I originally posted this on the VJ Celebration thread, but perhaps it merits reposting here.
I think some of today's generation may find this piece of family history educational. My father was a civilian doctor in Malaya and was called up as an MO in the Federated Malay States Volunteer Force (FMSVF), the local TA, when the Japs invaded.
RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE AS A POW OF THE JAPANESE
This is the transcript of a letter which my father wrote by hand in 1986 to James Bradley, the author of “Towards the Setting Sun”, an account of Bradley’s wartime experiences as a POW and in particular of his escape, subsequent recapture and treatment by the Japanese. Jim Bradley escaped from Songkurai Camp on the Burma-Siam Railway in 1943 with 9 other British and Indian soldiers. Five died in the jungle and the survivors were recaptured. Bradley was tortured but, amazingly, was not executed. He knew Dad, mentions him in the book and sent a signed copy of it to him.
Dad writes:
Many thanks for sending me the book. You did a very good job for the rest of us, particularly the F Force part which, so far as I was aware, had received no publicity whatsoever. It was gratifying for me to learn that the efforts to produce the book had a salutary effect on you, Jim.
My own recollections are extremely vague. On the march up, our policy was that anybody who had to fall out should take a pal whose duty it was to mark the spot where he went off the road to squit. One of my friends, 2nd Lt Dave Jennings, 1 Pahang Bn, FMSVF, stayed at the rear of the column and scooped up the stragglers. I used to join him later in each leg of the walk. I am told that we never lost a man. The midges nearly drove me mad towards the end.
I can remember little about the cholera work. After a day or two I went and lived with my orderlies in a lean-to outside the cholera ward. There were no highlights. Just a relentless round of utter futility trying to save the few saveable, trying to get needles into collapsed veins. Getting up from squatting by the patients on the bamboo slats becoming more difficult as we grew weaker. Ash from the bonfire, which was kept going outside the hut, to mop up the mess on the slats and on the gangway down the middle: it (the ash) was about 9 inches deep all over the gangway by the time we left.
In fact, come to think of it, there were some highlights:
A Nip beat me with a bamboo when I was returning from a visit to the crematorium and your side (I suppose I had forgotten to chuck the bastard a salute).
When we got the daily count wrong and David Price came over – they said he would be shot – but we found the extra corpse.
My chaps knocked off the Japs’ black Labrador and casseroled it in a bucket – I have always regarded Labradors as fine dogs and this one was a Godsend.
Giving an anaesthetic to Lt Col Hudson (appendectomy) on my return to the main camp (I fancied myself as quite an artist with the rag and bottle).
One afternoon I saw a small group of Nips floundering up the road going North. One man, supported by two others, had a rope around his neck: the other end was a few yards ahead over the shoulder of another Nip. We weren’t the only ones!
I don’t think anybody gave you any hope for a successful run, but the gloom caused by news of your recapture was profound.
The trip to Tanbaya was a walk for a few kms to Kami-Songkurai, then truck to a train and so to the “hospital”. The three pagodas were a let-down; the largest was only about 30ft high, it seemed to me. I sat next to a fellow named Renton (?unit) whose name always brings lice to my mind. I lent him a rug (travelling, I had had it since I went to my prepper); it was full of lice when we got back to the camp. Al was lousy (still? or again?) in the truck. When I saw Bruce Hurst and told him, I was banished from the medical hut. Dave Jennings and I settled the men in and saw them “fed” and then reported to Bruce Hurst. Al told us to go to the cookhouse and get some grub. We hadn’t finished before a young Aussie officer came screaming for us accusing us of dereliction of duty. We were “court-martialled” in the morning, but as Bruce Hurst himself was our chief witness for the defence it was a farce. He had the grace to apologise (and later we became firm friends): in fact he embarrassed me and us all by putting me in charge of a regular RAMC Major’s (I only had 2 pips) “work”.
Tanbaya was a vast improvement on Songkurai. The monsoon ended and the forest was less of bamboo.
One was not forever slipping and skidding when walking about.
We were allowed to bathe in a nearby stream, if we could get to and fro on our own feet.
There was some “meat” in the diet and a sort of “fudge” could be bought at Thanbyuzayat and was occasionally brought in. The meat was revolting and putrid, but it may have had a slight effect on our survival.
It was here that I suffered from two afflictions which I do not recall seeing among my own patients; painless abscesses about the size of half a tennis ball; and jaundice. Mercifully the abscesses healed up after Frankie Cahill (Australian surgeon) incised and drained them. I do not know the cause of the jaundice; it was afebrile, but eating required a real effort; it lasted about 10 days.
