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The Straits Times - 1945/09/17
Angry Internees Protest
Walk Off Ship And Return To Sime Road
Civilian internees liberated only ten days ago from Sime Camp, Singapore, are so disgusted and disillusioned by the conditions in which they are expected to sail home in the U.K. that some of them walked off the ship, where they were living in mess decks, and returned to Sime Road.
The internees complaints about conditions on the repatriation ship are set out in a letter to the editor of the Straits Times by Mr L. D. Whitfield, of the Federated Malay States Education Department, who spent three years in Sime camp and is now on board S.S. Almanzora. Mr Whitfield writes:-
Our main complaints fall under two heads - Accomedation and feeding:-
Feeding: For supper at 6.15 p.m. on 15th Sept. we were given a hunk of bread, a very small portion (about .5 oz) of butter, less than 2 oz cold beef and a small piece of pickled cauliflower about the size of a walnut and a mug of tea with milk and sugar.
The beef was instead of stew, which had given out. We were given nothing more till 8 a.m. next day when we were given the same inadequate quantities of bread and butter, four dessert spoonfuls of porridge and 1.5 dessert spoonfuls of buttered egg plus a mug of tea with milk and sugar and a tea spoonful of jam.
To wash our dishes afterwards there was one tap available for approximately 100 to 150 men.
one dish cloth per 14 men was also provided to wipe the table with.
Between Decks
Accommodation: Every Service commissioned officer has a cabin or dormitory accommodation. We were between decks, slinging hammocks were we can, or planting mattresses on our mess tables under them or in any vacant space we can find.
latrine and washing arrangements are just disgraceful.
Some of us are on A2 deck with port holes, even here in port, permanently shut. What conditions will be like in the red sea or when people begin to be sea sick I do not like to think.
Of the Service officers in 1st A accommodation many are young men: of our people between decks many have been very ill and most are elderly.
Protest Useless
Mr Justice Worley of the Supreme Court (who survived the Jap Gestapo) is doing all he can for us and a RAPWI Major (who came aboard when Worley had managed to complain by phone) was sympathetic but powerless in face of opposition from the ship’s Adjutant who will no doubt be backed by the O.C. Troops.
Unless something is done for us before we sail we can have no prospect of mitigation later.
A number have already left the ship and returned to Camp.
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