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Part 1
Facts
- Early on April orders were given to prepare 7,000 Ps. O.W. for removal by train. The orders stated that:-
- The reason for the move was that the food situation in Singapore was difficult, and would be much better in the new place.
- That this was not a working party.
- As there were not 7,000 fit men in Changi, 30% of the party were to be unfit men, unfit to march or work. The unfit men would have a much better chance of recovery with good food and in a better place, with good facilities for recreation.
- There would be no marching except for short distances from train to camps. Transport would be provided for baggage and men unfit to march.
- Band and gear, and an engine for electric lights were to be taken.
- Gramophones, blankets, clothing and mosquito nets would be issued at the new camp.
- A good canteen would be available in all camps after three weeks. The canteen supplies for the first three weeks were brought with prisoners’ money before leaving Singapore.
- A The party would include a medical party of about 350, with equipment for a central hospital of 400 patients, and medical supplies for 3 months.
- As each trainload of 600 arrived at Ban Pong they were informed to their astonishment that a march of several days was to be carried out by all men, including the 30% who were unfit. All kit that Officers and men would not carry was to be dumped at Ban Pong. This mounted to the equivalent of about 15 railway truck loads of stores and baggage.
- The march in fact, was one of 300 kilometres in 15 stages, and lasted for 2.5 weeks. Marching was at night along a rough jungle track, except for the first stages, and as all torches were taken from Ps. O.W. during the first search at Ban Pong, control by Ps. O.W Officers and N.C.O.s was difficult or impossible.
- After the first stage the unfit men became increasingly ill and were a heavy handicap to the other men, who were at first fairly fit, but rapidly became ill and exhausted as they had to help and even carry the increasing number of men who were unable to walk unaided.
- Conditions at the staging camps were:
- At no stage was overhead cover provided, except for 100 men at one camp. The weather was variable, and the rainy season started while the march was in progress.
- Food supplies were generally very poor and in many camps consisted of rice only.
- Water was short at many camps and at Kanburi drinking water had to be bought by Ps. O.W. at a privately owned well. Col. Harris protested, but the matter was not put right.
- No proper arrangement existed for retaining sick at these camps, and men who were absolutely unfit for marching owing to disease and weakness were beaten and driven from camp to camp. Officers, including Medical Officers, who begged and prayed for sick men to be left behind were themselves beaten at many camps. In one particular case, a Jap M.O. (L/t) ordered the I.J.A. Cpl. i/c of Tarso staging camp to leave 36 men behind as they were too ill to move. The Cpl. refused to obey this order although it was repeated in writing and a British Officer (Major Interpreter) and an Aussie Doctor (Major) was severely beaten when they protested. A bone in the Doctor’s hand was broken. Of these sick men who were compelled to march, nearly all have since died, including an Australian Chaplain, who died at the next camp (Kingsia). This Jap Officer said that the Chaplain particularly should not march, as he was an elderly man with a weak heart, and was already at the end of his strength.
- The men ,arched all night as a rule from 1900 hrs. to 0700 hrs. They had to perform camp duties, and get their meals during the day, and so had very little rest.
- Medical:
- Such medical stores as had been hastily collected at Ban Pong, and had been carried by hand by the marching party, were rapidly exhausted, and the march continued with no medicine at all.
- Dysentery and other diseases broke out in all parties, and exhaustion was general. Ulcerated feet occurred in large numbers, due to sick men with blistered feet being forced to march all day after day.
- At Konkoita the marching troops were quartered in the same camps as Thai labour corps who were suffering from cholera. The infection was picked up by each of the 13 parties of marching prisoners.
- On May 15th, cholera broke out at Shimo-Niki. Col. Harris, Commander of Ps O.W. immediately reported to Co. Bannou, Camp Commandant, and requested that movement should cease until the outbreak was under control, and that the Konkoita camp should at all costs not be used for further parties. Unfortunately, Col. Bannou was unable to comply with these requests, and, as a result, cholera was spread over the 5 camps occupied by the force (‘F’ Force).
