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Into Captivity
We were marched for 12 miles passed the Changi Jail, and eventually we arrived outside Changi Village, it was a very large area like a park. We were given tents to sleep in. Next morning we were told to line up with our dixies for breakfast. I was very lucky as I had found one and a spoon in that garage.
After a couple of days, the camp was quite organised. We were with a lot of Australians. One unit I think was the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion. They organised the trucks, but they were stripped down to a frame, a flatback on wheels and we had to push them, maybe half a dozen to a truck. These were used to collect the rations of Rice.
Japanese Index Card - Side One:-
Japanese Index Card - Side Two:-
A fortnight after capture our officers started organising lectures. The first one I went to, was how a car works. This class was run by a Captain Toohey an Australian. He said when you get back home you must join the R.S.L. I often wondered if he was related to the Beer Manufacturers in Melbourne. Funny thing was we never saw any Japs.
A party was rounded up and I was one of them. We were marched down the road, passed the Changi Jail, to the docks. We were sent into one of the gowdowns, which were full of all kinds of goods that were left behind. There was always the chance of loot, we filled our pockets with sugar. Sometimes we would be searched. One day a fellow had a fish stuck down his shorts. At the inspection he was caught by a Jap the tail of the fish was hanging below his shorts. The Jap yelled “Bagger Dana” (literate translation meaning stupid) he grabbed the fish, and slapped his face with it, then gave him it back.
Another day at ‘Smoko’ time, something like morning tea, only there wasn’t any tea and some times no cigarettes. Anyhow we were sitting in a circle and the Jap tried to tell us that the Aussies were theives. He placed a tin of Corned Beef, under a slouch hat and went on talking. When he finished he lifted the hat and the tin was gone, he just laughed, as if to say I have proved my point. One day we very were lucky as we found Cigarettes in the Gowdown we were working in. After seven days we marched back to Changi.
Breakfast, a sloppy rice called porridge, Lunch, one cup of rice and watery stew, Dinner was the same.
I then got some small ulcers in March and was sent to Roberts Barricks which had been turned into a Hospital. I had fever and dysentery and within the next three weeks, I was in and out hospital. My weight had dropped from one stone and seven pounds to about five stone. Everybody starting to lose weight.
Most of us in our twenties but we looked like old men. The guards around the camp perimeter were Sikhs, with their turbins and pike staffs, they were turncoats, and had joined the Free Indian Army of Chandra Bose on the Japs side.
Life going on, but every one going down hill fast. I had caught diarrhoea and another week in the hospital. They came around asking for volunteers to go to Siam (Thailand), so I volunteered to go as Camp Boot Repairer. We had to pack our gear if you had any, and went on trucks to Singapore Railway Station.
The train was standing waiting for us, so off the trucks and into a cattle trucks, 35 men to a truck, we left on Thursday the 16th July 1942. Off we went, over the causeway into Malaya, it was five days of agony locked in these trucks. We had a bucket in the middle for the latrine, or if the train was stopped open the door and squat over the side. The Guards were travelling on top of the trucks, at least they were cooler than us, as we had to take turns for fresh air from a small grill. We stopped every night to get our rice. On one stop we raided a Pineapple Plantation, so there was plenty to share around. After five days and nights we arrived at a town named Ban Pong in Thailand, (names are Japanese pronouncements). Everybody off and we were marched up the road to some Huts, which was our accommodation for about three weeks.
Every day we would be marched up the road for three miles and we had to build this large camp of all timber huts. This was Nong Pladuk which later became a large siding for the Railway. From this Camp you could see a large Buddist Temple with a Gold Leaf roof. September I now had scabies for one week . Every night when we marched back to our Ban Pong Camp, which was on the main road, where people, and buses and rickshaws passed by a Jap would stand at the gate with a very large hose and everybody was hosed down, us standing naked on the edge of the road, people Rickshaws and busses were always passing by.
After we finished building the huts we moved in and we were giving jobs working in the store, box loads of all kinds of items. Each gang used to steal items, our gang was Axe Heads, which we sold to the Siamese. They would even buy nails if you had them. When we went out to work we waited our chance then crawled through the tall grass or small trees and shrubs. The Siamese would be lying there waiting, then you had to bargain for the best price in cash.
