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Manila had a
population of
45000 souls in 1680,
90000 by 1780,
150000 by 1860
270000 by 1880
Any Filipino & American born on June 6, 1944, turns 66 today, well
into the zone
for full collection of Social Security benefits. So, the youngest of
those paratroopers who jumped in, infantrymen who waded ashore, sailors
who guided ships and landed boats, and airmen who laid on air support,
would be about 84 years old. More likely they are 86 or older

SOUTH COTABATO:
Tampakan, Southeast Asia's largest undeveloped
copper-gold
prospect
Estimated to contain 12.8 million
tonnes of Copper and 15.2
million ounces of Gold
BRITISH
POW
1942
Yamashita
Treasures Forum
LOAD CHART for
Wire/Cable
GOLD Rock FOR
SALE
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News
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Condo
New
Items
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Malunggay
Oil
Yacon Wine
Tabuk Wine
Gipah
Tea
Two
Seasons Boracay

Boracay
Balabac
Island
Bucas
Grande
Caramoan
Calagua
Gubat
Bay
Siargao
Island
Palawan
Islands
Palaui
Island
Port Irene
Taguig
City
Malabon
City
ParanaQue
City
Tubbataha
Itbayat
Sabtang
Irian Jaya
Lembeh
Island
Sandakan
City
Kudat
Kota Marudu
MUSIC
1
MUSIC
2

American Shogun MacArthur

Japanese Imperial Army Officer

Imelda Marcos with Pure Gold Finger
and Lucky Precious Jaded Buddha
Imelda R. Marcos (born Imelda Remedios Visitacion Romualdez
on July 2, 1929) is a Filipino politician and wife of 10th Philippine
President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to
political power, she held various positions to the government until
1986. She is the first politician elected as member of the Philippine
legislature in three geographical locations (Manila, Leyte, Ilocos
Norte)."
In July 1978
After a trip to Russia,
Imelda arrived in New York and
immediately warmed up for a shopping spree. She started with paying
$193,320
for antiques, including $12,000 for a Ming Period side table; $24,000
for a
pair of Georgian mahogany Gainsborough armchairs; $6,240 for a Sheraton
double-sided writing desk; $11,600 for a George II wood side table with
marble
top - all in the name of the Philippine consulate to dodge New York
sales tax.
That was merely for starters.
A week later she spent $2,181,000.00 in one day! This included
$1,150,000 for a
platinum and emerald bracelet with diamonds from Bulgari; $330,000 for
a
necklace with a ruby, diamonds, and emeralds; $300,000 for a ring with
heart-shaped emeralds; $78,000 for 18-carat gold ear clips with
diamonds;
$300,000 for a pendant with canary diamonds, rubies and emeralds on a
gold
chain.
After New York, she dropped by Hong Kong where a Cartier representative
admitted it was this Filipina, Imelda, who had put together the world's
largest
collection of gems - in 1978.
PHILIPPINES -- When Ferdinand Marcos fled, U.S. Customs agents
discovered 24 suitcases of gold bricks and diamond jewelry hidden in
diaper bags. They also found certificates for gold bullion valued in
the billions of dollars.
-- His excesses were most graphically illustrated by his
wife Imelda's extravagance. When the couple were forced out of power in
1986, she left behind 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 1,000 handbags and up
to 3,000 pairs of shoes.

Rest in Peace President Marcos

A U.S. Tank
Roaring Under The Gate Of The Once
Impregnable Fort Santiago On February 25th, 1945

Japanese Imperial Gas Mask Recovered
from a Recent Yamashita Treasures Diggings
in the Philippines

Wow So Much Marcos Gold Bars...!!!

Gold Bar
Seventy five kilogram solid gold bar
found in the
Philippines.
This is just 'one' of a very large hoard buried by the Japanese.
The Philippines is loaded with many large and small treasures.
The proper locating tools are essential while hunting these great
treasures.
We have the answers.

One of the Many Sample of
Yamashita Treasures Maps

JAPS KEEP OUT in California & Texas

"The First Members Of The K-9 Corps" to go into
action on Luzon Island, "the dogs were especially trained
to smell out Japs". The soldiers pictured are
T/5 Paul Beancucci, Hartford, Conn./ T/5 EDW Smith,
Cross Plains, Indiana/ T/5 George Hertran, Cedar Ridge,
Colorado/ T/5 Milton Leavitt, Newburyport, Mass. and
T/5 Robert Robertson, Los Angeles, California
Five Japs to his Credit
probably the Youngest and Proudest Guerilla Fighter in the
philippines
Ponciano "Sabu" Arida of Santa Maria Laguna Province has 5 dead
Japs to his Credit, The 11 year old Patriot who fought the Japs
throughout
the 3 years of Japanese Occupation of the Philippine Islands is now
working
with a Unit of the 43rd Division
April 19 1945

San Miguel Brewery in 1945

US 38th Division Major General in the Philippine Islands 1945

End of the Line
Leyte - Japanese Medium Tank Stands wrecked where it was
Knocked Out
in a Duel with an American Tank in the Ormoc Area of Northern
Leyte
The Charred body of One of the Japanese Tank Crew lies In
Front of the
Tank. January 5 1945
Yanks Scurry for Cover
Leyte - American Fighters hurry for cover as a Jap Mortar Shell screams
over
their heads and strikes in the village of Limon, Leyte. 3 of the US
Soldiers in this photo were injured by Shell Fragments
Dec 25 1944

Captured Japanese Imperial Army Navy Flag Philippines 1945

Japanese SwitchBoard Captured 1945 Philippine Islands

1945 Panay Island American Liberation - Filipino Lend many Hand

Japanese Zero Fighter Plane Destroyed in Philippine Islands 1945

Quiapo Church in 1945

Manila City Hall Damage in1945

Pa and Son Duo Dig to their Dream of Yamashita Treasures
Gold somewhere in Mindanao Island - Philippines

Yamashita
Treasures Gold TOO HEAVY GOLD CARGO ??
Airbus 300

Dead Japanese Soldier

Victory Liner Bus in 1950's

1947 Roxie Bazar




The Philippines, in order to prove it's claim, have
to back it' up with historical facts. One very important date is July
23, 1946.
During the Second World War, Japan occupied both the Paracels (Paracel
Islands) and Spratlys in 1939 shortly after they controlled Hainan
Island. The Japanese used Itu Aba Island (Taiping Dao) as a submarine
base and a springboard for its invasion of the Philippines. At the end
of the Pacific War in 1945, the Japanese forces on the South China Sea
surrendered. The newly established Philippine government Foreign
Minister Qurino advocated on 23 July 1946 that the new Southern Islands
(a term used by the Japanese for all the islands in the South China
Sea) should be given to his country. This was the first indication of
the interests in the Spratly Islands from the Philippines government.
However, the Philippines did not physically occupy it until later


Corregidor Island - Philippines
Lieut. Col.
Donald D. Blackburn,
U.S. Army Commanding Officer, 11th Infantry, USAFIP NL He later became
a Brigadier General". For those who don't know, "USAFIP NL" stands for
"United States Armed Forces in Philippines, Northern Luzon". The photo
shows Blackburn earlier in the war while a major.

Manila
American
Cemetery,
Taguig
City,
the
Philippines
-
It
contains
the
largest
number
of
graves
of
our
military
Dead
of
World
War
II,
a
total
of
17,206,
most
of
whom
gave
their
lives
in
the
operations
in
New
Guinea
and
the
Philippines.
US Army Air Force Cemetery
Dedication of
last surviving boxcar that was
used on the Death March at the Capas National Shrine on April 9, 2008.
Courtesy
of Jim Litton

A 60th Anniversary memorial ceremony in Tacloban, Philippines,
on
October 20, 2004

Admiral William F. 'Bill' Halsey - Commander US Third Fleet at Leyte
Gulf
The
headstone over
the mass grave for the men who were executed on Palawan Island by the
Japanese. The grave is at Jefferson Barracks National
Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

More than 200 American POWs
are burned to death
in a Palawan
cave

American forces Liberate Cebu

American Forces Liberate Philippine Islands

B-25 Flown by US MARINE - Zamboanga Mindanao

Japanese Tank formation enters MANILA BANZAI BANZAI 1942

Filipinos Americans Bataan Defender inside the FOXHOLES

Maragondon,
Cavite
notable
landmarks:
Parish Church of the Assumption of Our Lady
Pico de Loro point
Mt. Marami
Mt. Buntis
Parish Church of the Assumption of Our Lady (Maragondon, Cavite). The
church was built in the early 18th century by the Jesuits, with later
additions by the seculars and the Augustinian Recollects. Much of the
church and belltower, and the lower portion of the convento is made of
irregular river stones, indicative of the early level of technology
operating at that time.

The intricately-carved retablos, pulpit and church doors (with galleons
and floral designs) date from Jesuit times, while the hugely carved
beams crossing the nave were installed by the seculars-- one of the
beams even carries the name of the indio priest who commissioned them.
The unusual horseshoe-shaped communion rail, with a flooring of inlaid
wood of various colors, recalls that of San Sebastian Church, Manila,
another Recollect construction.
This
place is almost 15deg NE, ideal bearing for the paranormal beliefs of
the japanese. pag nagtatago sila ng kanilang mga nakulimbat na yaman ng
mga bansa. Ayon ng mga matatanda dito ay di kayang bilangin ang mga
ssundalong hapon ang nangamatay sa dakong ito , meron silang mga
hospital at mga training grounds sa area na ito. Ngayon Ang JICA isang
grupo ng mga hapon , Bechtell isang american Firm at si Pangulong
Arroyo kasama na ang mga lokal na pamahalaan ang nagsusulong na gawing
lanfill ang area na ito. dati gwardyado ng grupo ni marcos ang dakong
ito.Ngayon sila naman. until now balikatan joint forces still
exercising in this area. ang world bank at si dating pangulong Ramos ay
lagi ring nakamonitor sa lugar na ito. Walang ganyanan!
Jet7

1921 Olongapo Fire
Large building or barracks engulfed in fire. Card is posted Jan 14 1921
Olongapo Zambales to Independence Missouri. Sender also notes writng
from Olongapo. Among the folks watching the blaze seems to be a US
sailor.
American
POW died at
a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp on Mindanao Island,
Philippines.
This photo shows the position in which a white man,
emaciated, died while trying to get a drink of water. this was
at the Davao Penal Colony Hospital.

1945 American Forces Bomb Corregidor Island
USS Flier (SS-250)
Lost on August 13 1944 with 78 US Navy Submariners killed
Sunk by Japanese Mine South of Palawan in Balabac Strait
(www.Balabac.COM)
USS Harder (SS-257)
Lost August 24 1944 with 74 US Navy Submariners killed.
Sunk by Japanese Luzon Coast Defense Vessel No.22
Off West Coast of Luzon - Philippine Islands

