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Healing the Wounds at Singapore
On our return to Singapore we were established in a new camp known as Sime Road. In this camp we had a considerate Japanese commander, as Japanese commanders go. The food was very reasonable and quite good - the best we had as prisoners. It still has a basic foundation of rice, but this was supplemented each day by an issue to each man of five ounces of the almost miraculous soya bean.
We had not been in this camp for a week when the Catholic soldiers were clamouring for a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament could be reserved.
The man who came to our asstsance was Lieutenant Hamish Cameron-Smith, a Scvottish Catholic, and an architect in civilian life. He drew the plans for our little Chapel, rounded up a band of voluntary labourers, and with the help of his fine, persuasive, Highland personality, we managed to secure all the material we needed. He then built the chapel, from the first nail to the last stroke of the paint-brush. His assistant carpenter and general factotum was a young English convert. Lieutenant Hugh Dimon-Thwaites. This young officer up endeared himself to our Catholic community by his enduring and ardent enthusiasm for all things Catholic. He will have the good wishes and prayers of hundreds of his comrades when he commences his studies for the priesthood with the Society of Jesus after his discharge from the army.
A beautiful garden was laid out around the chapel, amd from the time it was finished until we left the camp in June 1944, these two young officers spent hours each day keeping the church in repair, beautifying the garden and doing any odd job the chaplain required.
In front of the chapel a memorial plaque was erected, and on it was inscribed these words:
“This chapel is dedicated to Our Lady Help of Christians and in memory of our deceased comrades who died in Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, Thailand and Burma, over whose remains there was no Christian symbol.”
These last words were added to remind the Japanese that we Christians respect the remains and last resting-places of our comrades and to remind us - if that was necessary - to go back and gather up the remains of those left behind.
Within a week of our arrival at the Sime Road camp we began choir practice with a mixed group of Australian, British and Dutch soldiers. On Christmas night, 1944 we had the traditional Midnight Mass, at which the men rendered the work of a great Dutch composer. I was the only chaplain of any donomination at Sime Road, so it was not surprising that we had large numbers of non-Catholics at the Midnight Mass. From November until January the treatment of the men at the camp was reasonable. As they recovered in health, small parties were sent out for work in Singapore. Gemerally speaking, there was no brutality or cruelty, and the food was always reasonably good for PoW conditions.
In January the Japanese decided to move all prisoners of war on Singapore Island into the civilian gaol, which was not unlike Long Bay.
Until the time of our arrival this gaol had been occu[pied by civilian internees, both men and woman. With them were two Australian Redemptorists, Fathers Cosgrave and Moren, as well as seven Dutch and Belgian priests. Here also were three Little Disters of the Poor and two Canossion Sisters.
During their long imprisonment the priests had helped to care for the old and the sick, and the Sisters had worked in the hospital with the women.
The nuns had their own little, makeshift convent wherever they were camped, and when I visited them after the surrender of Singapore, I found them clad in almost immaculate white habits, cheerful, and impatiently waiting to go back to their work that had been interrupted by the war.
When we moved into the civilian gaol the civilian the civil internees took over our place at the Sime Road camp. Here they were able to resume religious life in the chapel of Our Lady Help of Christians.
The movement of troops from the original Changi PoW camp into the gaol was as unbelievable sight. All transport was effected with the chassis of old Army trucks, which were pulled by parties of 20 or 30 men. In this way all our camp materials, including hospital beds, hospital equipment, cooking utensils, hygiene tools were transported. The camp huts from Changi barracks were pulled down by the prisoners, and were raciously transported by the Japanese. Our engineers erected these huts outside the prison walls, but even then there was not sufficient accommodation, and another eight huts 100 metres long, were built, also outside the walls of the gaol.
When we were finally established in this camp we had 11,000 men in the whole area. Four thousand five hundred of these were crowded into cells and gaol workrooms. Whithin the gaol the over-crowding was shocking, but the men were consoled in their privation and comfort by the fact that civilian men, women and little children had cheerfully and courageously put up with these conditions for three years.