One morning we were called out on roll call and the Camp Commander Colonel Sato mounted his platform and started talking in Japanese. The Interpreter explained that everyone had to sign a form, stating that we would not attempt to escape. We all refused to sign and Sato was mad he waved his sword around his head and his revolver in the other hand, he then brought into the camp, four machine guns one in each corner of the square as a threat, but that did not move us. They made us stand to attention in the blazing sun, we were dismissed at 4 pm but the officers were made to stand until 7pm. We got word that the prisoners in Changi had to give in as they were herded into a small square in Selingor Barricks and were dying like flies, so we signed under duress.
Everybody pack up your belongings we are off by Truck to Kamburie (Kanchanaburi), where we were loaded onto a barge with the Siamese Family aboard also. These Barges were towed by a big motor launch, another five days and nights and we arrived at Kinsyuke. I stepped off the barge and I was covered from head to foot in Ringworm. The doctor, Lt. Smith or ‘Pill Willy’ as he was known, if you broke your arm he then would give you a number nine pill. He could not help me as he did not have any medical supplies, so he went to the Jap Doctor and asked if he could help.
At 6pm that night I was sent across to the Jap Doctor, he had a piece of bamboo with some kapock on each end ( this was used instead of cotton wool ), he then dipped it in an acid jar then into a creosote jar. He painted all my Ringworms which started at my forehead then down to my toes. I could not sleep for the burning pain all over my body. Next morning they all peeled of like postage stamps. It was worth the agony to be rid of them.
We were spilt into small gangs and giving different jobs, some to cut and collect bamboo, others to clear the site for the huts, and some to do the building ready for the next batch of prisoners to occupy.
Pack your kit we are off again onto the barges down the river to Tarsoa. There were a few huts but we had to build more, as they were expecting an influx in from Singapore. We were then sent out to build a road which would be along side the railway when they start it. One day while we were walking to the road where we had finished off the day before, one of the lads said to this nip Benjo please, which means ‘I want to go to the toilet’, when he came out of the Jungle he was at the tail end of the column. Which meant that they were different Koreans, on guard, so one started raving at him then started to bash him with his rifle another two started in and he was a mess. That night when we got back to camp, he was in a small hut and tied with rope around his neck and down to his ankles. Next morning he was stood at attention outside the Guard Room, in the full sun all day. Every Jap or Korean that past him would have a bash at him. Their favourite was to hit behind the knees with a rifle. After four days they took him into the Jungle and shot him. A short while after four chaps took off, but as there was a price on our heads, the Siamese turned them in. Three days later they were all taking out and shot.
We didn’t have much chance of escaping, as we stood out like sore thumbs against the natives. I was taken off the road gang and put on a quarry gang digging stones for the road and the railway embankment. My first day and I was in trouble. We worked in pairs, one with a pick and one with a shovel, but this Jap saw me standing outside the hole and he bashed me in the lower spine with the butt of his Rifle. I was in agony. His idea was that we should both work in the hole at the same time. So when I arrived back I went straight to the doctor, and was put on light duties.
When I was supposed to be fit again, I went to the work sergeant and told him about my bashing so he said he would send me on another party. Next morning I was put on a party to cut down the tallest and straightest trees then we had to carry them back to camp. There was a large round hole dug and we cut the trees to length and stacked them upright in the hole, when it was full we covered it over with soil and at the front was left a small opening. The pile was then set alight and producing charcoal. One day while cutting a tree down we disturbed a wasps nest and my mate and I were attacked, so we dropped our axes and started running. We were covered in large lumps were they had stung us and it hurt, after a while we had to go back for our axes. We wouldn’t go near the tree, so we had to get a long branch, then crept forward and snare the axes.
I was then next on a Bamboo Party, to cut and bring it back to their cookhouse, and one fellow wrote a song it went like this:-
ENGLISH HAITI KUTSI KOY, TAKSAN MAKI MORTI KOI, KIRO KIRO SWEDEGEEBAR, TAXAN SATU TAXAN CHAR.
Which when translated into English:-
English Soldier come here and bring plenty of Bamboo to the Cookhouse, and we will give you plenty of tea and sugar
We all sang this song, every time we went out and came back, but we never got any of their Tea or Sugar.
These huts were made from bamboo and attap for the sides, and the roof. They were 50 foot long, and had 100 men to a hut with split bamboo for the beds, which ran the whole length of the huts, both sides. If you had a blanket you were very lucky. I had a rice sack and I used to sleep inside it. Six of us were sent to a Camp about three kilometres away North. There was one Korean Guard and he was always on the warpath, at night some one would shout look out here he comes, and the next minute the hut was empty.