Real Sumatra Indonesian Gold Bars 999.99 Refine Gold
circa 1940s

Yamashita Treasures STONE MARKER

LOS BANOS RESCUE 1

Yamashita Treasures X Stone Marker
Sample Meaning of YamashitaTreasures X
10 nice things to say about Marcos
On his 20th death anniversary
By Benjamin Pimentel
CALIFORNIA, United States—Imelda Marcos reportedly expressed
hope
that someday her late husband also would be honored in the same way,
perhaps at a state funeral. Having grown up during, and survived, the
Marcos regime, Imelda’s wackiness no longer surprises me. But
her
wish left me with a jaw-dropping realization: They haven’t
buried
that dictator!?!
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’s
death. He died in exile in Hawaii in September 1989, three years after
being chased out of Malacanang. But the dictator’s remains
are
still lying in a refrigerated crypt somewhere up north. Someone should
tell the dictator’s handlers that what he said was,
“I do
not intend to die,” not “I do not intend to be
buried.” Still, in the spirit of reconciliation, and since we
have just relived the glorious days of the People Power Revolution, bid
farewell to Cory Aquino, and commemorated the martyrdom of Ninoy,
it’s perhaps time to also focus on the positive side of the
late
strongman.
Besides, it is also Marcos’s 92nd birthday (September 11) and
the
37th anniversary of the imposition of Martial law (September 21). What
can I say—September has really been an unlucky month for us.
So allow me to present my list—and, believe me, I tried real
hard
to come up with these—of the 10 nice things one can say about
Marcos.
1. Marcos taught us to disdain bullies. Ferdinand Marcos was
not
the first, or the last, president to abuse his power. But, certainly,
he set a seemingly unbreakable record. The nightmare of his 21 years in
power still haunts us today, a powerful, constant reminder of a chapter
in our history that must never be repeated.
2. Marcos taught us to disdain leaders who flaunt their wealth. Marcos
and Imelda did not invent wealth-flaunting. The elites have been doing
that for generations well before he came to power, and it’s
still
happening today, of course. But the Marcoses certainly took the brazen
display of extreme affluence, in the face of extreme poverty, to a new
low. I mean how can how one justify owning 3,000 pairs of shoes?
3. Marcos taught us to be suspicious of leaders who acquire wealth. The
current president just ran into this problem, of course. And the last
one too. Yes, politics is still widely-considered as an easy road to
easy money, but too much greed is now generally accepted as dangerous
to one’s political career. And we have to give credit to
Marcos
for this, for making Filipinos extremely suspicious of political
leaders who suddenly get rich.
4. Marcos taught us to disdain politicians who brazenly cheat in
elections. Now, I said “brazenly.” For yes,
election
Philippine-style is still dirty. But given our experience with Marcos,
there’s a line, especially in national races, that I suspect
candidates will not cross for fear of sparking a severe backlash. (Or
maybe not.)
5. Marcos taught us to be suspicious of leaders who warn the
nation that because of some unspeakable danger to the country they
simply must have more power. “Emergency powers” and
“martial law” are two phrases any Philippine
president must
use with extreme caution nowadays. If not, you run the risk of facing
ordinary Filipinos asking: “What was that again Mr./Madame
President? You say the communists, the rightists, the terrorists are
about to attack? Oh, and the Martians too, perhaps? And
that’s
why you need to throw all these people in jail, shut down all these
newspapers and TV stations and kill those who say you’re a
corrupt liar? Sir/Madame, I think we’ve seen this movie
before.
Napanood na ho ata naming ‘tong sineng ito.”
6. Marcos taught us that there is a big difference between discipline
and fear. “Sa Ikauunlad ng Bayan, Disiplina ang Kailangan
(For
our nation to develop, we need discipline).” That was the
regime’s slogan for Marcos’s New Society. It worked
for a
time, mainly because people knew that by discipline, the dictator
meant, “Shut up and submit, or else.” It got so bad
that
one US official observed that the Philippines in the 70s and 80s had
turned into a country of “40 million cowards and one
SOB.”
Well, Filipinos were willing to let that be the case only for so long.
7. Marcos showed that friendship with powerful world leaders is no
guarantee that one can hold on to power indefinitely. Oh, Marcos and
Imelda look so happy and proud in photographs with Ronald and Nancy
Reagan. They were friends after all. Reagan even sent his Vice
President George H.W. Bush to Manila to praise Marcos’
“adherence to democratic principles.” Well, a few
years
later, the dictator was gone after the Reagan White House finally
realized he had turned into a liability.
8. Marcos taught us to be wary of leaders who try to glorify themselves
in songs, slogans, or big, ugly monuments. I was actually thrilled when
Marcos imposed Martial Law in 1972. I was eight years old when it
happened, and for a few weeks I didn’t have to go to school
and
there was nothing on TV but cartoons. But then, once back in school, my
schoolmates and I had to learn these new weird songs about the new
order and how everything was great about the regime.
And then there’s that gigantic bust up north. I’m
glad
nobody blew it up as some groups reportedly planned to do. For it
stands as a powerful reminder of the twisted mind that once ruled our
country.
9. Marcos taught us to be creative—in fighting back. Only in
the
Philippines could yellow confetti become a symbol of protest. And nuns
praying the rosary in front of tanks—you just won’t
find
such an act of defiance in other places. But even before the People
Power Revolt, during the darkest days of dictatorship, Filipinos were
already coming up with creative ways to defy the regime. Students at
the University of the Philippines used to launch lightning rallies, in
which they march from one floor of Palma Hall to another, while yelling
slogans and waving banners, and then quickly putting the banners away
and dispersing before the cops showed up.
Even the artists dared try new things. Take my old boss and drinking
buddy, the poet Pete Lacaba, who wrote a seemingly harmless, apolitical
poem titled “Prometheus Unbound.” When read
vertically, the
first letter of every line said, “Marcos, Hitler, Diktador,
Tuta”—the famous anti-dictatorship slogan,
“Marcos,
Hitler, Dictator, Puppet.”
10. Marcos made us laugh and helped demonstrate that, even during dark
times, Filipinos can still maintain a healthy sense of humor. Marcos
and his crazy war medals. Imelda and her theory of a hole in the sky
above the Philippines through which cosmic rays pass to protect the
country from disaster. Admit it, Marcos and Imelda made us laugh. If it
weren’t for all the people who died and suffered during the
regime, we could look back to that time as funny and fun years.
Marcos and Imelda jokes kept us entertained even as we endured tyranny.
And we didn’t even have cell phones back then for speedy mass
distribution. I distinctly remember a classic during one of the rallies
after Ninoy’s assassination and Marcos’s face often
looked
swollen as he reportedly battled lupus. The protest poster read:
“Mamaga sana ang mukha ng nagpapatay kay Ninoy. (I hope
whoever
had Ninoy killed gets a swollen face).” Well, it’s
funnier
in Tagalog.
And without Marcos, what would have happened to Willie Nepomuceno, one
of the most talented Filipino humorists ever? He was so good with his
Marcos impersonation, that during the critical hours of the 1986 People
Power Revolt, when the dictator appeared on TV to prove he was still in
charge, there were those who believed it was a ploy—with the
popular comedian in the starring role.
Of course, Nepomuceno’s career faced a crisis when Marcos was
kicked out of the country, and later died. But he quickly bounced back,
doing other politicos, including former Presidents Fidel Ramos and
Joseph Estrada. Fortunately, like the late tyrant, Willie Nepomuceno
did not intend to die.
Not much of a list, but can you blame me? It’s tough to say
anything nice about a dictator in a freezer.
In any case, to Marcos supporters, let me say this: There may never be
a grand funeral for the late dictator, with big adoring crowds, a
military honor guard, 24/7 TV coverage, and flattering commentary in
media.
But don’t worry. We will never forget Marcos and what he did
to
our country. Ever.
ADDENDUM: I spoke too soon. Writer Krip Yuson informs me that someone
did blow up the Marcos bust which was heavily damaged by the blast
about seven years ago. Krip adds, "A Baguio friend rushed to the site
and picked up a bayong of the rubble. I was given two precious pieces,
which I keep."
* Jet was carrying eight crates
(one ton) of gold during take-off.
* Each crate weighed 250 pounds.
* Value over US$10,000,000.
* This gold was recovered from a Mindanao treasure site.
MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR
MINDANAO ISLAND (Philippines) - An overloaded eight-seater plane owned
by the Banco Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) crashed into a ravine at the
Davao International Airport after a failed takeoff yesterday noon,
injuring 12 passengers, two of them seriously.
The plane with body number RP C1980 was also carrying eight crates of
gold and an undetermined amount of cash.
Philippine National Police (PNP) 7th Aviation Security Command (Ascom)
chief Major Arturo Evangelista
said the plane was bound for Manila when it failed to take off at 11:55
a.m., forcing the pilot to manuever a
'break' and release the emergency brake.
But Evangelista said the emergency chute broke before it could stop the
plane which fell into a ravine at the end of the 2.5-kilometer airport
runway.
Seriously wounded were pilot Capt. Bienvenido Gorospe and co-pilot
Teofilo Balinghasay.Also injured were chief mechanic Aquilino Lugo and
passengers Victor Callejo; Cesar Callejo; Oscar Pimping, 50 and a
resident of Fabie Subdivision, Paco, Metro Manila; Alfred Bonilla, 46,
of Flores Subdivision, Moonwalk Village, Metro Manila; Leticia Fortun,
46; Andres Paulino, 34; Syvie Gorospe,
Dominic Gorospe, and one-year-old John Dominic Gorospe.
Evangelista said the rescue teams used a chainsaw to open the tail-end
of the plane to pull out the passengers who were trapped inside.
Because of their condition, he said a rescue helicopter of the
Composite Air Support Force (CASF) airlifted the passengers to the
Davao Medical Center but chose to be transferred to San San Pedro
Hospital. Except for one who was able to walk, all had to be carried in
stretchers.
A hospital nurse said the victims appeared to be out of danger, except
for the pilot and his co-pilot who are still being examined by doctors.
Meantime, Air Traffic Services chief Roland Vivar said an aircraft
investigator from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board in Manila
is expected to arrive anytime now to investigate the incident.
The jet broke in three places with its two landing gear some 10 meters
from the body.The nose of the plane was found just a few meters from
the residence of a certain Tiago Bacolcol.The twin-engined aircraft,
according to ATO, arrived in Davao City at about 11:30 a.m. and was
supposed to
leave Davao at 11:45 a.m.
PALAWAN MASSACRE:
Again, another POW story
This from my old friend, Ray Thompson Bataan survivor until 1999.
SUBJECT: PALAWAN-MEMOIRS
FROM: FVWW66A RAY THOMPSON
Palawan Memoirs of Ernest J. Koblos, who survived the Massacre when 139
POWs burned.
Ernest gave this account of the massacre to the press on Aug 28, 1944.
He was one of 11, WW II survivors who by law of averages should not be
enjoying the freedom and pleasures of their homeland, the love of home
and family. For Koblos, who formerly lived in Chicago, and his ten
living buddies, are the sole survivors of the infamous Palawan massacre
in which 139 out of a total of 150 American POWs were executed in one
of the most dastardly deeds ever to be conceived in the minds of
so-called civilized men, according to a special dispatch to the Daily
Calumet (a Chicago Paper), from General Hdqs. of the Supreme Commander
for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Tokyo, Japan.
As if being watched over by some omnipotent power, these boys reached
safety in probably the most miraculous and spectacular escape yet
recorded in the history of WW II. Sixteen Japanese who are charged with
the responsibility for the massacre will face a Yokohama 8th Army
Military commission this month.
Alva C. Carpenter, Chief of SCAP's legal section, first learned of this
new
addition to the already overflowing volume of Pacific war crimes while
serving with the American forces that re-occupied Mindoro in the
Philippines. He knew that it was a major atrocity, that justice and
America demanded that the perpetrators be found and made to answer for
this diabolical crime,and so, during the past three years he has
concentrated his every effort on bringing to the bar of just ice those
responsible for the Palawan massacre. In a recent interview Carpenter
declared "at the close of the Pacific war I pledged myself to fulfill
the solemn promises made to the people of the United States and the
Allied Nations at Potsdam that stern justice shall be meted out to all
war criminals, especially those who have visited cruelties upon our
POWS".
To me these were no idle words spoken to appease outraged peoples; they
were a mandate which I determined to thoroughly discharge and three
years of investigative research have expended to this end".
ONLY 11 A mericans ESCAPED
Just two months prior to the occupation of Palawan Island by the
American
troops the mass destruction of American POWs had been perpetrated--with
the exception of the 11 escapees, a complete POW camp had been
"annihilated" when it became evident that the victorious forces would
make a landing in the vicinity of Palawan, possibly on the island
itself. Conceived in hate and born in an atmosphere of frustration, the
decision to kill the American prisoners was no instantaneous burst of
passion. It was a fulfillment of a premeditated plan to "DISPOSE" of
the gallant defenders of Bataan and Corregidor at the time of the enemy
landing. The method of disposition was the off-spring of moral
depravity unsurpassed in the annals of Pacific war crimes...the
individual acts of heroism displayed by the few survivors are unequaled.
HOPE:B-24s SHOW
In October 1944,there were remaining at Puerta Princesa POW camp at
Palawan Island in the P.I., 150 American POWs. They had been sent there
by the Japanese to build an airstrip--a military project designed to
further the Japanese war effort against the Allied Forces. Conditions
at this camp were similar to those existing in most Japanese POW
camps--too little of every necessity of life, too much of mistreatment,
abuse and manual labor. All the hardships that had been suffered during
two years and a half were of little consequence, however, to these
prisoners on 19 Oct, 1944.
They could not forget the past, but the future looked brighter as they
watched the first B-24 that they had ever seen raid the airstrip they
had laboriously built, for the most part with hand tools, during long,
arduous hours in the relentless tropical sun.
It was easy for them to be lighthearted now--it would only be a matter
of a short time before they would be liberated, and, as their morale
soared, so that of the Japanese forces dropped to a new low. From now
on, daily air raids became a part of "living" at Puerta Princesa, and
so it was not unusual to hear the air raid siren at noon on 15 Dec.
1944.
What was unusual, however, was the fact that the Japanese called all the
Americans back to the compound from the airfield on which they were
still
working, filling in bomb craters now, when heretofore their captors had
shown no concern for the prisoners' safety, compelling them to work on
the strip even during actual raids. "We knew something was the matter
but couldn't figure out what", stated Koblos.
PRISONERS CORRALLED
There were inside the POW compound, three large air raid shelters,
having a narrow entrance at each and a cover over the top. The Japanese
specifications had permitted only one entrance but after much
persuasion the Americans were allowed to make two entrances. These
shelter would accommodate, very uncomfortably, approximately 40--50 men
each, and in addition there were several small shelters with a capacity
of from one to four men each. The area was completely surrounded by a
double barb-wired fence and the camp was built on a cliff overlooking
the Puerta Princesa Bay.
On this fateful day of 14 Dec. l944, the Japanese herded every prisoner
into these shelters, saying that there were "hundreds" of American
planes coming. The only evidence of an air raid was a lone Japanese sea
plane which circled the camp area and the field a few times as if in
response to the call of the false air raid alarm for some showing. Many
of the boys were hesitant to go into the shelters--these were "helped"
by prodding with bayonets and threats of being killed if they did not
obey the orders to go underground. No sooner was the last man "safely"
hidden from the dangers of an American air raid then two companies of
Japanese soldiers, armed with buckets of gasoline,torches, rifles,
machine guns, fixed bayonets and hand grenades, entered the compound
and proceeded to carry into effect the plan for the annihilation of
every single POW.
IGNITE GASOLINE
The bestial savagery of the perpetrators was unleashed as the assault
began, running, screaming and laughing, they attacked each shelter,
wherein the unsuspecting and helpless prisoners were trapped throwing
in buckets of gasoline and igniting it with torches. Some of the men
did manage to get out of the raging infernos only to be beheaded,
bayoneted, clubbed to death, shot with rifles or dropped by machine gun
fire. In some cases men were slowly tortured with bayonets, then
gasoline was poured on first one foot and then the other, ignited, and
their whole bodies set aflame. Some few were able to escape into the
water by tearing barehanded through the barb-wire fences and jumping
