug Neaves fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

On March 6th 1940 I joined the Army serving with 196 Field Ambulance regiment in the Medical Corp 18th division.
I served as a Nursing Orderly and helped my comrades when they were poorly.
I was first based in a place called Loddon which is in Norfolk.
In February 1942 whilst travelling to Singapore we were captured by the Japanese and became prisoners of war.
Conditions were terrible and we lived on rice and water. Sometimes we ate jungle stew, which consisted of berries and whatever else we could find from the jungle. We hardly ever ate any meat as there was none available.
We had to make our own beds which were called Atad Huts. We made these using palm leaves and bamboo sticks and slept on benches which were only 2ft wide. There were 300 men to each hut so conditions were cramp and not very comfortable. We had no privacy at all.
Whilst being held as a prisoner I had my appendix removed and as there was no anaesthetic at the time this was very painful and a very dangerous operation to perform.
Many men got sick from diseases such as malaria, diphtheria, cholera, beriberi and many other tropical diseases.
I lost many friends during the war and was very relieved to be free when the war was over.
The first thing we did when we were told we were free was sing God Save The King as we were never allowed to sing when we were prisoners.
I was very proud to serve my country.

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