We had to unload barges with foodstuff on board. I think this was one of our good times as we used to steal every time we had the chance, as we cooked for ourselves. One day the Japs killed a bullock and we were giving quite a bit of meat and bones, so we had real stew with meat and bones floating in the wok. The best meal we had had in months, and this was the last good meal for the next one and half years.
As you marched past the guard room or Nips you had to eyes right or salute. One day we had to go past Tarsoe and when we came back we were caught for not saluting the guard. He made us stand at attention outside the guardroom, after half an hour, he slapped us all twice in the face then told us to hop it.
As the Nips did not speak English, you can imagine the swear words that were shouted as you marched by, but some fool started teaching some of them English so you had to be very careful. We were sent back to Tarsoe in late 1943, and on one morning parade the sergeant told the Camp Boot Repairer to fall out, which was quite a surprise to me, as it had never been mentioned before. I was taken to a hut and introduced to this Korean. He was sitting at a Singer Sewing Machine mending uniforms, his name was Yaster Googi San which in English was mister Yasta Nail. He gave me a last, hammer and a knife which was a Thai knife which looked like a paint scraper. I was also given a hide of Leather which was buffalo. It was of various thickness and a lot of knots which was from flies biting the buffalo. Then I was given some Jap boots and told to repair them. A few days after this I was told to go to the next camp lower down the River which I think was Tamuwang.
Next morning I went down to the river and got on this motor launch which had been sent especially to transport me. All I had was my hammer, nails, knife and a piece of leather. Arriving at the camp I was taken to the Camp Commander Captain, who’s name I don’t recall, he told me to “you repair my Kneeboots”, which were made of brown leather, I did not have a last so I got a pretty solid piece of bamboo knocked it into the ground and heeled his boots.
That night a chap came shouting for the Boot Repairer, he told me the Jap Captain wanted to see me at his house. I thought, here we go I am in trouble. When I got there the English Camp Commander a Captain was there and also a Major Swanton who was the Cricket Commentator for the B B.C. So we all sat down to dinner. The Jap Captain thanked me for fixing his boots with a good meal. We had been giving a printed Card to send home, and Swanton said to the English Captain, I wonder if I should say cheerio to the boys at the B.B.C, this being a brag.
Next morning the launch was there and I was on my way back to Tarsoe. By this time the camp was growing and I was giving two extra boot repairers. Kenny Kemp from 14, Victoria Road, Diss, Norfolk and Jos Hynes who was from Queenstown in Tasmania. At this time we also had with us two storemen Harry Doughty from Birmingham and another. Plus two tailors, Allen Headlem from Gothland Yorkshire and Arthur Ardly from Herne Bay Kent. A Watchmaker, then. Charlie Wilson from Southampton added to the squad as another Boot Repairer.
1943 Illnesses included:-
March, May and July - malaria and piles
September - foot rot
October - piles and foot rot
November - a smashed finger when I was helping to grind rice to make rice cakes. I was pressing the Rice down too far and caught my middle finger. The lad turning the handle said I think there is a bone in the rice, I said yes my finger bone. When I took it out we had red rice from my blood and the finger nail fell off, the cure, stick it in a bottle of Iodine, this was followed by B.T Malaria. Another time I broke my top false teeth eating rice. I rivetted a piece of aluminium across them but could only wear them on parade.
At night I used to go across to the Medical Orderly’s hut, to play Marjong with two medical orderly’s, Charlie Cole from Tynley, Birmingham and Fred Baker who had a fruit shop in Potters Bar Middlesex, .
The Japs had a gang on digging an escape trench, around the Camp. Ten feet deep and ten feet wide. I used to cross this road over the trench from my hut to get to the M.O Hut. One night it was pitch black and I mean black. When I left Charlie and Fred to go back to my own hut, I could not even see my hand just six inches away from my face. I was walking along the gravel road when suddenly I could not hear my feet on the gravel. So I got onto my hands and knees to find I was on fresh earth. I put out my hand and there was nothing there, so I turned away, as I thought, but instead I was falling head first into the trench.
I got up in a daze and my right wrist was aching, so I walked to where it was at half level and and climbed out. Back in my hut I had one of the chaps strap my wrist with tent webbing which we used as bandages. I could not sleep for the pain, just sat on the bed waiting for morning.