down a 50-foot cliff only to be drowned in the water when they were
shot at either from the shore or from a small boat that patrolled the
foreshores of the bay watching out for escapees. Men walking walls of
flame, ran out of the shelters begging for mercy and for the Japanese
"to use some sense" only to be shot down...others, knowing fully their
fate, grabbed onto Japanese guards causing them to burn up together.
Still others, bodies afire, grappled with their assailants, and were
able to
wrest a bayonet from one or two of the Japanese and kill them before
they
themselves were bayoneted to death from behind.
The 11 prisoners who succeeded in escaping found temporary refuge in
the caves on the beach. It was not long, however, before roving parties
of Japanese began scanning every nook and corner for possible
survivors--the plan being to kill every single American and so forever
hide the truth of this murderous crime. Several times during the
ensuing four or five hours it seemed inevitable that the hiding places
of this small band would be discovered, but somehow, thorough as the
search was, they were overlooked. Their ordeal was not over, however.
Possibly they would find help and safety if they could reach the
opposite side of the bay--a distance of about five miles through
shark-infested waters, and two or three of the men could not swim...but
it was their only chance and they all took it. After dark that same
evening some of the escapees began to swim across--10 days later the
last one to reach the opposite side was found caught in a fish trap by
friendly Filipinos coming out in the early morning to gather in the
previous night's catch! They escorted him, as they had done the others,
to Brooke's Point where an American PBY (a US made two engine Amphibian
seaplane) evacuated them to the American lines.
All that remained of the 139 victims when the American forces landed
were
incomplete skeletons, scattered at random in the area of the camp,
piles of
bones in the air raid shelters, dog-tags and other identifying
data--mute
evidence of the sordid gruesomeness, the bestial depravity of the
perpetrators and sponsors of this outrageous crime.
During the past three years a staff of investigators have been tireless
in
their efforts to find those Japanese responsible for this atrocity. The
entire islands of Japan and the Philippines have been combed and
hundreds of interrogations conducted, as a result of which 16 Japanese
ranging in rank from former Lt. Generals to a Private First Class will
face a military commission in Yokohama to be judged for their part in
this planned and premeditated execution of innocent and helpless
American prisoners of war. "Unfortunately", stated Carpenter, "most of
the actual participants in this crime have never been captured despite
a maximum of effort to locate them, and there is every reason to
believe they were killed when Palawan island was taken by the American
forces. However, we do have those people who, by their acts of
commission or omission or both, allowed this heinous crime to be
perpetrated and we are determined that they shall answer for their
actions before the bar of justice".
This story published with permission from IRENE KOBLOS, the widow of Sgt
Koblos, who died 1990, he enlisted in the Regular Army 1939, served in
the 59th Coast Artillery in the Philippines. He returned home to
US-1945- spent considerable time in Letterman Gen. Hosp. and Garner
Gen. Hosp.in Chicago, as the result of his ordeal in Japanese hands. He
married Irene, August 1945, they have a son John; Irene now resides in
California." End"
Last September the barbed wire of Puerta Princesa prison camp at
Palawan held 150 prisoners of war, the remnants of a "volunteer" labor
battalion brought there from Luzon shortly after the surrender at
Corregidor, to build a Japanese airfield.
The original group of some 300 had volunteered because they thought
anything
would be better than the squalor, disease and death of Cabanatuan
prison camp on Luzon.
Yet, two months later, 141 of the 150 were to be slain in the worst mass
atrocity of the Pacific war.
In a Marine Corps office at San Francisco, twenty-six year old Marine
Corporal Rufus W. Smith of Hughes Springs, Texas, talked slowly and
carefully: "We had been at Puerta Princesa prison camp for a little
over twenty-eight months when the Japanese decided to kill us."
Arriving at the camp, Smith continued, the Americans were herded inside
the barbed wire, bedded down like ill-kept farm animals, and booted
awake by Japanese guards at four thirty the next morning.
Breakfast was one large spoonful of rice-Cambodian rice, wormy and full
of
rocks, which the Japanese serve in prison camps because they don't like
it
themselves. During the next two years the men were to eat it three
times a day, with now and then a dab of a Philippine vegetable--also
wormy--resembling potatoes. Even this planned ration was a starvation
diet designed to keep them too weak to make trouble or to get very far
if they escaped. But the Japanese reduced it even further by thieving
from the supply.
The Americans at Puerta Princesa, being a labor battalion were not to
be killed unnecessarily. But the Japanese were specialized in beating
them with pick handles--"just for nothing, "Smith said, "They'd just
come up jabbering and swinging with their clubs."
At various times in those next twenty-eight months, prisoners tried to
escape. Two Americans who were caught were tied up and thrown into the
brig, where the Japanese took turns beating them. Any Japanese who
cared to could beat them, night or day. Every morning the other
Americans had to pass the cage where they were lying. On July 4, 1944,
the two were finally shot. Japanese prison officials always pointedly
observe our national holidays.
Most of the Americans who did escape managed it by breaking an arm or a
leg, usually by a blow with a shovel. But if the Japanese decided it
was done intentionally, they might leave the man where he fell, or
throw him into a cage and leave him until he died.
Some of the prisoners got away with it, and were treated and shipped
back to Manila. Usually, however, someone was lying in the special cage
with an unset fracture, looking out with the eyes of an animal that has
spent many days in a steel trap.
Every prisoner worked if he possibly could, because if he couldn't get
to his
feet in the morning, his ration was cut at once by 30 per cent--a ball
of rice about the size of an orange.
One morning last September the Japanese loaded all but 150 of the men
on a ship bound back to the prison camp at Luzon.
After the Japanese told the remaining prisoners that the ship had been
torpedoed and all the men lost. Who could contradict them?
Then, about noon last October 19, a lone B-24 raided Puerta Princesa,
Palawan's capitol, sank two ships in the harbor, and strafed the town
and the new airfield. With their hearts rattling against their ribs,
the men looked silently at one another, and smiled when the guards
weren't looking.
Things were going to be all right. After that first one, raids came
almost
daily. And the treatment of the men by their Japanese guards went from
bad to unendurable.
Then they were ordered to build air-raid shelters. First they dug three
roofed trenches, each long enough to hold about fifty men and each with
a small entrance at each end. Smaller shelters were dug for the cooks,
officers, and drivers. Some of the men were allowed t o build
individual shelters; among them was Marine Sergeant Douglas. W. Bogue
of Los Angeles, California, one of the nine who eventually escaped. All
these shelters were inside the prison compound on a high bluff that
jutted out into turbulent shark-filled Puerta Princesa Bay. Outside the
double row of barbed wire a coral cliff slanted fifty feet down to the
water. And when torrential rains washed away part of the trenches,
repairs exposed tunnels that ran under the wire and out to the face of
the cliff. Several men quietly prepared escape hatches as they worked,
concealing their exits on the cliff with coral boulders or a thin
shoring of earth.
Then, on December 13, a Japanese patrol plane over the Sulu Sea sighted
our invasion convoy that landed later on Mindoro Island.
The Japanese thought it was headed for Palawan. "The Japanese guards
aroused us that night with their chattering, " Smith went on, "but they
finally quieted down. At four thirty we hiked off to the airfield to
work as usual." About noon the guards suddenly marched them back to
camp. The Americans kept looking questionably at one another and
shrugging their shoulders. They had never quit work at noon before.
Then the guards started beating on an old church bell they used for an
air-raid alarm., The word passed that hundreds of American planes were
headed for Palawan. The Japanese guards herded the men into the
air-raid shelters.
Sergeant Bogue took up the story. "We had been sitting in the shelters
some thirty minutes," he said,"when two P-38s began circling overhead.
Suddenly fifty or sixty Japanese soldiers with light machine guns,
rifles, and buckets of gasoline ran into the compound." These Japanese
soldiers ran directly to A company's shelter, where there were about
forty Americans. They opened the narrow door, threw in several buckets
of gasoline then tossed in lighted torches.
Massacre on Palawan of 139 POWs, by R. W. Smith.
"All of a sudden," said Marine Corporal Glen W. McDole of Des Moines,
Iowa, "I heard a dull explosion, men screaming, and machine guns. We
were in another hole with our heads down, waiting for the air raid, My
buddy (Smith) yelled, "They're murdering the men in A Company pit!" I
looked out and saw one man run out of A Company's pit in flames., He
was burning like a newspaper. A Japanese machine gunner, stationed on
the porch of the barracks, cut him in two."
The Japanese ran now from shelter to shelter with their buckets of
gasoline and their torches. As the crazed Americans came boiling up out
of the burning shelters, flaming from head to foot like men made of
pitch, other busy, little Japanese machine-gunned them and bayonetted
them., The horrible smell of burning flesh began drifting across the
compound.
Below, in the pits, the few men not actually burning fought to hold on
to their reason and somehow to get out.
Some did get out. Some crawled up into the flaming bullet-spattered
compound itself and clawed their way under the fence to reach and fall
down the cliff face. Navy Chief Radioman Fern J. Barta of San Diego,
California, made it this way.
So did Bogue. "When I came up out of my hole," said Bogue, "it was like
coming up a ladder into hell. Burning Americans were rushing the
Japanese and fighting them hand to hand, I saw one man, burning like a
haystack, grab a rifle a way from a Japanese and shoot him; another
guard bayoneted him from behind."
Maybe fifty or sixty men, maybe more got down the cliff face to the
beach. Many desperate and insentient leaped and tumbled down the cliff,
jumped into the bay and started swimming. They were shot to pieces by
the Japanese machine gunners on the top of the cliff.
The others hid in holes in the rocks,in the sewer outlet, anywhere.
Smith
jumped into a coral crevice next to him to wait for McDole, McDole had
been right on his heels, but now he didn't show up. As Smith watched, a
soldier in the crevice next to him suddenly jumped up and yelled. I'm
going to get my part of this over with, he ran down to the beach dived
into the water and started swimming.
"He was only out about twenty yards," Smith said, "when a bullet hit
him and he rolled over and shouted, they got me. Then he thumbed his
nose to the Japanese on the cliff-and went under."
Smith, still in control of himself, climbed unseen backup the hill and
hid in
the long grass almost touching the prison fence. He thought that would
be the last place the Japanese would look. He hid under a ledge covered
by long overhanging grass. He carefully covered himself with leaves and
dirt. He estimates that this was about one o'clock in the afternoon.
The whole thing had been going on only about thirty minutes.
All of them could hear the Japanese using dynamite on the burned men
who were still alive in the hilltop death trenches When they had
finished, the Japanese scrambled down the cliff with rifles and
bayonets and began combing the rocks and beach, dragging the hidden
Americans out of their holes and murdering them on the spot.
For the men lying panting and desperate in those holes, the afternoon
was
endless and terrible. A man hiding five feet away from you, a six-foot
American you'd been through three years of hell with, would be dragged
out and bayoneted to death by a dozen little yelling Japanese, and you
didn't dare move.
As the endless search went on, a lot of men who might have made it
cracked up. McDole and two others were hiding in a garbage dump,
completely covered by the rotting fly-crusted stuff. As a Japanese
patrol neared the dump, one of the men suddenly jumped up and ran for
the bay.
"The Japanese shot him," said McDole, "Then, when they got within five
meters of us, the second man with me raised up and said,'All right ,
you Japanese b------ds,'here I am and don't miss me. They shot him,
poured gasoline on him and burned his body.
"After the patrol went away, I made a small opening to get some air.
Down the beach I saw six Japanese jabbing a bleeding mud-covered
American with their bayonets. Another Japanese ran up with a bucket and
a torch. The American begged to be shot and not burned. The Japanese
poured gasoline on his hands and feet, and lighted it. Then the man
collapsed."
Smith, hidden in the tall grass up on the cliff, had a dozen narrow
escapes.
Twice searching Japanese grazed his ribs as they jabbed bayonets into
the
grass.
"Once I thought sure I was caught,"said Smith,"A Japanese pulled the
grass away from me and looked straight into my eyes. I felt his breath
panting down on me and smelled that awful Japanese sweat they all stink
of. Cold as death, I waited for the bayonet in my ribs. Three years of
hell--for this! I remember praying that he'd do it right the first
time."
Suddenly the Japanese dropped the grass over Smith and left, he hadn't
seen him. Smith stayed covered until past dark, finally everything got
quiet, and the Japanese guards no longer looked for the escapees. Smith
sneaked to the beach and began the long swim across Puerta Princesa Bay.
Bogue had been hiding in a hole in the rocks till the rising tide
forced him
out of it. Looking for a new hiding place, he found Fern Barta and three
others in the camp's sewer outlet. About nine 0'clock that night these
five
started out to swim the bay. Almost immediately they were swept apart
by the strong tide, and it was ten days before Bogue and Barta met. One
of the five, a Marine private, was never seen again. It was sunrise
when Barta dragged himself up on the far shore of the bay and crawled
into the jungle. McDole, exhausted and sick, lay in the fly-blanketed
garbage dump all night and all the next day. That night he tried to
swim, but the water was so rough he couldn't make it. He crawled back
to the garbage dump, and for another night and day in that mess of
flies and rot, praying for strength. That night he tried it again, and
again he was forced back. The following night he crawled down to the
shore for the third time, fell into the water, and started swimming; he
would get across or drown. All night he swam and floated and swam
again. He came very near dying. His mind had stopped. Like an engine
stalled on dead center.
His arms and legs were no longer even part of him; some strange tired
motor kept them going till finally his hands were clawing suddenly and
miraculously into sand. He was ashore. His head dropped into the sand.
He tried hard to think who he was and what he was supposed to be doing.
Finally, he crawled to the edge of the jungle and hid there all day.
That
night he tried swimming across a little inlet to a Filipino tuberculosis
colony, but he was too far gone. He realized he couldn't swim anymore.
And then in the wet heaving darkness, he bumped into the poles of a
fish trap. He crawled upon it and collapsed, somewhere between sleep
and death. In the morning Filipino fishermen from the Iwahig penal
colony found him there.
They hurried him back to their camp. There he was joined by Bogue, who
had been found by Filipino prisoners from the camp after being lost for
five days in the jungle. Rested and fed, Bogue and McDole were taken to
the leader of the Palawan underground, who gave them horses and a guide
and got them to a point where they were picked up by a Navy sea plane
and flown to Leyte.
At Aborlan, a town held by the guerrillas, a second party of horsemen
caught up with them. One of the riders was Barta He had stumbled into
Iwahig colony after spending ten days and nights in the jungle. Some
other survivors, including Smith, were picked up later and flown to
Moratai.
Up on the cliff some of the Japanese guards were only ten feet away
from Smith. Still, he had to try for a getaway when darkness came.
Slowly he eased out of his hiding place and inched his way down the
cliff, fearing each step that a coral landslide would bring a shower of
jabbering yells and bullets.
Luck was with him, Noiseless as a shadow, he moved steadily down to the
shore and into the water.
He had been in the water about an hour and a half when the little
Japanese patrol boat combing the bay for possible survivors bore down
on him. Its weak yellow light actually waved directly across him from
not more than fifty yards away. But the boat turned and went on.
"I started swimming again," said Smith in his slow tired drawl, "and
had been out about two hours, I guess, when I heard a swirl in the
water off to one side. I glanced around in time to see a six-foot shark
headed for me. He came right on in and bit my right arm.
Somehow--I don't know how--I reached around with my other arm and slung
him loose. Then I kicked and splashed, and I must have scared him off;
he didn't bother me after that."
The Marine Corps public relations officer whispered to Smith; he rolled
up his sleeve. There on his right forearm were the scars from the teeth
of the shark that he'd "slung loose."
