大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Matt and Amy from Swavesey Village Collage on behalf of Mr Few and has been added with his permission. Mr Few fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

For most of the war I was a prisoner of war.

We left our home in later September 1941. We then went to Liverpool to the underground railway, which not many people knew about. People went there if they did not want to leave the home. We were then sent on a boat to America, who weren't really involved. We sailed past New York and saw the Statue of Liberty! We then kept sailing on to Trinidad. We misunderstood something and my name was written on paper to say I had a relative in Trinidad. I got sent on a boat somewhere to meet someone called Jasper. When we got there we knocked on the factory door. A Man came to the door and said that Jasper had gone to Willingham England,
where we had come from in the first place! I had something to eat and set off on another boat. I went across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in Cape Town, India. We stayed there for 2 or 3 days. While we were there we met a few German People, who were understandably rather anti-social towards people. We then travelled to Bombay, then to a military camp in Singapore. The Japanese were bombing all the docks, despite the fact they were still in the area. We started to fig ht the Japanese. By using a clever idea we managed to get behind the soldiers using ships and bicycles!

We were taken to prisoner of war camps after that. Lots of people tried to escape them. We got separated into lots groups and I was sent to the North-West of the island. Every night we had to travel to a Island. The fighting the fight there was bad! Our Sergeant Major got killed there. We got details t join a British embassy. In the country they had no idea of the conditions, things like blackouts. At night their towns were in full light. People were bombed left, right and centre.

I was then transferred to a place called Cemetery Hill in Singapore. Lots of small planes flew overhead. The people inside just lent over the side of the planes and threw hand grenades at us. Six people around me died. I was hit by a piece of marble, off a gravestone, and hit me in the back of the head. Blood was gushing out of my head and I lost my tin hat. I was bandaged up and sent out again but I didn't have my hat. I saw a dead Australian soldier, so I took his tin hat!

While I was in Singapore a British bloke got told that I was from Cambridge, and that I was a little deaf! When he saw me he drew a picture of the Pillars at Kings Collage and told me in a loud voice he had been a student there in 1937. I saw him occasionally, and when I did he wrote everything down! While I was in the camp I signed up for a party to go and build a railway track. To travel we had to go by train. 32 of us were crammed into a little truck. The sides were made of metal so, as we were in sun, the side were very hot. We went along, not knowing where we were going, about 20 miles north of Bangkok. When we all got out we had to walk about 1 陆 miles.

We got to the camp, which was a Bamboo construction. The first day we were counted. We started to complete a road, we didn't know where it was going. We made the road by carrying lots of dirt and tipping it onto the ground. Just before we got back the monsoon season started. Someone made me a pair of clogs with false bottoms in, I was able to use them to keep my grip when the water flooded. The people who had travelled north from Singapore with us told us we had to build a railway. We were taken to a place right next to the bridge over the river Quai. We went over the river in barges. When we arrived we built a camp and left it in working groups. Every day we had to carry a large sack of dirt up 30 ft. A few times chaps fell over the 30 ft high hole, Chunkai Culling. When we finished there we went to two other places. Were we were staying there was a big cess pit, a Buffalo fell in. When we got it out we cut it up, ate bits of it and hid it so no one could find it.

We slept in 3 tents near the railway we were building. We had a role call every morning. One morning the men in charge took me and another lad away because we were the two biggest lads in the camp. We were taken through woods which were very thick. We were taken to where the Japanese had a small house, right in the middle of the wood. We were loaded up with rice bags to carry. The other man with me was bigger than me, so they loaded him up with four water bottles as well as the rice bags. We had to walk for ages. We didn't see the sun until we had finished the walk. When we got back, the rest of people were asking were we had gone, as they had not known. I told them our experience and they couldn't believe it!

A few nights later a man I was sharing a tent with woke me up and told me that his bag was moving up and down! We went out of the tent and used the fire to light a piece of cloth and I grabbed something like a spade. We went back into the tent and carefully lifted up the bag to find, asleep on the ground, an Iguana! I hit it on the head a dragged it out of the tent and away from us. In the morning Natives were walking past and wanted to buy the Iguana off us. So we let them on the condition that we had a bit to eat when they cooked it. They agreed and let us have a little. What we didn't know was that the Natives had Cholera. Two of my friends died along with lots of other people. I myself did get malaria quite a lot of times.

Consequently, one good thing was that we got to go to the river and have a good wash. The most tremendous thing was on the other side of the river. It was the jungle swaying like it was in a hurricane but it was monkeys. Two of the biggest monkeys were fighting over what looked like a female. We rushed to tell the others but as soon as we moved they did to.

After that we moved back to Chunkai 26. I saw a doctor to see if I was seriously injured, but I wasn't. We had to build another camp. I was then again transferred to the place I was before, the place I built the railway. On the other side of the railway was a depo were we were able to pinch anything! One time we nicked a fake horse on a stem roller and hid it in the bog! This was so no one else found it. After a while we got it out of the bog and sold it!

At the camp where I was, we had to roll cans of petrol through the jungle. After a while my can started to leak. When the cans leaked we were supposed to screw the top on tighter, but mine would not tighten. After I had finally tightened it, I had to catch up with the others. The major in charge, got cross with me, so I smacked him in the face. After that I had to fill up water for him every day. It wasn't to bad though as I didn't do it for long, and he looked after me.

I then joined up with a party going to a hospital camp. Every night we used to break out the camp. I finished that cam at the first opportunity I got and I went to build a new camp. I chose this way out because I was mad at the time. I couldn't remember what had happened, we went through the jungle, I couldn't see the sun for weeks.

When the war was over, we made our way out of the camps and into vans. In the vans we went through lots of camps and nearly everyone was dead. Lots of boats came and took us away from all the camps at last! We washed ourselves and then we could go home. We then went on planes and saw the golden Pagoda. A while later we saw the sea for the first time in ages! All I wanted was to get on the ships. We went to Bombay and then got on another boat to go to England. The boat was called H.M.S Orion. We got given clothes and sent on a train home to Cambridge. Home at last!!

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