- Only a very small quantity of medical stores at Ban Pong was brought up later by lorry. Over three-quarters of it was still at Ban Pong when the force returned to Kanburi in December. The I.J.A. were unable at this time to provide or obtain any medical supplies whatsoever, except cholera vaccine and quinine which was always supplied as required. Co. Bannou gave us six tims of milk out of his own property.
- By the end of May about 5,000 men had been distributed to several different camps. These camps consisted of huts without any roofing, although the rainy season had now fully started, and the rain was falling heavily every day and night. The camps were not fully roofed fro some weeks, during which time the men had no proper shelter. Consequently, the deaths from pneumonia were numerous.
- In spite of the above conditions the general state of exhaustion of the men, the presence of cholera in all camps, and practically universal malaria, diarrhoea and dysentery, the men were put to work at once by the (Jap) engineers.
- Maximum numbers of men were taken to work every day. This left insufficient men in camp for sanitary duties and for nursing the sick, while disease of every kind increased. In some camps Red Cross personnel were formed to go out and work on the road, but this was quickly stopped by Col. Bannou.
- In many camps the great scarcity of tools made improvement to sanitation difficult or impossible. The tools which the Ps O.W. took from Changi, and which were left at Ban Pong, were never taken up.
- It was clear to all Prisoner officers, that if the engineers continued to take all the fit and convalescent men to work every day, there would soon be no fit men to work. In fact, the engineers were rapidly destroying their own source of labour. The task in front of the engineers, and the need for speed was fully understood by us. A little common sense by the engineers could, early in June, have saved the situation for us. This short-sighted policy continued, and by the end of June only 700 of the 5,000 men north of Niki were at work daily, and of these at least half were unfit and useless for heavy work. Of the remainder, except for Red Cross personnel, and a small number of administration officers, all the men were lying ill in camp hospital.
- By this time the road from the south (Thailand) was impassable, and to the north (Burma) was difficult, and the scale of the rations fell below the level required to keep fit men in health, and far below the level to help sick men back to health. It has been said that we were on the same rations as the I.J.A., but this was not true, as can easily be proved. The rations of the men in hospital were fixed at far too low a level:- 250-300 gms. of rice and a small quantity of beans per day. In our opinion this was a great mistake, and we continually said so to the I.J.A.
- As the health of the men grew worse, the demands of the engineers were more and more difficult to meet, and the treatment of our weak men while at work became more and more brutal. The work was beyond what could reasonably be expected of fit men, so it was certainly beyond the strength of our weak men. This especially relates to the carrying of heavy logs. It was noticed that where there was Thai or Burmese labour used, they had two or three times the number of men that we had for a similar task. It became common for our men to be literally driven with wire whips and bamboo sticks, throughout the whole working day. Hitting with the fist and kicking also occurred frequently throughout the day. It was empasised that a beating was not for disciplinary reasons, but was intended to drive unfit men to efforts far beyond their strength.
- The hours of working were also excessive, 14 hrs, a day was a common occurrence, and went on day after day without a break for months. many men never saw their camp in daylight for weeks on end, and never had a chance to wash themselves or their clothes.
- Some of the camps where the fit men’s numbers fell below their demands, the engineers themselves came into the camps and forced Ps O.W. out of hospital to work. Except in isolated instances, Officers were not made to work outside camps, but the engineers often said that Officers would be taken for work if more men were not turned out of hospital.
- In Sonkuria, where conditions were probably worse than anywhere else, the I.J.A. engineering officer, L/T Abe himself came into the Officer’s quarters and asked to see the six officers who were most seriously ill, of whom three have since died and said “Unless more men are procuced to work tomorrow, I will send my soldiers for these Officers to work”. Thsi officer was conspicuous at all times in failing to stop brutal treatment of prisoners by his men, even if it happened in his presence. Of the 1600 men who originally went to Sonkuria Camp in May, 1300 are already dead, and 200 more are still in hospital, of whom many are not expected to recover.
- The result would have been worse, if it had not been for the arrival of L/T Wakabiashi of the Malay Ps O.W. Admin. in Sonkuria Camp, in the middle of August. From the date of his arrival in the camp, conditions generally improved.