After the Shark, Smith swam on for what seemed like years. He turned on
his back for the hundredth time to rest, and made out trees on a
mountain ahead of him. He turned over again and swam till his arms were
strips of leather which somebody kept splashing into the water ahead of
him, and he knew he couldn't swim much longer. He decided to try to hit
bottom. He held his nose and went down hard. The water was only up to
his armpits. Gratefully he started to walk, and that's when he almost
drowned. Because his legs wouldn't hold him. He fell and swallowed the
muddy water and almost drowned. He finally got to his feet and made it
to the beach.
It was still night, and the terrible clouds of Philippine mosquitos
started
swarming over him. If he lay there he'd be eaten alive. He crawled up
to the edge of a mangrove swamp and coated himself, face and all, with
mud. That kept the mosquitoes off. He rested a while, and then plunged
into the swamp.
He was naked, except for the mud. The thick growth clutched his body
with clammy hands. At each step his feet seemed to sink deeper into the
black ooze. He knew the alligators would get him before long. He
climbed a tree and stayed there the rest of the night. Dawn was the
most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
All that day Smith traveled through the jungle. When the growth became
impenetrable he climbed up above it and swung along on the long vines
from tree to tree. Occasionally he'd grip a brier vine; the hard spines
cut like barbed wire. "They cut me up pretty bad," he said.
But he went on, and he made it. Late that afternoon he found the
wonderful compassionate Philippine guerrillas. They gathered up his
skinny, bleeding, muddy body and carried him to their camp. They fed
him and put him to bed. And now he was in San Francisco, on his way
home to Hughes Springs, Texas--the kind of place that can help a man
forget jungles and JAPANESE! This story also furnished by Mrs.Koblos,
who also gave you the account of her husband in Chapters 1 through 4.
In appreciation I'm sending her all ten chapters printed as she among
many does not possess a computer.
.
TO: ALL DATE: 08/09
FROM: FVWW66A RAY THOMPSON TIME: 2:47 PM
PALAWAN PUSHOVER, Courtesy of Air Force Magazine, 1945.
When the time came to lock the door on Japanese troop
and supply movements in the South China Sea and provide a
springboard for airpower in subsequent Borneo invasions, the
key was the Philippine island of Palawan which points
southward like a finger to the rich East Indies. "I don't
want a single shot fired at the infantry when it goes ashore
at Palawan. "Maj. Gen.Paul B. Wurtsmith, CG of the 13th Air
Force, told his staff. And not a shot was fired. Infantrymen
of the 41st Division went ashore at Puerto Princesa almost
unopposed. No men were lost on D-day. The Japanese had fled
to the hills.
This easy invasion of strategically important Palawan was
accomplished by air attacks that started early in October
1944 when Army and Navy nuisance raiders paid occasional
visits. The tempo was stepped up sharply near the end of the
month when 37 heavies plastered Puerto Princesa airdrome,
destroying 23 parked aircraft and damaging 15 others. The
Japanese garrison never recovered from that raid and the
13th's bombers continued to give the area a once-over-lightly
every time repairmen began filling in the craters.
On November 29, Morotai-based P-38s of the 13th
Fighter Command flew their first escort mission to Puerto
Princesa, but there was no interception, nor was there any
on subsequent missions. The final phase of the softening-up
was staged from Mindoro with both fighters and bombers of
the 5th Air Force blasting the area with bomb and strafing
runs.
A sustained three-day attack preceded the February 28
landing.
The devastated facilities found by infantrymen--buildings,
runways, revetments, aircraft--were convincing proof of the
effectiveness of the pre-invasion attacks. The concrete runway
was spotted with 182 bomb craters. Eighteen other craters had
taken care of the overruns. The bombing results looked good
to everyone but the aviation engineers, who had to put the
strip back into service.
(Comments by Ray Thompson; I wonder what the Commanding
General, the fighter pilots, the bomber pilots, and the
infantrymen, who performed the above acts would have
felt, had they known that American POWs were the slaves
that were filling up these bomb craters after each raid.
We know from other testimony, how shocked military personnel
were when they found the massacred American POWs in the so
called bomb shelters at Palawan airfield;
NOTE- I flew off this runway for several days in the winter of '45. It
was coral based and pretty solid althougth muddy at times.
US Veterans Cemetery
http://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/jeffersonbarracks.asp
Less than 8 hours ago I watched a program
on BATAAN on the Military
History channel which briefly mentioned the Palawan Massacre. Since I
had not heard about this before, I told myself that I would follow-up
and see if I could find additional information. Your posting was truly
a serendipitous find. I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to
our attention. My father joined the Army in late 1939. Before he died
some months ago he started reminiscing about his military days. He told
me that almost all of the young men who joined the service and went to
Basic Training in Virginia with him were sent to the Phillipines. He
was the only one sent to Puerto Rico. To the best of his knowledge,
none of them survived.
MANILA: Imelda Marcos, the widow of Philippine dictator
Ferdinand
Marcos, was ordered yesterday by an anti-corruption court to return
about 11m pesos ($250,000) secretly taken from the state’s rice agency
in the early 1980s.
The court, known as the Sandiganbayan, found the
transfer of funds
from the National Food Authority (NFA) to a Marcos account at a private
bank in 1983 as “highly irregular and illegal”.
Imelda Marcos, infamous for her collection of jewellery
and 1,200
pairs shoes found after her husband was overthrown and forced into
exile in 1986, said she could not afford the payment.
“They have taken away everything from our family,” said
Marcos, who won a seat in Congress at the May elections.
“The government has frozen all our assets. Where will I
get that amount to pay the government back?” she told reporters.
The former first lady has rejected proposals to settle
cases of
ill-gotten wealth, confident that through litigation she can recover
millions of dollars of assets seized by the state.
Ferdinand Marcos ruled for two decades before he was
ousted in an
army-backed popular uprising in 1986. He was accused of amassing more
than $10bn while in office.
Hi, the legend is true because I have seen pictures of
some of the treasure. A Filppina reporter has the photos and a video of the contains with one of
three caves full of gold,Golden Buddhas, and diamonds. She and her
friends are selling the gold and other contents. Many of the Japan’s
secret advanced inventions were hidden in caves and bunkers.
I think it is true especially at my place. There is an
old church out there. The underground had a long tunnel and its exit
passage is already near the port of the sea. It is located beside the
river. Some news spreads out that one of the priest recovered gold bars
from the tunnel and believe to have more treasures that are yet unseen.
I don’t have the gadgets and tools or budget to look for them. But I am
interested, It is adventure.
Gentlemen,
As beach comber/coin hunter in Florida, of course I FIRMLY BELIEVE THE
EXISTENCE OF YAMASHITA TREASURES !!! there are lots of write ups and
websites have been written about these topic…in fact some of my florida
based treasure hUnter friends are quite successful with it like Steve
Morgan…who had gone to the Philippines to treasure hunt, succeeded to
recover several treasure sites(with help of congressman in Albay) and
came back to Florida a successful salvor and shipwrecK treasure
hunter…am very2 much envius of those yamashita treasure hunters, i wish
someday i will be at their level (cache hunter)…
can you give m some advice to determine the buried
treasure? in our place we found different bottles buried 10 + feet and
1 mexican coin dated 1872. pls. give us advice what to do.
Guys,
It is really true that their are yamashita treasures hidden in caves,
tunnels, churches etc. here in the philippines. In fact, I’ve seen one
of it, a solid cement box measuring 1m x 1m x 1m inside a man made cave
on the side of a hill. There is also japanese notes written on the top
front of the cement box, but sad to say guys that it was already opened
only those gold bar marks were left. There are also big wires inside
the tunnel
I think Yamashita treasure is true ’cause i saw markers
at the mouth of a well also at a tunnel which we uncovered after
painstakingly digging the hard cement covering the area, if this is
myth who cemented the area to hide the tunnel with markings and who did
the markings? and why before the war their were already Japanese
nationals acting as fishermen in our town? and when the war broke
actually they were Japanese officers soldier who immediately controlled
the municipal hall after which controlled the entire town and scaring
the town folks to evacuate ’cause bombing of the town is forthcoming
and no bombs after all?
To Jim Daniels;
Like you,I am very much interested of finding one.I had one safe/
secured location(treasure site) which I found it very intriguing after
I had talks with an old man.My place(mindanao) might be
intimidating(news?) but extremely interesting for stories of japs
treasures.If we can establish an open line for both of us,who knows
we’ll have one materialized.heres my add: alvin_daguio1960@yahoo.com.
hope to hear from you soon Jim.
Is the tunnel8 where they buried one the biggest volume
of yamashita treasure in a province in region 2, in Luzon? Is it
located between the boundary of two towns? The location was explored by
many foreigners. one treasure hunter, posed to build a road in the area
thru government bidding… in the middle of the project he pulled out
without a trace leaving millions worth of heavy equipment behind during
the height of typhoon yoyong… one treasure hunter had a site in the
area but in a bridge crossing a big river… due to lack of finance
divers he abandoned it… in a road widening project of the local
governtment in the area, the backhoe operator accidentally hit an old
japanese car. At night time, four men continued to dig up the car in
the presence of some curious locals. they found the tool box and took
it away.
There is a controversial hill in the area located at the
foot of Mt. Palali in the Sierra Madre. Two of them and almost
identical.There are japanese bamboo planted on top of each and carved
stones.The southern hill was explored by a british hunter in early
2002. It was the western part that had digging where they found a 300
meter concrete slab. They pulled out in 2005.
The northern hill is a private property. some japanese
did try to convince the owner to do some explorations but the owner
refused until now. In between these two hills facing the east is an
unexplored area, there is a water source where the spring is coming
from waiting to be found. the area where the water source is claimed by
the tenant, a farm worker who lived and took care of the property.
The owner of the southern hill died 3 years ago and it
was sold to a prominent person known to be a TH also in that
municipality. He is now building a resort in that hill which is 40
kilometers away from the town and bout 15 kilometers away from the main
road. a group of japanese want to buy the property more triple the
amount he bought it.
In the two hills. you can find world war two ammos by
just walking or hiking in it. and the locals know that it is where you
can find a certain stone that can be used to sharpen knives.A man found
a jar with uncut stones… and similar stories is known to locals. Some
of them still there. It was japanese garrison and 200 meters away is a
japanese check-point back in WW2. The site is the old spanish road
leading to the Villaverde trail from Sta. Fe to Kiangan.
As of this writing… there are 4 known big time TH
operating in the area. One applied for a stewardship program, now he
can own the about 50 acres of mountain land provided he will cultivate
it and make it productive.
My grand father used to own a land in the area. He lost
it to tenant farmers because of the land reform program. He was not a
guerilla during the war, but he is a plain farmer who sold various farm
products to the japanese. Before the japanese pulled out in the area
his carabaos and cariton was borrowed by the japs during one of the
nights. In the morning, he went looking for the and found in two
different locations separated by a distance of 10 kilometers. The
caritons has boxes in it and tied in the one of the carabaos neck is a
sock. In it was uncut gems, small statues . Is it true..? I still have
with me one of the turtle figure made of precious metal. He later sold
the gems and bought more land to farm and our ancestral home in the
main town. He said many japanese officers did hide some treasure of
their own in the area… but the main volume is hidden somewhere in a
tunnel in the hills or the mountain areas nearby. There, is waiting to
be found.
i am from iloilo and my cousins accidentally digsome
rocks hidden under a a big kapok tree which we believe a hundred or
more years old. whats unique with what they dug is there are vintage
bombs hidden under the stones.as of now they keep it as a secret since
thy were afraid that people may know.could you please give me some
explanation to this.is is possible that there are treasures hidden
together with this bombs.thanks!
my uncle accidentaly found a gold at the mountain with a
water falls they took 4 each of them they bought a motor boat they fix
there house nd everything but then they got sick both of them died but
i remember something they mention all the sign 2 me before nd now im
looking a metal detector to buy im here abroad now im going home to
fine a treasure hehehe
It,s not yamashita treasure but prince chibubu treasure,
brother of emperor hirohito, he is the once in charge in hiding looted
treasure during WW2. A friend of mine has recovered treasure twice in
two location, first a 13 pieces gold bars in different sizes and the
second is 402 pieces of gold bars each weigh 6.2 kilos
Document
confirms
germ
warfare
by
Imperial Japanese Army
BY
NOBUYUKI
WATANABE
STAFF
WRITER
A
classified
document
has
been
uncovered that provides further evidence
that the Imperial Japanese Army used plague-infected fleas as
biological weapons in China between 1940 and 1942.
An
operations
journal
written
by
a high-ranking army officer found in 1993
had passages related to germ warfare, but the latest discovery is of a
public document compiled by the research unit that was directly
involved in germ warfare.
While
the
Tokyo
District
Court
and Tokyo High Court have confirmed in
verdicts related to compensation lawsuits filed by bereaved Chinese
family members the use of biological weapons by the Imperial Japanese
Army, the Japanese government has maintained the position that no
evidence exists that such weapons were ever used.
The
document
uncovered
is
a
report by the epidemic prevention research unit
of the Imperial Army's medical school. A member of a citizens group
based in Tokyo that is trying to uncover information about the infamous
Unit 731 that was involved in germ warfare found the document in the
Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library in Kyoto.
The
cover
of
the
document
is marked "military secret" and also contains the
name of a medical officer belonging to the epidemic prevention research
unit and the date of Dec. 14, 1943, when the document was registered.
The
report
is
about
the
effects of fleas infected with the plague bacteria
and calculates the effects when the bacteria is spread during battle.
The
document
includes
a
list
that describes the volume of fleas used and
the number of people infected in six missions conducted in China
between 1940 and 1942. The total number of infected people, including
secondary infection, was 25,946.
The
report
appraises
the
plague
bacteria as "the most outstanding weapon"
and says about germ warfare, "it brings about psychological and
economic panic."
There
are
two
major
parts
to the reports compiled by the epidemic prevention
research unit and about 800 documents from part two have been found in
the United States. Those documents make it clear that the unit was
involved in research on the plague epidemic in China.
The
latest
discovery
is
of
12 documents, including 11 from part one of the
reports that include the more highly classified items.
The
development
of
biological
weapons
by the Imperial Japanese Army first
drew attention with the publication in 1981 of a novel by Seiichi
Morimura titled "Akuma no hoshoku" (The Devil's Gluttony).
Subsequently,
members
of
Unit
731
came out and admitted taking part in human
experiments and the use of biological weapons in China. Unit 731 worked
closely with the epidemic prevention research unit of the Imperial Army
medical school.
The
author
of
the
classified
document was a medical doctor who graduated
from Tokyo Imperial University. An investigation by the U.S. military
after the end of World War II stated that the doctor worked for three
and a half years in Unit 731.
About
the
medal
The
Congressional
Gold
Medal,
awarded
by Congress, is one of the nation's
highest civilian awards. Recipients include George Washington, the
Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code Talkers, the American Red Cross,
Mother Teresa, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Dalai Lama.
13,000+ Japanese-Americans who served in the 100th Infantry Battalion
and 442nd Regimental Combat Team
6,000
Japanese-Americans
who
served
in
the Military Intelligence Service
110,000+
People
of
Japanese
ancestry
sent to internment camps during the war
800+
Honorees
expected
at
the
Congressional Gold Medal ceremony (330
veterans, widows and other next of kin of deceased veterans)
Source:
National
Veterans
Network