Malnutrition was still a problem at Tambaya. I did not have ulcer patients, but Bruce Hurst ordered me personally to do the dressings on sores which affected the knuckles of a fairly well known young violinist. I spent about 11⁄2 hours daily on him and we managed to mark time. (I suspect that his chums were passing over morsels of the “meat” to him).
I recollect being called upon to amputate a man’s leg above the knee. Frankie Cahill looked on, but was not fit enough to operate that day. Jock Emery (see Duckworth’s broadcast) gave the anaesthetic. We amputated above the knee (the ulcers were on the lower leg) and all seemed well. Two days later the stump was all ulcer. Seemingly healthy tissue in such men just had no kick.
I remember little of the return to Kanburi; I had almost non-stop squits. No blood, so I would not call it dysentery. We were in open wagons on that trip and I managed to do my jobs squatting on the couplings. At one point we stopped for a few hours. I was parked in the shade of a tree with what I assumed was a private slit-trench latrine. I was told later that it was my grave!
Luck again came to my rescue and the trots eased off during the remainder of the journey. I don’t remember getting from the train to the camp, but it must have been only a fairly short walk. There we met up with K Force (I think). Anyhow there were some fit MOs and ORs who were able to help out with our survivors.
I had a small ulcer under the inside “knuckle” of my foot (L); very painful and smelly. I had visions of the underlying artery being involved and of bleeding to death one night. (This happened to some patients; probably the best way of dying if that was one’s fate). But I didn’t want to die then. We were in the “egg belt” and things were looking promising for a change. Lt Col Houston scraped the ulcer (under partial anaesthesia) but I was horrified when they took the dressing off; we were back to square one (just like my amputation patient, I thought). However, I had been on 4 – 6 duck eggs per day for about 10 days and a few days later, when the “dressing” was removed, there was pink granulation tissue.
Everybody flogged watches or whatever at Kanburi. I got 80 tickals for a watch which I kept in my pack most of the time.
The eggs were cheap (10 cents) and we could also get little dried fish (size of a sprat). Everybody started to improve; it was wonderful.
After that I remained “fit” until the end.
In Changi I worked in Medical Ward 1 with Eric Cruikshank until the end. I never had any more gut-rot and was in reasonable nick.
You remark that F Force should be written up. I can’t imagine that there is a survivor who could do the job. A compilation of the sources of information which you cite might be the only possibility.
You also remark that you hope the medical personnel got some recognition. Well some did. I was fortunate that my name was in the lucky dip and came out with an MBE stuck to it. My Father-in-law sent me a copy of the London Gazette. Of the medical personnel on that list a WO also got the MBE and two RAMC officers did so (Max Pemberton, the surgeon, and Capt WH McDonald); and there were numerous “mentioned in despatches”; 32 officers, 1 WO, 24 other NCOs and 25 privates. I think that a lot of the ORs deserved better than that.
It was kind of you to name me on page 56, but not really deserved. I was only one of many who tried to do something. (Incidentally, I was not in the RAMC, I was the dogsbody of 3 (VR) Field Ambulance, FMSVF (Federated Malay States Volunteer Force)).
PS.
Dear Lindy, (James Bradley’s wife, who wrote the foreword to his book).
Your last sentence – “In Jim’s war there was no glory” – I know what you meant, I think. But I looked up “glory” in the Concise OD and one of the many definitions does fit; “honourable fame”. And as I said to Group Captain Cheshire, Jim is my notion of a real hero.
Dad was part of F Force on the Burma-Siam railway. The Japanese decided to build the railway to assist with their invasion of India, using allied POWs held in Singapore in the work force. The POWs were divided into batches, Forces, for the task. Most Forces moved all the way to the railhead in Burma by train in cattle trucks, 30 men per truck. F Force left Singapore on 28 April 1943 with about 7,000 men, British and Australian, but was disembarked at Bampong in Siam. They then had to march on foot for the remaining distance through mountainous jungle during the monsoon at night, 185 miles in nearly three weeks, to five jungle camps near the Burma/Siam border. Many died. Songkurai camp, where Dad ran the cholera hospital, was the worst camp on the railway with a death rate at its peak of 25 per day. Of 1,580 F Force personnel who arrived at Songkurai Camp in May 1943, only 180 were still alive in 1945.