We had demolished our churches in the old Changi Barracks, and now, with the aid of voluntary labour we transported the material to the new camp site. This included roofing-iron, timber, floor tiles, and two statues, slightly less than life-size - one of Our Lady of Lourdes and the other of St. Joseph.
Almost before the first essential condtruction work had begun in the new camp, the senior chaplain, Father Dolan, was already looking out for likely sites for new chapels. These were soon selected and under Father Dolan’s energtic leadership the chapels were quickly erected.
One within the camp walls was anmed in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and another was erected in the hospital area. Once again Lieutenant Cameron-Smith, Lieutenant Simon Twaites, and Lieutenant Meyer (of the N.E.I. Forces) gave up all of their daylight hours in helping with the work. Meyer was a landscape gardener, and wjile Cameron-Smith and Simon-Thwaites wre getting on with the Church construction, he was planning a most beautiful garden layout.
Fathers Dolan and Sexton were also on the job for hours every day, excavating earth for the foundation, sawing timber and hammering nails.
As usual, we had choirs practising in a matter of weeks, weekly instruction classes and Solemn High Mass once a month and all the big feast days. All this time we had we had two British priests, five Australian priests and two Dutch priests.
From July, 1944, untill March, 1945, Catholic life in the camp went along in the usual, smooth manner, with every facility fot regular Communion. At the end of this period, however, due to shortage of alter beads, each priest was permitted to say only two Masses each week. Except on special occassions the soldiers were asked to receive Communion not more than once a month.
We had a surprising number of requests dor exceptions to this rule. Men wanted to receive Communion on their weeding anniversaries or on the birthdays of their children. Nor dad they forget the anniversaries of comrades who had been killed in the Malayan Campaign.
By April, 1945, thousands of men, who had been working on a new air-strip, were taken away from the camp into different parts of the city to prepare battle-stations for the Japanese final stand to retain the island fortress.
During this period the men were forced to work very hard for long hours, making tank traps, underground food store-rooms. tranches and gun positions. At this period also the food was very hard both in quantity and quality.
From April until August, when the surrender came, I saw men working from 10 to 12 hours a day on a few ounces of rice and a little dried whitebait. The issue of fish, which was our only source of protein, was very irregular.
Tp supplement the camp rations a vegetable garden was startedm and a variety of Eastern spinach was grown. When this was added to the soup it was known byt the men as jungle stew.
Although we realised that the war was fast c an end we felt, and with good reason, that if there was a landing on Singapore Island, many of the men in the working parties would lose their lives in the fighting. Later, we were told by staff officers of the 9th Indian Corps, thatthe initial landing, wirh its prelude of bombing and shelling was to have commenced in the very area we ossupide at this time.
Meenwhile, I was able to offer Mass only once a week, because of the shortage of alter breads and wine, but on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, I celebrated Mass on the table of the operating theatre before the men went out to work.
At 2,30 that afternoon a crowd of Indians in a camp nearby became very ezcited. Shortly afterwards a Catholic Korean, who had kept us well posted with the news, told us that the war was over. Immediatelythere was a change of attitude among the Japanese. The food ration was increased, and a quantity of new clothing issued. Never the less, they continued with their guard duties, displaying not the slightest emotion on their poker-faces.
On August 18, we moved back to Changi Gaol, where all prisoners were being assembled prior to the occupation of Singapore by the forces of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten.
All working parties could not be accommodated in the gaol, so a mixed force of British and Australians were kept at the Adam Park Camp, where they had been working. Those of us who were in the camp were fortunate because we were well within the city boundary and consequently witnessed all the British operational landings and the ceremonies of surrender. We were also able to contact Chinese and European Catholic friends of pre war days, and to renew acquaintance with local clergy.
After what seemed an interminable time we were at last boarding the ship to bring us home.
On the way home Mass was celebrated every morning in the ship’s recreation room, and rright until the last night, when we were off Sydney Heads, where our last Mass was celebrated at one minute after twelve, the splendid attendance of Catholic soldiers was maintained.
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