The
Medical
Detachment, 124th Infantry Regiment, was awardedBattle
Honors and a
Presidential Unit Citation for its outstanding performance of duty in
action in Mindanao, Philippine Islands, during the period 6 to 12 May
1945. This became known as the Battle of Colgan Woods, in honor of Catholic
Chaplain
Thomas A. Colgan, the Regimental Chaplain who was killed
during the battle.
Above: The
Battle
of Colgan Woods by
Jackson Walker. This painting depicts Chaplain Colgan braving Japanese
gunfire to come to the aid wounded medic Robert Lee Evans. Evans and
Colgan were both killed. (Photo provided by Marion Hess)

Tom
Deas
helping with a litter patient during the battle of Colgan Woods on
Mindanao, between Kibawe and Maramag, on 7 May 1945. This was Tom's
29th birthday. The man on Tom's right was the air liaison. Tom saw him
struggling with the stretcher and went to help him. The heavy fighting
was about 100 yards down the trail behind them. (Photos Dr. Tom Deas)

Tom
Deas
assisting a wounded soldier from the third battalion at the Melita
River, just north of Kabacan, Philippines on about 30 April 1945. This
was the area where the second battalion of the 124th Regiment
encountered its first Japanese resistance on Mindanao on 27-28 April
1945.

The
Japanese
surrender on Mindanao. Lieutenant General Gyosaku Morozumi of
the Imperial Japanese Army (right) formally surrendered to Brigadier
General Joseph C. Hutchison, Commander of the U.S. Army 31st Infantry
Division, in Malaybalay
City,
Mindanao
on 8 September 1945
TO: Brigadier General Joseph C. Hutchison Commanding General, 3lst Infantry Division, United States Army CAPITULATION 1. I, Lieutenant General Gyosaku Morozumi Acting Commanding General of the 35th Army and Commanding General of the 30th Division, hereby unconditionally surrender on this day all the officers and men, and all arms, military equipment, records and supplies under my command to the Commanding General, 31st Infantry Division, United States Army. 2. I agree faithfully henceforth to obey the orders of the Commanding General, 31st Infantry Division, and to direct all members of my Command so to do. 3. I will use all means that I possess to secure as early as possible the assembly of all troops under my command within Reception Centers established by the United States Army, and will take action as directed by you to establish liaison with units and individuals who have not yet surrendered. 4. I will report all known locations of explosives and mines, both land and water, where presence is a hazard to life and property. The document Is signed by Gyosaku Morozumi Lieutenant General, Imperial Japanese Army, Commanding 8 September 1945 ACCEPTED Signed by Joseph C. Hutchison Brigadier General, United States Army Commanding

The
Alcantara
family and five American GIs. In Dad's (Mr Bob Webber) things
I found a series of photos of the Alcantara family. On the back of the
photo at right he wrote, "The Alcantara Family with whom we stayed
while up in the mountains." Dad (bob webber) is the GI in the middle of
the back row. He identified the head of the Alcantara family as Victor,
and
gave two of the four daughters' names as Nina and Linda.
I
presume that this was in the mountains near Malaybalay after the war
had ended.

ALCANTARA FAMILY - MINDANAO

Japanese soldiers
surrendering near the Pulangi River at Valencia, Mindanao, in September
1945. (George Young)
Bob
Webber
in Cagayan de Oro. There must have been time for more than
church. I found this photo which shows Dad holding the reins of a
horse-drawn cart. This photo is dated 26 February 1946 and contains
this handwritten note: Local transportation in Cagayan - Bob
He
also
talked about the native Moro people of Mindanao:
They
weren't
the friendliest people. You had to be careful around them, but
we got along OK and some of the Moros scouted for the company. They
didn't like you fooling with their women - didn't even like you to look
at them. One day I had to go on a patrol across a river, and we ran
into the Little
People. They were very short, wore only G-strings, and carried bows
and arrows. The Moros stayed away from them - wouldn't even cross the
river with the patrol, because they knew it was their land.

The
tractor
named Death
Trap.
It
was supported by only two large drive wheels and the pin which
connected it to a trailer. Lou Hall said that operators of this vehicle
paid particular attention to that connecting pin, because if it failed
the tractor would pitch forward and kill the operator. (Lou Hall)
Archie
Peers
on Mindanao in August 1945, shortly after the atomic bombs were
dropped on Japan. (Archie Peers)
Archie
Peers
was in F Company, 124th Infantry Regiment, and wrote the poem The
Men
of the One-Two-Four. I called him in Krum, Texas, in June 2001.
He is 79 years old, a retired postmaster, and is active in the Elks
organization. He does not remember my father, but when I mentioned my
Dad's diary, he hurried to get his own and read a passage he had
written about the casualities in F Company during the Battle of Colgan
Woods. He was in the 4th platoon (the heavy weapons platoon) and still
writes to his former platoon leader, Albert Francis Magone of
Monongahela, Pennsylvania, whom he described as "a pure Italian."
Archie said that he was arunner. He explained:
On
Mindanao
in 1945, we were on the offensive, and the Japanese were on
the defensive. Our company would send out patrols, and the Japanese
would wait in ambush. The guy on point usually "got it." There were
lots of casualities. As a runner, I was sent back by Captain Goodman [F
Company Commander] and Lt. Magone to get a machine gun squad, plus
whatever they wanted from the mortar section, and bring it up to their
position.

