ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Like many others at the time, I fibbed about my age and enlisted on 20th April 1936 at Kingston-upon-Thames into The East Surrey Regiment (31st and 70th of Foot) as 6141443 Private Jelley L H.
I swore allegiance to HM King Edward VIII and his Heirs and Successors.
Following training I was posted to the 2nd Battalion in Colchester and in September 1938 we sailed to Shanghai in China, via Singapore and Hong Kong.
In Shanghai we became part of the British military contingent in the British Concession of the International Settlement. There were French, Italian and American military contingents occupying their own Concession areas. Our tasks were mainly guards and general garrison duties. With us were a battalion of Seaforth Highlanders.
Walking down Avenue Foch one evening in September 1939 I heard that war had been declared. Very little changed for us at this time. On Christmas Eve 1939 I had the unusual duty of marching into the Head Office of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank on the Bund in Shanghai with a loaded rifle! I was part of the escort for collection of the battalion's pay. I love telling staff in HSBC banks in England about this! In August 1940 we left Shanghai and sailed to Singapore. Sometime later we moved up country towards the Thai border and joined 11th Indian Division. Following the Japanese invasion of Malaya we withdrew down the peninsula to Singapore.
The rest is history.
I had three and half years as a guest of the Emperor of Japan working on 'the railway'. Unlike so many of my friends I survived. Those of us who did survive were flown from Thailand to Rangoon and embarked from there back to Liverpool via Colombo, Port Said and Gibraltar. A little over seven years away and the sixty years since have passed in a flash.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.