- By July, more than half the force were without boots, and this caused a large number of poisoned feet. A number of trench feet also broke out from continual work in the wet. Blankets were not issued as promised in Changi to men without them. Clothing issues were negligible. Bandages and dressings were seldom issued, and only in the end. were never brought up. This was in spite of our repeated requests.
- It was during the foregoing period, that several of the men sometimes alone, or in groups, disappeared into the jungle. Some probably had the idea of escaping, some undoubtedly only left so as to die in freedom, rather than in captivity, because of their disease and illness, also of ill-treatment at the hands of the engineers. The men, on the whole, were in despair. The choice in front of them seemed to be death from disease or never ending toil and brutal treatment. Their officers were unable to protect them, in spite of their efforts. One party of Officers, seeing men dying and ill-treatment all around them, attempted to escape, so as to get word to the outside world, and obtain help from the International Red Cross. This party failed, as was inevitable. Five perished in the jungle, and the remaining four were recaptured.
- I August, a hospital was established in Burma, and about 2,000 men went there. Unfortunately, the rations were still deficient of necessary vitamins, and 800 men died. nevertheless, the Burma hospital did a lot of good, as there were no regular engineers there, and many men had a chance to recover slowly.
- From August onwards, things improved at Sonkuria, but did not improve much at Kam-Sonkuria. As late as October fro instance, the engineers were blasting just behind the prisoner’s hospital in such a way that rocks and stones fell into the hospital at every blast. The huts were crammed full of patients, many of them were dying (about 8 a day). All patients were terrorised. Many were hit, more or less seriously injured, and one man had his arm broken, and subsequently died of the combination of his injury and his previous disease. This went on for over a week, before a representation made to the I.J.A. Officers in charge of the camp, were successful. Blasting continued in such a way that rocks did not fall into the hospital, thgis showing that the previous practice had been avoidable. In this camp also, the Thai latrine, use by several hundred Tamil labourers, was within 10 yards of the Officer’s hut.
- In all camps accommodation was totally inadequate. Men slept actually touching one another, and as a result, skin disease and infection was 100% throughout the camp. Except in Sonkuria, most officers were as badly off as the men.
- The move back to Kanburi took place in December, but the men were in such a state that (although the worst cases were left behind in Burma) 46 died on the train journey, and 186 more in the first three weeks in Kanburi, in spite of better food and living conditions. It is certain that several hundreds more will die in the next month or two from the result of their treatment in Thailand.
- Our own guards (I.J.A.) on the whole treated us well. Face-slapping of prisoners was discouraged by our I.J.A. Officers, but was still fairly common. It nearly always arose from language misunderstandings, and was not in itself serious, although it makes the maintenance of discipline difficult for the prisoner’s officers, when their men see them slapped by young I.J.A. privates. Similarly, when the men are slapped and beaten ot merely breeds resentment and bad feeling, which will last long after the war. There are some guards, however, who seem incapable of being put in charge of any work without losing their tempers and hitting Ps O.W. The most flagrant case is that of a man named Gunsuko Toyama who claims to be a well educated man. At Ban Pong he hit officers and men of every party with a heavy steel-shafted golf club. He cut one Major’s hand open, badly damaged another Major’s arm and severely hurt many others. The cause of these assaults was never known. Later at Shimo-Sunkuria and Kami-Sonkuria camps, he habitually hit Officers and men on every possible occasion for no just cause. He has an ungovernable temper and is apparently uncontrollable by his own officers. Apart from actual striking, he was always at pains to be insulting to Officers, especially senior Officers. Such a man should never be allowed to be in charge of prisoners.
- There were many cases latterly, in which our own guards prevented engineers from maltreating prisoners.
- It may be thought that some of the above report is exaggerated. It is however, only the merest outline of a period of intense hardship suffered by a party of Ps. O.W. If proof is wanted it is surely sufficient to point out that of the 7,000 prisoners who left Changi in April, now in December, about 3,000 dead, 3,000 more are in hospital, of whom many hundreds more still will die within the next few months from the result of the hardships they have undergone.
- We know that from the letters received from England and Australia, that it is believed there the Ps. O.W. are being well treated by the Japs. If the actual facts regarding Thailand were known abroad the news would be greeted with indignation and amazement.
Part 2 - Suggestions
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