At 9 am I reported sick and saw Doctor Moon, an Australian, he said I had a Collis Fracture and sent me to the hospital. About an hour after he came in and told me to climb up onto the table. As usual this was made with bamboo, an orderly placed a piece of cloth over my face and the Doctor poured some Ether onto it, and I was asleep.
My mate Harry said afterwards, that he had watched, and he thought that the Doctor was trying to pull my arm off. When I came to I was told that I would be on light duties. With my right arm wrapped in plaster I used to sweep the floor. This happened on the 17th of December, just before Christmas. The Korean Yaster came to see me, he brought some bananas brittle toffee and also gave me a five dollar note.
The Camp Doctors were amazing, without much medicine or tools they managed to keep us going. Often you would see blokes leaning on the wall watching operations. I watched one with the patient was lying on the table. He had very large Ulcers on his leg, you could actually see the bones in his leg. So the Doctor was going to amputate. He had a loan of the carpenters saw and he sawed off the leg below the knee. There was an orderly standing with a fan swishing the flies away.
Early on I mentioned Jarrett, he went out one night to the toilet and a guard shot him. At early morning light we saw him lying against the bamboo fence, the Japs said he was trying to escape.
In 1944 the Japs were getting a hiding in Burma, and there were train loads of wounded, dead and dying, coming back from Burma. The dead were just slung off the train where ever it stopped. I saw one Jap Medical Orderly stick a large needle into one, he did not move so he just pushed him over the embankment. As there was a big push on in Burma by the British they decided to move us to the next camp Tamuang. We were taken on the railway which we helped to build for our first ride on open trucks. Arriving at the camp we settled in.
1944 Illness:-
January - B.T Malaria
April - B.T.Malaria
June - Yellow Jaundice
August - Foot Rot
September - Denghie fever, and the same in October.
There was a Wireless in the Camp. These were always hidden by one person and the Japs never found a one, but the news was always camouflaged and put out as toilet rumours. December, still all together with our own hut, and our work hut was at the end of the store hut. The Korean Yaster was busy making knapsacks for himself and his mates. That should have giving us a clue as to how the war was going.
One day Yaster give me a knapsack and a bar of soap which was about six inches long. I put the knapsack into a bucket, then I took the soap to my bedside and put it in my knapsack. I then went down to the river and stayed lying in a nice warm river until lunch time, and all I had done with knapsack was to put it in the water weigh it down with some stones and let it soak On my way back to the camp I bought six eggs off this Siamese Woman who’s house I had to pass by. I put them in the bucket, and covered them with the knapsack and the water. I walked passed the Guard house but was not stopped. I got to my hut and hid the eggs, then off to our work hut and gave the bucket to Yaster. When he saw it he asked, “you washie”, I said yes. He then started yelling in Japanese or maybe Korean, he then took it outside and said! “I washie”, so I patted him on the back and said “you number one washer”. The others stood and watched and were laughing behind there hands.
They said! it was like a pantomime, both of us talking together in different languages. One day Yaster asked me my name and I said it is Bill, he then said you bamboo man and I replied, you Mr Butu which means Pig. If anybody else had said that they would have got a hiding.
We used to wet the floor with water, and then sweep it and it used to go like concrete. One day we were doing the floor and Charlie Wilson was sent for more water and the river was 20 feet below. So it was down over all those rocks then climb back with the bucketful of water. Charlie arrived back with the water and said I’ll give him water and he threw the bucketful over the floor. Now Charlie was 6 feet tall and Yasta was jumping up trying to slap Charlie’s face while we were laughing our heads off. But he did not succeed so he gave in.
We were told that we were moving out in the morning. Next day we had our rice porridge, then marched off to the railway. This time open trucks, 35 to a truck, then we set off down past Kamburie then Ban Pong. Then to Nong Pladuk where we had our first building lessons when we first arrived in Thailand. This was now a large railway siding, and the Yanks had dropped bombs on it and a lot of PoWs were killed in the raids.
At the station a squad of ex Indian Army now called Free Indian Army, or Chandra Bose’s Army. We were told to get out of the trucks and the Indians were told to go inside. We were then told to climb on to the roofs of the trucks, the Guards had to climb up also, one wag shouted we are still on top of you bastards. It was the strangest ride we ever had just as well that the Train was not going fast, as no one fell off, but we also had a good view.
