蜜芽传媒

PART ONE tells Tom's story of service in the United Kingdom. This story picks up where the other one finished - namely with Tom and the rest of his Batallion leaving Hereford for parts unknown....

We knew we were going abroad, but not where. After going by train all night we came to what we were told was Liverpool, where we boarded ships. Ours was named 鈥淎ndes鈥�, a pre-war ship that sailed to and from South America and had been turned into a troop ship.

Our passage across the Atlantic was rough, I was seasick for four days and as we came to calmer waters we were met by American warships and escorted to Nova Scotia, Canada. It was morning when we arrived and later we boarded another ship, this time American, 鈥淭he Wakefield鈥�. Pre-war she had been the USS Manhattan, a cruise liner that had converted into a troopship. The whole convoy was American, from a deal struck by Churchill and Roosevelt earlier on in the war.

We first sailed to Trinidad where only the American crew had shore leave. We then went out on a zig zag course across the Atlantic which ended in South Africa at Cape Town. We spent four pleasant days in Cape Town, sleeping on board at night, and were received well by the white population. The food was good on the 鈥淲akefield鈥�, with different meals every day. Pork Chops Thursdays, fish on Fridays, always Chicken on Sunday with American breakfast each day consisiting of bacon, flapjacks, maple syrup and coffee. We were in Cape Town from the 9th to the 12th of December 1941. We should have gone on to the Middle East, but trouble began in the Far East after the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbour and Malaya so they held us back. Then we were off again, not knowing where to. Christmas Day was on the 鈥淲akefield鈥�. We had turkey for dinner with all the trimmings and a slice of ice cake with our tea. Coffee was served with each meal.

I think the convoy was split in two, half going to Mombassa and then on to Malaya. We on the 鈥淲akefield鈥� went to India and arrived at Bombay about the 5th January 1942. We went from there by train to Ahmenager (inland from Bombay). I believe it had been an army camp for years. The camp wasn鈥檛 very modern with very little mod cons. The food was poor. We slept on wooden charpoh beds and I think there were dirt floors. We stayed there for three weeks while they sorted out what to do with us. Then it was back to Bombay where the same American ships had been ordered to wait until decisions had been made. Then off we went landing at Singapore around the 29th January 1942. The 鈥淲akefield鈥� had brought us halfway around the world from Canada, and I believe it took people away from Singapore on its return journey.

Again nothing was prepared for us 鈥� we lived in some tatty tents under some rubber trees, exactly where I never did find out. Then we went to the Golf Course, dug in on top of a slope, and were blasted directly it went dark. Nip (Japanese) had been watching us all day. Nobody had bothered to tell us they were there.

Later went over a stretch of water into a wooded area and were hit by artillery shells and I remember someone shouting they are our own guns! Someone had made a balls up! We never knew where we were. When it ended we were somewhere near Singapore, having been taken there by boys from another regiment. About eight of us were in a house. The rest of the company had left just after daybreak. Some boys came along and said they were being chased by the nips, who were only a quarter of a mile behind. There were only four of us from the Suffolk Regiment and they took us out in two 15cwt trucks. I never found out what regiment they were.

It must have been the next day, February 16th, we marched to Changi 鈥� about 15 miles. We had only been on Singapore for about 18 days and never knew where we were 鈥� all place names were learned later. For a time we lived in Roberst barracks in Changi. But when the japs moved the wounded and the sick from the hospitals in Singapore we lived in whatever was available. (I forgot to mention we had surrendered February 15th 1942).

English food soon ran out. Then we started on what was to be our staple diet for the next three and a half years 鈥� rice and green stew.

Several working parties had gone to Singapore to Harpy Valley and Bukit Timah, clearing the streets of rubble caused by earlier Nip bombing and working on the docks, etc. Again all names were learned later.

On May 9th it was our turn and a mixed number from different regiments ended up in a camp at Thompson Road. Our work was with broken cars and lorries taken off the streets of Singapore to a large field where some of our boys were given tools to dismantle them. Being non-drivers our gang had to move the sections to their proper heaps and we burnt all the wood. Things saved were engines, wheels, car and lorry springs, steering columns, petrol tanks, axels and drive shafts. We were to be reunited with them later at the Chinese High School for Girls on the Bukit Timah road.