June 10-14 1945
Landed
at
Buga on North coast. Rode by trucks during day and slept by roadside
at night - beautiful country - road very bad but it winds like a snake
thru the mountains. Cold at nite. Passed thru Del Monte Plantation.
Crawford - Owner.
Bob Webber and Massie Vanderbilt
posing with pineapples and weapons. This photo was probably taken
during their truck convoy stop at the Del Monte pineapple plantation in
Bukidnon Province in northern Mindanao. Dad is holding a Browning
automatic
rifle,
which
must have been Vanderbilt's weapon. Vanderbilt is holding an M1
Garand
rifle,
which
was Dad's weapon. "Buga" is Bugo, on the north coast of Mindanao,
15 kilometers east of Cagayan de Oro, on Macajalar Bay. The Del Monte
pineapple plantation is 34 kilometers southeast of Cagayan de Oro, near
Camp Philips. Mr. Crawford was the plantation manager. General
Douglas
MacArthur escaped from the Del
Monte
Airfield in a B-17 before thePhilippines
fell
in May 1942.
Mom
told me that Dad described how he and some of his buddies went into
the pineapple fields to sample the fruit. After they had returned to
the trucks, some local Filipinos asked, "Did the snakes bother you?" Here
are
photos of a
The
initial
M1918A1 version of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) was first
used in combat by American soldiers during World War I, and many saw
service in World War II. The BAR received high praise for its
reliability under adverse conditions.
In
1940,
the model M1918A2 was adopted. Unlike earlier models, it could
only be fired in two automatic modes--slow (300 to 450 rpm) or fast
(500 to 650 rpm)--but not in semiautomatic mode. Both versions were
widely used in the second world war. The USMC preferred the
semiautomatic mode in some tactical situations, and modified most of
the M1918A2 guns to include that capability. A buffer spring in the
butt greatly reduced recoil, to the advantage both of firing accuracy
and shooter endurance
The
M1918A2
also mounted its folding bipod (2.38 pounds!) on a special
flash hider near the end of the barrel. Since the bipod could easily be
detached in this model, it very frequently was! but not often in
defensive positions, where it was very effective. The flash hider,
which was the point of attachment for the bipod, was not usually
removed. Hiding the flash from enemy troops when firing on them isn't
the purpose of the hider, all automatic weapons are easily visible when
fired at night. It blocks the muzzle flash from the vision of the
shooter, maintaining his night vision. That's important!
The
Army
infantry squad of nine men was tactically organized around a
single BAR. The Marine squad of thirteen men was organized around three
fire-teams, each organized around a BAR. The much greater fire power of
a Marine platoon with its nine BARs over the Army platoon with its four
BARs was a great combat advantage.

truck
convoy in mindanao island and a typical

snake-like
mountain
road on Mindanao in 1945. The
Del Monte Pineapple Plantation in Bukidnon Province, Mindanao.
June
14,
1945
You
might
call this the beginning of my combat experience. Yesterday we
finally reached the rear echelon of Co. F. We slept in a tent and got
rained out. I've been sleeping on the ground for about a month now.
This morning I had my first hot meal in 3 weeks. After breakfast we
began a hike that I will never forget. Partly because of the physical
torture I endured and partly from seeing Jap corpses all along the way.
We are fighting in the mountains about 13 mi. from Malabalay
[Malaybalay]. The night of the 14 we dug in (4 of us to a hole) each
fellow taking a two hour watch. The fellows were pretty trigger happy.
Today I saw two dead Japs and a dead collaborator. Dr. Tom Deas
confirms that this was near Silae, in the mountains due east of
Malaybalay. He said, "F Company was part of Second Battalion and was
the factor that cleaned out those Japanese in the Silae area."

Pikit, Mindanao Island 1945
PFC
ROBERT
THOMAS WEBBER
36925893
U.S.
ARMY
"F"
COMPANY
124TH
INFANTRY
REGIMENT
31ST
DIVISION
BUKIDNON
PROVINCE
MISAMIS
ORIENTAL
MINDANAO
PHILIPPINES
1945
June
15,
1945
Today
we
hiked as far as a field hospital over one of the worst mountain
trails there are. In the valleys you go into mud up to your waist and
the trail over the mountains are wet and slippery; so far we've carried
packs and rifles.
June
16,
1945
Today
we
added a 4.2 [inch] mortar shell to our load. (28
lbs) We figured out that each guy was carrying 70 pounds now. My
shoulders are raw from the pack straps. Going up the side of a mountain
with such a load is just plain torture. You feel like your going to die
from exaustion at any moment. 5 miles in these mountains is equivalent
to a 20 mile hike with full field pack back in the states. Yesterday
and today I saw dead Japs all along the way. Some were just bones,
others just corpses by a few days. You can smell one coming up about 50
yards away. We've been drinking water from a fast flowing creek that is
polluted by dead Japs. Today we waded knee deep in a swift mountain
stream that nearly carried you away. (up stream.) My feet have
been wet for 3 days now.
I
remember
Dad telling me about this combat patrol. As the patrol hiked
upstream, he and other new replacements drank from the stream, unaware
that they would soon encounter the decomposing bodies of dead Japanese
soldiers in the water. He described seeing maggots in the corpses and
the skin peeling from their arms and hands. He also described the
horrific realization of what was in the water he had been drinking.
June
16 [second
entry]
We
got
to this place yesterday and have been resting all day. Our supplies
are dropped by plane. A C-47 flies over every day and drops K rations.
Ammo and Med supplies also dropped this way too. It's a damned queer
feeling to be cut off from the rest of the world so completely.
June
17
Left
the
old Btn. hdqtrs. and head for F Co. which was on patrol in the
mountains. Still have the mortar shells. Slept in an open field with a
few dead Japs nearby.
June
18
Today
we
finally joined F Co. I'm now on one side of a river with the Japs on
the other side. (just a swift stream). More physical endurance.
Climbing the mountains. About noon a patrol brought in a Jap prisoner.
They questioned him and then turned him over to the Guerillas. The
Filipinos beat the hell out of him and then a couple of Replacements
like myself shot him. I couldn't force myself to watch it and still
feel like it was murder. However there was no possible way to get him
back to a prison camp thru these mountains. After the boys pumped 30
slugs into him there wasn't much left of him. I feel that the guys that
shot him did the wrong thing. They should have let the Filipinos finish
him off. As I write now I'm in the dugout looking across the river. A
few holes away on either side are 30 calibre heavies
[.30 caliber heavy machine gun]. We're
dug in in a perimeter the only defense ever used at nite over here.
Anybody that gets out of his hole from dark to dawn is a Jap. You shoot
first and ask questions later. (or heave out a grenade)

Dad spoke of one soldier whose weapon was a Thompson Submachine Gun, who let him
test fire the weapon. He described to me how the muzzle would rise up
and to one side when firing a long burst. He later witnessed this
soldier killing a Japanese POW with the weapon. It sickened him.
June
19
We
were
told that we were going back to Salay [Silae] to ambush 50 Japs.
However when we got to Salay [Silae], we found that the Filipinos had
taken care of the ones they found.
June
20,
1945
Today
I
was outpost guard on top of a high hill overlooking the Salay [Silae]
valley. It's a former Jap observation post. Much to my surprise I found
an old Catholic bell (Spanish) dated 1898. It had this inscription on
it.
SAN
YSIDOR
LABRADOR
AÑO 1898
Saint
Isidor
Labrador in the year 1898. How it was ever brought up into these
mountains is beyond me. They say that years ago a missionary traveled
thru here.
My
mother
told me in May 2001 that Dad began smoking while in the Army in
the Philippines. The Army provided cigarettes along with rations, and
Dad told her that he sometimes smoked while on guard duty because
"there was nothing else to do." He smoked cigarettes until 1953.
June
21
Today
we
marched back to the Palangy River. (where F Co. is located.)
Again we carried a 4.2 mortar shell back with us - I was really tired
out when we got back. ["Palangy" is crossed out and rewritten as
"Pulangi." It is marked for pronunciation with the accent on the second
syllable.]
The
Pulangi
River is the name for northern reaches of the Mindanao River,
east of Malaybalay. Silae is located west from the Pulangi River up
Silae Creek.
June
22
Just
layed
around today. G company crossed the Palangy [Pulangi] on a patrol.
June
23
Today
I
crossed the River and we took over G Companies old perimeter.
Although we sleep in dugouts, everybody is using Nylon sheets and
covers. 4 of us got a red nylon 24 foot parachute that is used to drop
ammo and medical supplies. Food is dropped without a chute. Each chute
costs better than $150 - $200. However there is no way to get them out
of the mountains, so the boys tear them up and use them.
June
24
I
went
on a 6 man security patrol up the river. Found a couple dead Japs
killed by maching [machine] gun fire yesterday. No living Japs seen.
This afternoon we came back over the river on a rubber raft.
June
25th
Back
to
Salay! [Silae] We're finally going in.
June
26th
Layed
around
waiting C47 food drop.
June
27th
Went
as
far as hospital unit and supporting 105's. [105 mm howitzers]
June
28th
Got
back
to Malabalay [Malaybalay] at noon Thur. Had first hot meal.
Here
is
photo of a 124th Infantry mess hall in Malaybalay (Paul
Tillery). Hot chow is always a favorite of any army in the field.
In
October
1942 a group of 1700 prisoners from Java commenced work on the
Burma end of the Death Railway, along with Major Green’s Force they
were the first Australians to start work on the railway. The survivors
of this group were to work for 15 long months, in some of the harshest
and most disease ridden jungles in Asia. Most of the group were
Australians however included in the party from Java were 111 Dutch and
190 Americans. Neil MacPherson from William’s force has supplied a map
showing the journeys of three Hell Ship that these men endured to reach
Burma. All of the prisoners that worked on the Burma end of the railway
were transported by sea, unlike the Thailand work force who were
transported by rail.



POW
Hellship
Yamagata Maru 3907 ton torpedoed 16th April 1944 off Mindanao
loss 33 Japanese
Hundreds
of
the survivors from these three journeys, including Neil MacPherson
were to survive a fourth Hell Ship journey on the Awa Maru, the last
POW Hell Ship to survive the journey to Japan. Because over 10,000 POWs
of the Japanese died through the sinking of Hell Ships in transit to
Japan it was unusual for any prisoner to survive four journeys.

DUTCH POW'S SALUTE TO AN
AUSSIE BUGLER OTTO KREEFFT
The Bugler
Every night they came past our camp. A group of Aussies with their
large felt hats, clearly visible in the bright moonlight. Their work
was apparently further away than ours because they always passed well
after we had retired to our sleeping mats, after our wash in the river
and our meagre meal of rice with watery vegetable soup.
We could see their camp on a small hill on the other side of the
railway embankment. Once the Aussies arrived on the top of the hill
they did a roll call to make sure no one had been left en route. Dark
silhouettes against the
moon-lit sky, commands sounded clear and crisp in the quiet Burman
night. It was as if they were no exhausted POWs but a first draft of
young conscripts. It was a prelude to a ritual they performed nearly
every night.
The Dutch POWs were full of astonishment and admiration for this level
of discipline. They had respect for this close-knit and mentally
undefeated group of men, who acted as if they still had to defend the
honour of the British Empire.
After the roll call nothing happened for half an hour. The moon had
climbed higher into the sky and was bathing the landscape in a light as
if a strange sun had started a new day. The two huts on the hill
appeared to have swallowed up all life and stood out unrealistically
clear against the sky above the dark green jungle. You felt as if you
were on another planet.
In the Dutch huts the men were patiently waiting for the rest of the
ritual, which they already knew through and through but still wanted to
witness again every time.
Then the bugler would play the Last Post.
In such a way that it sent shivers up your spine. As if he wanted to
tell the Jap :
Listen.....we are not broken.....because we know for certain that
eventually victory will be ours
In
the
camp you would hear a needle fall on the ground.
Everybody felt the same moral support of the bugler’s unspoken message.
JEEP
ISLAND
OFF SINGAPORE AUG-SEPT 1944
Many
Australians
who worked on the Burma Railway and who were selected for
slave labour in Japan were first sent to River Valley Road Camp
Singapore where they waited for transports to Japan.
In
August
1944 several hundred of these prisoners were sent to an Island
camp christened Jeep Island after the brutal guard in charge, some 400
yards off the main island of Singapore. Adjacent to the island was a
Dry Dock under construction which was the work to which the prisoners
were to be used, the map shown below was supplied by Tony Carter,
author of Mick McCart

