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John Collier Gransden
Into Captivity
1942/02/18 - Captured Banka Island, Sumatra, PoW No. IV 557.
Japanese Index card - Side One
Japanese Index Card - Side Two
My father was initially held at what on his Liberation Form he calls the Chinese Club, which I believe was the old Chinese cinema in the town of Muntok, and a week later together with hundreds of military personnel captured at Banka Island, he was ferried over to Palembang and imprisoned in the Mulo School. On 17th July 1942 he was recorded by Lt Arkley, NZNVF, as being part of the "Japan Draft", when 94 British military personnel under Air Commodore C.O.F. Modin were taken, not to Japan as they thought, but back to Singapore, arriving Changi 20th August.
The Japan Draft recorded at the Mulo School, Palembang, Sumatra
by Lt Arkley, NZNVF, in July 1942
Page 1
Japan Draft
Page 2
Following a month in Changi John Gransden was listed amongst the "Japan Special Party" of 400 men which included the most senior British, Australian and Dutch commanders - the Generals, Brigadiers, a large number of Colonels, a few Air Commodores, together with their batmen and some junior officers and senior civilians - the Colonial Governor, senior judges and top civil servants, who were transported on a hell ship to Takao, Formosa…so he was in some quite elite company! The relevant document to that transportation to Formosa is headed "Original Roll, OVS Parties, 16.8.42 Japan, "B" and "Special" as received from HQMC, again in the belief that they were going to Japan. From what I understand they had little idea where they were going or where their final destination was to be although a few had heard they were bound for Japan. On the way to the Singapore docks from Changi on 16th August 1942 the “Japan Special Party” stopped and all those aboard the trucks were ordered to get out and line up in front of a Japanese General who made a speech saying he hoped that they would be comfortable and assuring them that they had no cause for concern about their future...............?! At the same time as the Special Party left, a further 1,000 men, both officers and lower ranks also left Singapore.
Japan Special Party
England Maru
On 16th August 1942 the ‘Japan Special Party’ sailed in the England Maru which was in convoy with the Fukkai Maru. The England Maru’s destination was Taiwan.
The Fukkai Maru to Chosen, Korea, then onto Mukden, Manchuria.
In September 1942 John arrived at No.3 Camp Heito, Taiwan:- They were all initially interned at Heito Camp No.3 until moved to other camps on the island but my father remained at Heito until he was sent to Shirakawa in November 1944 after Heito was destroyed by American B29s during the Formosa Air Battle. He told me that he had said to the Japanese that in civilian life he had been a farmer, hoping he would then be put to work in the fields and so he would have a better chance of survival being nearer the source of food of which there was so little at Heito, so he laboured for long hours on a nearby sugar plantation.
Drawing of John by Frederick H Stallard
The drawing was done of him as a FEPOW on 9th October, 1944, by Army Padre, Reverend Captain Frederick H. Stallard, Royal Army Chaplain Corps, at the Japanese prisoner of war camp of Heito on the island of Formosa where both men had been interned since their transportation in the filthy, overcrowded, rat-infested holds of a rusty and dilapidated Japanese hellship, a dangerous and perilous journey which in late August 1942 took 1,400 Allied prisoners of war from Changi POW Camp in Singapore to the Formosan port of Takao. In November 1944 after Heito was destroyed by American bombing, he was taken to Shirakawa where he remained until freed by the US Navy in early September, 1945.
Fred Stafford who did the drawing was instrumental in setting up the Changi Rover Scouts where the POWs, many of whom had been former boy scouts, did good turns in the camps and the practice of Scouting spread to many of the prison camps across the Far East and did an enormous amount in helping to boost the morale of the prisoners. There were several scout crews in Formosa and many of my father’s expressions date back to his time as a boy scout and later a prison camp rover scout. (Captain Fred Stafford became a vicar in Nottingham after the war)
November 1944 transferred to No.4 Camp Shirakawa, Taiwan:- At Shirakawa John was involved in working in the padi, rice, and vegetable fields and in the camp farmyard.
5th September 1945 Liberated Taiwan:- John was released from Shirakawa by the US Navy in September 1945 and taken on the American aircraft carrier, USS Santee, to Manila.
Then on to San Francisco, entrained across the States to New York where he was met by representatives of the Borneo Company in New York who told him that he still had his job in Singapore.
Queen Elizabeth
There is a lovely comment in a letter he wrote to my mother from the Queen Elizabeth in October 1945 on the way home to Southampton, after he explained to her he still had his job with the Borneo Company, he writes "Thankfully that piece of welcome news discounts either farming in Australia or scraping a violin outside Lyons Corner House in London's Coventry Street as future options!
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