The food wasn鈥檛 too bad and a lot better than Changi, and we were given a few bits of fruit by the Chinese around the work area. I believe that the houses alongside the road to the field were lived in by Eurasians, as the huts were made of solid wood and we had a fixed shower unit, so we were lucky in that. We were there until July 1942, and then we were moved to the Chinese High School, where we met with mostly Norfolk鈥檚 and Suffolk鈥檚 as well as a few men from other regiments. Many of those we met would die in Thailand in 1943.

Our work at the school was cleaning all the motor parts that came from our last job at Thompson Road. Then they were painted, god knows what happened to them after that, apart from the engines 鈥� which went to the racecourse and were overhauled. Our 100 men slept in empty bungalows along the Bukit Timah road. No bed just slept on the concrete floors. We did several odd jobs at the school, one was a wooden fence alongside the road. Each board was supposed to be planed either side, but the Chinese workers took so long only a third of them were planed both sides so you had this peculiar fence.

During this time Captain Whystock Crundell had paper red and white roses made to mark Minden Day. I brought mine back home but over the years have lost them. As usual after two to three months we were on the move again. This time to Sime Road this had been a camp before the war. There were wooden huts but as usual very few mod cons. This was still 1942. I am a bit hazy as to what we did there, but we left for Changi December 29th 1942 for what was the Garden Wood area.

We had a garden which we started and planted with sweet potatoes and peanuts which grew underground as well as spinach. However we never did harvest them as we would be in Thailand. Other gangs brought in wood for the cookhouse. The old hut we lived in was made with bamboo and was riddled with lice. Other boys slept in tents. It was at this time we had booster inoculations, later on we found out why.

On April 28th 1943 we left for Thailand, leaving from Singapore railway station in steel box cars, about 28 men to a car. As far as I can remember we had 4 days and nights on the train, trundling the whole length of Malaya into Thailand to a place called Bampong, which wasn鈥檛 a very nice camp. We stayed there for the rest of the day. Directly it got dark we set off marching with a ten minute break every hour, and marched until it got light. As we arrived at the first camp on our route they gave us a meal and we had a swim in the river. I believe it was the only swim we had.

I think I did 4 night marches, every one similar. Stop at a camp during the day and away at night. When we got to a camp which I learnt later was Kinsiok I had a very bad throat, could hardly swallow, and went sick. The nips had said that the sick could stay behind, probably saving my live as my mates marched throughout the monsoon rains, and the camps they finished up in were camps from which they had to work on the railway.

And then Cholera struck, what with that and other diseases 1 in 3 men died. My throat got better and within a few days I was in the Dysentery hut where I stayed for 14 days. Once out again I met Bill Roberts who had also been in the Dysentery hut. I never did know what regiment he was in but I think in Civvies Street he was a librarian from the West Country.

We were together until late July when we were sent by river barge to Chunkai base hospital. At a medical I was pronounced fit and was sent on my way back up country. Bill had scabies from his waist to his ankles and was kept at Chunkai. I never saw him again. We went back on flat wooden trollies and ended up in Tarsoa where we stayed in a hut with British and Australian boys. One chap I met again was Blondie Gooch, a corporal in the Cambridge regiment. He sold my mosquito net on the black market. I was only there about ten days and my throat got bad again. I went sick and was seen by two Dutch doctors. They said it was serious and I ended up in the Diphtheria hut where I stayed for three weeks. One day the medical sergeant came and said we鈥檙e on the move. We ended up in Kawchaburi (now one of the main war cemeteries). I had one week鈥檚 convalescence before I went into a fit hut. I thought I needed a month but I never regretted it as I was never seriously ill again.

We did various jobs in the camp. A gang of Australians did grave digging as the death rate was about 15 every day. All due to disease and malnutrition. My job was burning the gear the poor boys died in. Old blankets ground sheets and gas capes. There was no water in the camp; it was brought in twice a day in an army water bowser just for the cookhouse. There was also no electricity and just holes in the ground for toilets with hardly any shelter. We had a lot of rain at this time and everywhere was covered with mud. At one end of the camp were housed Chinese and Indian workers who had no medical care. There dead were just dumped into a hole in the ground. I saw a poor little boy with an ulcer the size of his shin. All he had for cover was a banana leaf. No medical assistance from the nips.