Red
Star
marks position of Island where we worked on the construction of a
Dry Dock for the Japanese
In
Rowley
Richard’s book "A Doctor’s War" he covers the period we worked
on the Dry Dock, and the brutality of the Jeep, his diary was hidden in
the grave of Corporal Gorlic who died on the island.
The
first
group of these Australians were on the Rakuyo Maru which was
torpedoed in the China Sea on the 12 September 1944, of these 543 lost
their lives, 83 were rescued by the Japanese 92 by US submarines. In
December 1944 I was one of the 525 remaining in River Valley Road camp
that were shipped on the AWA Maru, the last Hell Ship to safely make
the journey to Japan.
Some
Death
Railway Facts
Length
of
Railway 414.916 kilometres (257.9 Miles) Single line
Bridges
688
total, 680 timber, 8 Steel
Track
Gauge
1 metre
Rails
Southern
part mainly 60lbs per yard (29.8kg/metre) 30-foot lengths
Rails
Burma
mostly 60 or 75lbs/Yd (29.8 or 37.2kg/metre 30 to 39 foot lengths
Rail
Fastening
Spiked direct to sleeper four per sleeper
Sleepers
Hardwood
25 by 15 cm (10 by 6 Inches) 1400 to kilometre
Ballast
Broken
stone from local quarries and river bed gravel
Locomotives,
Japanese
C56
Gradients
Highest
point, 273.45 metres (897 feet) above sea level, Three Pagoda
Pass
Gradients
Second
highest, Tampi 266.6 metres
Telegraphic
Communication,
Telegraph Line
Japanese
Railway
Regiments 5th Burma end & 9th Thailand
Work
commenced
in June 1942 at Non Pluduc, Thailand, and in October 1942 at
Thanbuzayat in Burma, both ends were joined near Nikki 23rd October 1942
An
Ex
POW’s Daughter’s Story
After
3
and a half years of captivity and deprivation, prisoners of war
returned to the outside world: a world which had passed them by; a
world that was completely and utterly alien; a world into which they
were expected to re-enter and function, as if nothing had ever happened.
But
how
could that be? So much HAD happened.
For
the
prisoners, the memory of their families and life back home, a
memory which had sustained them in their darkest hours, was not matched
by reality. For the families, the men they had waited so long to see
had changed irrevocably, physically and mentally.
Fathers
came
home to find the toddlers they said goodbye to were now at school;
their older children, now adults. Their wives, having been forced to
fend for themselves, were almost strangers.
For
my
brother, Dad's homecoming was a frightening time. Heading to the
train station to meet someone he no longer remembered, he wondered if
his father would remember HIM. Now aged 6, he was just a toddler when
Dad left. When a soldier
stepped from the train, the nervousness and fears vanished, to be
replaced by relief and pride. To his surprise, his father looked 'just
like any other man'. I am sure it was also a time of great anxiety for
Dad.
Born
3
years post-war, my early memories of Dad are of his drinking, the
arguments this caused and his poor health when, wracked by malaria, he
would lock himself away for days.
Whilst
not
happy memories, that was how it was. In my ignorance, I thought
that was how all fathers were.
With
the
passing years the drinking and arguing ceased, but his poor health
remained with him forever. My mother doted on him and cared for him
tirelessly - without complaint.
I
knew
very little of Dad's war history. He told me once about the
fighting and the men each side of him being killed. He had marks on his
arms and back but I never knew what caused them. I knew he was at war
with the Japanese as nothing 'made in Japan' was allowed in the house -
Mum's orders.
About
15
years ago my sister found 27 weekly newspaper articles about World
War 2 in the Mitchell Library in Sydney. They had been written by Dad
in 1948. These articles gave me an insight to where he had been but I
needed to know more, much more. It was from these stories that I now
learned what the marks on his arms were - cigarette burns inflicted on
him during a 3-day period of torture. And so my search began.
Thanks
to
people like the late Tom Morris and Rod Beattie, my quest to uncover
the truth has been successful. I now know my father survived the Battle
of Muar, during which his battalion was almost annihilated and his CO
awarded the VC. He then survived the fighting on Singapore Island. I
know as a POW he went to Burma as a member of A Force in 1942 and
worked on aerodromes and roads, then on the Burma/Thai Railway; I know
all the camps he was in throughout Burma and Thailand; I know the
people he was with; I know that at Nakhom Pathon his mate Chris Guerin
gave him a life saving donation of blood and I know he was too ill to
go on the draft to Japan, which took the lives of so many when Rakuyo
Maru was torpedoed; I know he travelled on the train through Hellfire
Pass 5 times; I know he was with the Tunnel Party near the Burma border
when the war ended; I know he was in Neike camp when released and
eventually sent back to Singapore via Bangkok his very first plane
trip. Whilst we tend to concentrate on the horror prisoners endured, we
should also remember their families, especially wives and
mothers.Husbands and sons returned home traumatised and in poor health.
Having managed to survive imprisonment, without the support of their
womenfolk many may not have survived freedom.There were years of
adjustments ahead and it is to their credit that the majority made it -
and without the kind of help they would be afforded today.
At
times
being the daughter of a prisoner of war was tough, but thanks to
the help of Dad's friends, and mine, at least now I understand 'WHY'.
Fred Howe, my father, died on 7th Aug 1975 - 30 years ago last week.
I am enormously proud of him.
I just wish I had the opportunity tell him so.

Finally,
here
is one more example of Rod’s depth of knowledge and access to
official records. One of the projects I am working on is to record
details of the 3000 Australians who reached Japan and spent time in
Japanese camps.
267
Australians
died in Japan, Korea and Hainan Island, however only 237
have graves in the Yokohama War Cemetery. Where are the other 30 graves?
The
answer
provided by Rod was this: At the end of the war many Australian
POWs seized the ashes of their mates from the Japanese and carried them
as far as Manila. The Australian Government has a long standing rule
that their servicemen killed overseas (unlike the Americans, who
repatriate their dead) must be buried in the area where they died,
hence the number of Allied War Cemeteries overseas. Those ashes from
Japan were confiscated and now have graves at the Labuan War Cemetery
in Borneo and can be located on Commonwealth War Graves Commission web
site – www.cwgc.org
All
very
well, but there remained another mystery - graves of three of the
Australian POWs who died in Japan are not in Yokohama or Labuan - again
Rod solved the mystery.
James
Stewart
Nicol, Charles Frederick Ward and William Thomas Leonard are buried in Section 82
Collective Grave Nos 1B, 1C and 1D, St Louis National Cemetery, USA.
All
three
died at Fukuoka No 1 Camp; because of a shortage of urns several
lots of ashes were stored together in large urns. Because these
Australian ashes were mixed with American ashes the US authorities
insisted on their removal to America. by Rod
Beattie
|
Dear
Rod,
Neil
MacPherson
referred me to you when I told him I was having trouble
finding details of my father who died at Kami Songkurai on the 4th Nov.
1943 of beri-beri. I was a Child POW born on 22/12/41 in Malacca and
was interned in Changi and Outram Road.
Can
you
tell me if you have any details of my father's grave and in
particular his age/DOB.
His details: 80475 Cpl William Edward Davis, Straits Settlements
Volunteer Force. Nationality English, born in Singapore. I realise you
are very busy but I am at my wit’s end trying to find out about my
father. Any info would be appreciated. I hope to come to Thailand next
year with Neil.
Regards,
Errol
Davis.
|
Rod’s
immediate
reply was:
|
Dear
Errol,
The
information
I have is that your father was a member of 'F' Force. This
group of 7,000 Australian and British PoW's left Singapore in April
1943. Your father had to march the 300 kilometres to Changaraya, a
British camp just across the border in Burma. In August this camp was
abandoned and the survivors moved a short distance southwards to the
Australian camp of Kami Songkurai. As you know he died at Kami
Songkurai on 4th October 1943 of beri beri. He was originally buried in
Grave Number 347 of the Kami Songkurai Cemetery.
Post
war
his body was re-buried in Thanbyuzayat War cemetery in Grave Number
B3. Z12. At the time of his death William was aged 30. The records I
have show William as the son of Frederick and Constance Davis of
Middlesex, England.
Should
you
have the chance to get to Thailand it is possible to visit the site
of both these camps - but only with the only person who knows where
these camps were. Neil may have mentioned that I have spent many years
locating the old railway in Thailand and some in Burma as well.
Quite
a
bit has been written about 'F' Force. I have some original records as
well as later reports and books. I have attached two small photographs
of the old railway near Changaraya.
I
hope
this information helps,
Rod
Beattie.
|
A
brief
description of the parties of prisoners that were sent to the
Burma Thailand Railway.
Some
of
the research for this article was made possible with the generous
assistance of Ron Taylor's FEPOW site Railway Parties see Links
Some
statistics
on the terrible toll taken by conditions imposed by a
ruthless enemy are as follows:
| |
POWs |
Deaths |
From |
Asians |
Deaths |
| 30.131 |
6904 |
Malaya |
75,000 |
42,000 |
| 17,990 |
2782 |
Burmese |
90,000 |
40,000 |
| 13,004 |
2802 |
Javanese |
7,500 |
2,900 |
| 686 |
131 |
Singapore |
5,200 |
500 |
| Total |
61,811 |
12619 |
|
177,7 00 |
85,400 |
These
figures
do not include the deaths of Railway workers moved to other
locations and died from the treatment received while working on the
railway.
Green,
Ramsay
& Anderson Forces and the British Battalion made up A Force
under Brigadier Varley
under
Major Green of the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion. This force started work
on the Railway on the 1st October 1942, and were the first of No 3
Group to work on the Railway
Arrived at
the 26 Kilo Camp 20th December 1942 on the 18th March 1943 they moved
to the 75 Kilo Camp, then to 105 Kilo Camp on the 22 May 1943 where
they were amalgamated with Black & Green Forces.
made up
into Kumis of 50 men each, No 37 to 51, 750 men
Kumi 37 officers Kumi, 38 Warrant Officers Sergeants, arrived in
Thanbyuzayat on the 5th October 1942. On 10th October only 710 marched
to the first camp which was the 18-kilo camp ALEPAUK (Hlepauk) On the
3rd January 1943 this force moved to the 35-kilo camp Tanyin to join
Williams Force, later became No 1 Mobile Force.
498
British 2 Australians from Sumatra under Capt Apthorpe, including
Australian surgeon Colonel Coates worked at the 18-kilo camp then
joined the Americans under Capt Fiztsimmons, these were the only
British prisoners working on the Burma end of the railway.
Java
Parties
under Lt
Col John Williams C.O. of the 2/2nd Pioneers
made up of 884 men mainly 2/2 Pioneer Battalion, sailors of the Cruiser
HMAS Perth. Arrived Thanbyuzayat late October 1942 and became part of 3
Group, moved to Tanyin 35 kilo camp first. Camp Commandant Lt Yamada
was one of the best and tolerant Japanese Officers on the Railway who
respected Col Williams, unfortunately he was later moved. The Medical
Officer was Ear Nose & Throat Specialist Lt Col Eadie. In March
1943 with Anderson Force, moved back to the 26 Kilo camp Kunknikway,
here they were to come under the control of the unpredictable and
drunkard Lt Naito. On April 4th they commenced the work of laying the
rails & sleepers through to where the two ends joined on 17 October
1943 known as No 1 Mobile Force. It should be noted that in all
Australian camps on the Burma end of the Railway, Officers accompanied
the men on the work parties and actively intervened to protect the men
from punishment, often taking the bashing themselves. This was very
much the rule in Williams and Anderson Forces where the Officers had
won the respect of the men in action in Syria, Java & Malaya, Col
Anderson won his Victoria Cross in the Malaya fighting.
Lt Col
Chris Black included 610 Australians 190 Americans & 111 Dutch
arrived Thanbyuzayat 30th October 1942 moved to 40 kilo camp Beke Taung
Medical Officer was Australian Capt John Higgins, joined by Dutchman Dr
Hekking In November the water supply failed and the force moved to the
26 kilo camp joining Ramsay Force, Padre Keith Matheson from the
Cruiser HMAS Perth arrived to provide help for the sick.
. From the 26 Kilo point this group worked right
through the wet season, staging through many of the camps laying the
sleepers and rails also ballasting, hard and demanding work that took
it’s toll of men. Dr Rowley Richards the Force Doctor accompanied the
group right through to where the two ends were joined in October 1943,
his book “the Survival Factor” graphically tells the story.
this
force started work the 8 kilo camp Wagale, by the end of October 1942
it is estimated that 4600 Dutch POWs were working on the Burma end of
the railway, believed to have come from Sumatra
From
Java 456 Americans 385 Australians, 159 Dutch, led by American Lt Col
Thorp they left Singapore by train, 9th January 1943, at Penang they
boarded the Hell Ship Moji Maru. 965 Dutch aboard the Nichimei Maru
also left Penang in the same convoy On the 15th January the convoy was
attacked by B24 Liberators, the Nishimei Maru was sunk with the loss of
40 Dutch prisoners, on the Moji Maru 25 prisoners were killed. On
reaching Thanbyuzayat this group worked in the 18-kilo, 80-kilo and 100
Kilo camps. The death rate of 24% for the group was made up of 322
Dutch, 28%, 98 Americans 22%, 54 Australians 14%
Thailand
Parties
from Singapore
Under
Major R.S.Sykes (later killed in air raid on 3rd December 1944) 3000
British left Singapore June 18, 20, 22, 24/26th 1942, their task
initially was to build the housing camp at Non Pluduc to house future
work parties en route for up country. These troops were also involved
in building the railway through to Kanchanaburi, assisted by Thai
workers.
401
British POWs left Kuala Lumpur Malaya on the 14th October 1942 for Ban
Pong.
2600
British left Singapore in four train lots departing on the 17th 18th
20th and 22nd October 1942 for Ban Pong. Colonel Toosey led one party,
the fictional British Colonel in the movie Bridge on the River Kwai was
supposed to be fashioned on Toosey however nothing could be more
opposite. Toosey was the leader responsible for the Prisoners at
Tamarkan that built the two bridges over the Kwai he was most respected
both by his men and the Japanese. Toosey tread a fine line between
protecting his men and cooperating with the enemy.
Left
Singapore for Ban Pong 24th October 1942 commanded by Major
P.S.F.Jackson R.A. made up of 650 British from Adam Park;
X, W, V,
U, T, S, R. Lt Col C.E Morrison senior officer with six other Lt
Colonels in charge of each Letter Party, 4550 British seven lots of 650
departed Singapore on the 25th, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31st October
1942
Q, P, O,
N, M, L, Lt Col D.R Thomas senior Officer with six other Lt Colonels
travelling with each party, total number 3900, departed Singapore 1st,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6th November 1942 the combined Letter parties made up six
separate train lots of 650.
Java
Parties
Under the
command of Lt Col Edward Dunlop a noted Australian surgeon, 895 made up
of 15 Officers 12 WOs and 868 ORs left Bandoeng, they were joined
before boarding the ship by other prisoners, Australian mainly with 159
Dutch, departed from Batavia, in January 1943 first by Hellship Usa
Maru to Singapore then by rail to Non Pluduc. They were the first
Australians to arrive in Thailand; they were transported by trucks to
Konyu and later to Hintock where they remained for the duration of the
construction, working on a particular difficult section involving
cuttings and embankments. In February Dunlop commanded a force of 1873
prisoners including 623 Dutch. Cholera also took a huge toll of this
force with 66 deaths, 84 cholera victims recovered due to a miracle of
ingenuity when a distilling plant was manufactured from stolen copper
piping. The saline fluid was injected directly into the patients to
replace the rapid dehydration caused by the cholera. Initially Dunlop
Force was housed at Hintock Jungle camp later Hintock River camp. The
poem written by John Wisecap tells the story in graphic detail
5, 6, 8
& 9 Made up of 16 train loads each of 625 they departed from
Singapore during January and February 1943, consisting of 8750 Dutch
and 1250 other nationalities.
3000
Consisting of 2831 Dutch and 169 other Nationalities left Singapore in
5 train lots of 650 on 13th to 17th April 1943.
Singapore
Parties
Under
joint command of British Lt Col G.G. Carpenter and Australian Lt Col Mc
Eachern, 5000 POWs, 2780 British and 2220 Australian departed Changi
14th to 23rd March 1943 for Ban Pong The Australians were organised
into three battalions, “S’ “T’ “U” commanded by Lt Col McEachern, Major
E.J Quick and Capt Reg Newton This mixed force were spread over an area
including Tarsao, Hintock, Konyu and Kinsayok and some worked on the
notorious Hellfire Pass cutting
7000
prisoners under the command of British Lt Col S.W.Harris, with Lt Col
Dillon leader of the British and Lt Col Kappe Leader of the
Australians, were sent by rail to Non Pluduc during the latter part of
April 1943. Made up of 3666 Australians and 3334 British they were to
suffer the highest casualties of any group. They remained under the
control of the Malay Command, not the Thai-Burma Command so they
suffered in the distribution of supplies. Another factor was the forced
march of some 300 kilometres in shocking conditions to their work area
near the Burma border. The final disaster on top of over work, poor
rations, and diseases rife in the area was the cholera epidemic, which
struck during the wet season.
637 of F Force succumbed to Cholera up to September, 193 Australians,
444 British, 10% of F Force The final death toll for the British
prisoners was 61.3% the Australians 29%. Of the 3336 British in F Force
2037 of them died, the Australians lost1060 men.
Under
British Lt Col H.R.Humphreys and Australian Lt Colonel Oakes the party
of 3270 left Singapore in 6 train lots during the period 5th to the
17th May 1943. Consisting of 1141 British, 670 Australians, 588 Dutch,
26 Americans, Malay Volunteers and Indians made up the rest. A unique
feature of H Force was an Officers Party made up of 260 Officers who
worked as labourers. A number H Force were sick before departure, the
last work party to leave for the railway their death rate was extremely
high, like F Force they remained under the control of Singapore Command
and suffered accordingly Initially this group went to Tonchan Camp 139
Kilometres north of Non Pluduc. The Australians under Lt Colonel Oakes
with Major green 2/IC went to Konyu Camp 2 and worked on the Hellfire
Pass Cutting, also the Three Tier Bridge, which took a deadly toll of
the men. Living conditions were atrocious the only protection from then
wet were 24 canvas tent flys (canvas sheets) The death rate in H Force
was 27.4% or 885, of these 179 were Australians. Australian Medical
Officers were Majors Ernie Marsden and Major Kevin Fagan. In August
1943 100 Australians were selected and force marched to Konkoita to
join F Force on a cutting that was running behind time.
Another
medical part left Singapore 25th June 1943 under British Major E.E.D
Crawford, made up of 230 medical staff 163 British, 55 Australian 11
Dutch and another National
a medical
party left Singapore on the 24th August 1943 led by British Lt Col
H.C.B. Bebson R.A.M.C. made up of 42 British and 73 Australians
Made up of
28 Dutch and 2 other Nationalities left Singapore on the 87th February
1944 for Ban Pong. These people arrived four months after the railway
Construction work was completed and were used to treat the sick
prisoners.
The
26
Americans in H Force included 7 Merchant Navy Officers who were part
of the Officers Work party in H.Force. 13 American prisoners initially
worked on the Thailand end of the railway, on 5th May 1943, 19 American
POW were sent up with H. Force, all were from the Thorpe’s Java party
who were left in Singapore through sickness. Led by their only NCO
Clayton S Gordon of S Battery 131 Artillery, they marched the 140
kilometres from Ban Pong to Hintock Camp, 6 were too sick to continue
and remained in Kanchanaburi. At Hintock Mountain Camp they worked on
the notorious “Three Tier Bridge at the 155 kilo point, four of this
group died.
From
Japanese
Statistics: Horyo
Saishu
Ronkoku Fuzoku
| Country |
Total POWs |
POW Deaths |
Death Rate (%) |
| |
|
|
|
| Britain |
50,016 |
12,433 |
24.8% |
| |
|
|
|
| Holland |
37,000 |
8,500 |
22.9% |
| |
|
|
|
| Australia |
21,726 |
7,412 |
34.1% |
| |
|
|
|
| United
States |
21,580 |
7,107 |
32.9% |
| |
|
|
|
| Canada |
1,691 |
273 |
16.1% |
| |
|
|
|
| New
Zealand |
121 |
31 |
25.6% |
| |
|
|
|
| Total |
132,134 |
35,756 |
27.1% |