At the station a passenger train pulled in along side us from Bangkok and there were a lot of French Indo China people on board including woman, first White woman we had seen in nearly three years. We arrived on the outskirts of Bangkok disembarked and we were then herded onto barges, which went to the other side of the City. We spent the night in some warehouses. Next morning we were put onto trucks for the next part of our journey.
No one knew were we were going. After 170kms we arrived at a town called Sraburi, and another few kms we arrived at this camp called Pritchi. The usual set-up, long huts 100 to a hut, low walls and bamboo slat beds all native materials. Not far away opposite the camp there was a hill with a beautiful Monastery on the top. There was a track up to the top, but it was on the opposite side to us. We settled down to work again, we had our own work hut, at the end of the store hut. The same set up where ever we went.
Parties were sent out to work every morning. To dig large caves into the hillsides. So life dragged on day in day out the same routine. Then one day the work parties went out as usual, but were back after two hours, then the rumours started to fly, its all over, bull dust. This was 16th August, 1945. The Jap camp was next to ours separated by a wire fence. There was much laughter on our side but on the other side all was deathly quiet. I felt very sorry for poor Yasta, he had been very busy sewing Black tops and pants for himself and his mates.
At about 5pm the cooks were making coffee. So myself and the other three Boot Repairers went to our work hut, took a knife and slashed down the wall into the store. We found a large glass jar in a straw and wire basket. We opened it and filled everything that we could find, It was pure Whiskey. So we went to the cookhouse and by this time the Coffee was ready so we poured a lot of Whiskey into the Coffee. It was the best drink we ever had in three and a half years. Everyone full of joy even the hidden wireless was now on show blaring music. There were still Jap guards on the gates with their rifles but they did not bother us. Next morning, the 17th, a lone Yank strode through the gates.
He with a lot of others had been parachuted in before the war was finished. My mate Harry Doughty was one of the storemen and we decided to walk down the road to the town Saraburi. When we got there we found this Barbers Shop and had the works even hot towels all free. That night, Harry and I decided to have a walk down the road. Across on our left a light was shining so we strolled over. It was a typical Thai house, built on stilts, with one room and a veranda. The Thai was sitting on the floor with two Dutchman and in the middle of the floor was a large basin, and they were passing a can around with the lid as a handle. So we just sat down uninvited and had our share. It tasted like Boot Polish, Petrol, and Kerosine, all mixed together. I do know we suffered for it that night.
Next morning the Guards on the gate were replaced by Siamese no rifles. Yaster Googi and his mates, were told to find there own way home, at least that was what we were told.
The last time I saw Yaster and said goodbye he was off walking carring his Singers Sewing Machine on his shoulder. Another Korean wasn’t so lucky he arrived back at the Camp minus his ears and part of his nose. One day he had had a bath in the Thais holy water, so this was payback, after our Doctors fixed and bandaged him, he used to work around the Camp until we left.
More excitement a party of V.I.P’s arrived in the lead Lady Mountbatten. She was touring PoW camps. Then there were lazy days for us, nothing to do but talk and listen to the wireless. On the 10th September we were told we would be leaving next morning. We were all up bright and early. I was dressed in my best shirt, Shorts, clogs and a forage cap made by one of the tailors, and my Royal Northumberland Fusiliers Badge on it.
Most POW were asked to fill in a Questionnaire upon liberation , Below is my Uncle Charles William Nicholson
Liberation Questionnaire - Side One
Liberation Questionnaire - Side Two
An article in the Scottish Express, 8th Febuary 2002, reads:-
They were called ‘Britain’s Forgotten Army’ the men who had suffered so hideously under the lash of Japanese captivity in World War Two.
This was 60 years to mark the anniversary of the fall of Singapore-the alleged impregnable fortress-on February 15th 1942. The British garrison commander Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, surrendered over 100,000 British and Commonwealth troops to a small crack Japanese forces commanded by the cruel General Tomoyuki Yamashita, later hanged as a war criminal
Most of the soldiers captured ended up in Singapore’s notorious jail or worse, on the infamous Burma railway. Many thousands died, either victims of disease or the sadism of the Japanese guards.
Percival’s son said his father was made to feel a scapegoat by Winston Churchill for the fall of Singapore.
Churchill never backed him up when he needed it and he thought his father died a bitter man.
End of quote.
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