In the camp was a Major Fagin, an Australian medical officer, who had carried out many amputations under very primitive conditions. We struggled on. Later on a lot of Suffolk Regiment personnel who had come up from Singapore with us including Stan Lawrence and Burt Elley, both from Essex. They went on down country.

In the middle of December 1943 we of F and H force moved out and ended up in the Sime Road, Singapore. We went by steel trucks on the railway but this time there was only about 6 men per car. Sime road was the camp we were at about a year before. Since that time a lot of boys had died in Thailand. I met with some of the Suffolk鈥檚. One was Ken Warne. The previous boys had rigged an outdoor shower and one of the first things we did was wash our blankets which soon dried out in the strong sun.

Sime Road was near the Golf course. I was told that pre-war it was an RAF camp. Our main task was hauling wood for the cookhouse, and we went down a new road that had been cut for just that purpose. It went round one part of the race course and over the Burkit Timah road to the wood. We loaded up our wagon which was a wooden buck of a lorry, no engine, hauled by 10 or 12 men with ropes and 2 with poles steering on either side. It was hard work pulling up the hill back to camp.

There was a lot of rain while we were there. During one storm one poor boy got electrocuted as we were having our rice under a lean to. He had an old army groundsheet on and leant against a rice grinder that was still live. The poor boy died shortly afterwards. It would have been late February 1944. Food was as usual rice and green stew, no meat.

Sometime in early March we moved back to Changi and into the jail. I learned later that the women internees had been moved to Sime Road. They had been in the jail since February 1942. With the women were children of all ages who had been interned with their parents. (I learnt after the war that some children were first interned as babies). We soon settled in at the jail. We were in D block on floor D2 and slept three men to a cell meant for one. At least the cells were not locked. In the jail we could move where we wanted to. The main gate was locked at night. We were sent to work on the airstrip that was being made about a mile from the jail. Our job was to level out the soil that was brought in on a narrow gauge railway from where it was dug out by diggers. One of which was made by Ransoms in England. Driven by steam it never broke down the whole 18 months I worked there.

Food wasn鈥檛 too bad in the jail. I believe they got the steam cookers working. We had decent cooked rice. Work on the airstrip continued. We used to leave the jail at 07:30 hours and returned about 17:30 hours. We were lucky. Some engineers had installed showers in the courtyard of the jail, so we always had a shower after work. Others worked on the airfield as well. There were Aussies and Dutch besides all the Chinese, Indians and Malays. They were brought up daily from Singapore by lorries and took back at 17:00 hours. Another good thing for use was the fact that we could have a haircut or shave. A Norfolk boy, I only knew as Harry, shaved us with a with an old army eating knife, honed down to the sharpness of an old fashioned cut-throat razor. 鈥楧arky鈥� Coleman cut our hair. These were paid for by the Nips taking a little from the small wage each of us was paid. We never used the toilets in the jail or the cells in case of blocking the system. Instead bore holes were dug in the yards and used for a certain period then covered over. This was repeated and didn鈥檛 have any effect on Health and kept flies away.

One of our last jobs on the airfield was to scout around to find roots of grass for the Chinese to plant down the runways. After this some of us were moved to old huts that were behind the jail. Work was digging holes and tunnels for the Nips. The pits were 9 foot by 9 foot and about 12 foot deep. They looked like a reverse pyramid. Others were about the size of a bath, and another about 20 feet away went down about 9 feet and joined with a tunnel. We never knew what they were for until after the war. At that time we just did as we were told or else!

We did various other works in the meantime. Coming back to camp one afternoon a British officer quietly told use that it was all over but to say nothing. We were out at work for three more days before the Nips told us. After a time we moved back to the jail but had to sleep on the mesh between floors. After a few weeks we were going home. We sailed form Singapore on the Polish ship 鈥淪obieski鈥�. We called at Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and passed through the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal, calling at Akabar for new clothing.

We sailed through the Mediterranean to Gibraltar, collected mail, carried on through the Bay of Biscay to Liverpool, arriving on October 20th 1945. The same place we had left in October 1941.

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