Typical labouring scene- shows sue of chunkle, Jap Engineer and guard
with labourers.
by Lt Fred "Smudger" Smith (Ransome Smith)

PHRA
Pathom
Chedi “Tallest Buhhdist Monument in the World” Monks and POWs in
foreground.
by Lt Fred "Smudger" Smith (Ransome Smith)

Typical
labouring
scene. Shows Hammer and Tap, Embankment labouring, Timber
felling and an excavated cutting.
by Lt Fred "Smudger" Smith (Ransome Smith)

Medical
Evacuation
On The Kwai Noi River 1943
Drawing by Fred Ransome Smith (Lt Fred (Smudger) Smith- 5th Suffolks)
and drawn 2006 from memory.

Medical
Evacuation
On The Kwai Noi River 1943
Drawing by Fred Ransome Smith (Lt Fred (Smudger) Smith- 5th Suffolks)
and drawn 2006 from memory.
| by
(Medical
Officer) Peter Hendry |
| at
Hellfire
Pass, Thailand |
Remembrance
Day
Address Hellfire Pass 2007
As
we
stand here today, in silence, we remember those service men and
women of the Malayan Campaign, who, in their defence of Australia died
or were captured and made Prisoners of War and, in particular, those
who suffered and died on this infamous Railway.
There
is
a perception in some minds that the Malayan campaign was a pushover
for the Japanese. I would like to correct that impression. I would like
to remind you that France was captured by the German army within 6
weeks, Greece was captured in 4 weeks a total of 10 weeks. It took the
Japanese army 10 weeks to capture Singapore! The army was never
defeated, but, those in charge capitulated to save the civilians from
the inevitable.
In
the
campaign Japan used 125,000 troops and had 15,000 in reserve. The
allies used 88,000 and of these some 15,000 were Australians. The
Japanese were superior in the air having 530 modern Zero aeroplanes
whereas the allies had only158 ancient Hudsons and Vilderbeests. The
Japanese had 174 tanks, the allies had none. 2,500 Australians were
either killed in action, missing or died of wounds. I have no record of
the Japanese losses but I believe it to be very much greater.
When
the
Japanese met resistance they would halt and hold their position,
meantime sending excess troops around the flanks to cut off and prevent
an allied retreat. The allies would have to withdraw. This happened at
Gemas when the Japanese advance was halted by the Australian 30th
Battalion, and again at Muar where the 19th and 29th Australian
battalions were involved. In the Japanese records of the campaign
it is recorded that the toughest resistance was when they were halted
by the Australians.
For
the
record, I was a member of the 2/10 Aust Field Ambulance a medical
unit made up of men mainly from Newcastle and the North coast.
The total strength of the unit was 292, which included a
detachment sent to Rabaul. Of the 292 members of the unit who embarked,
131 returned. The remainder 161 were either killed in action or died as
POW’s of the Japanese. Some died in the infamous Tol Massacre near
Rabaul, others on the Sandakan march in Borneo, and others slaving in
Japan and on this Railway.
A
short
time after capitulation the POW’s were ordered to Changi, where
the Australians were to occupy the peace time barracks of the Gordon
Highlanders, commodious for a battalion but very crowded for more than
ten times that number. There was insufficient water and far too few
toilet facilities. Sleeping accommodation on cement floors was crowded.
Food was sparse and consisted almost wholly of rice.
Soon
various
groups were sent off to work for the Japanese. Some were sent
into Singapore to load goods from the various warehouses onto ships to
send to Japan. I was the medical officer for one of these groups. Two
groups named C Force and J Force were sent to Japan to work in the coal
mines and in the naval dockyards. B Force, which included most of my
unit, the 2/10 Field Ambulance., was sent to Borneo to build an
aerodrome. A Force was sent by boat to Burma to work at that end of the
infamous Railway. Together with the remainder of my unit I was sent on
F Force to work up from the South.
It
is
not my intention today to dwell on the horror trip from Singapore to
Thailand in the overcrowded steel trucks, nor on the 300 odd Km march
at night to the top end of the railway, under frightful conditions of
rain and mud, on difficult jungle tracks, as I am sure you are familiar
with both. However I would like to describe the conditions at
Banpong the town at the end of the rail journey in Thailand, and the
start point of the march. My main recollection is of mud, a ground
fowled with faeces from over flowing latrines, discarded packs,
personal clothing and other goods all scattered in dumps over the camp
area. In Singapore we had been told we were to go to a country
overflowing with milk and honey and to take all our possessions with
us. We did, but on arrival we were told we would have to carry all our
personal goods for a 300 km march. Hence the mess!
I
would
like to relate to you an interesting sidelight to this. I had
purchased a pewter mug before the war, which I had intended as a gift
on my return home. One of my unit had engraved it with some tropical
scenes, my name, my unit, and the date 24th May 1942 which the older of
you will remember as Empire Day. Naturally, to my great sorrow, I
decided to discard it in Banpong. Some weeks later at Songkurai the so
called death camp at the top end of the
railway, when the personal goods of a dead soldier were being examined, there was the mug. I
brought it home and it remains as a momento, not only of those horrible
days, but also of mans folly.
Nor
is
it my intention to discuss the horrid diseases Dysentry, BeriBeri,
Malaria, Tropical Ulcers and Cholera to which the malnourished and
overworked troops were subjected, nor the crowded unhygienic huts in
which they were housed, nor the mud and slush in which the huts were
situated nor the lack of medicine all of which you are all undoubtedly
familiar, but I will end this address with the reasons I believe so
many were able to survive.
Firstly: Mateship! An
Australian icon! It was said that without a mate you would be
lucky to survive. He looked after you when things were bad and vice
versa. I have seen sick men, themselves at the point of exhaustion,
carry the gear of a mate as well their own because he couldn’t. Men
survived because their mate fed them and tendered them when they were
ill.
Secondly: The medical orderlies.
These
men, often with little nursing experience, would care for the
sick with tender loving care. They would carry the sick to the
latrines, bathe them, wash them, and if they were too sick, bring them
a bedpan made of bamboo. They would bathe their tropical ulcers and
dress them with bandages made out of dead mans clothing, wash and boil
them again and again. Finally encourage them to eat and feed them, even
though they would resist. Doctors got much praise for their attention
to the sick, but the medical orderlies disserved just as much praise or
more. I feel privileged and honoured to have worked with
them!
Thirdly
and
finally - the best of all medicines – Laughter.
I would
like to end this address with a story. Knowing the value of making a
patient laugh, I, together with some of the more musical members of my
unit arranged concerts for the sick.
For
example,
one of the themes was Hawaiian. We would dress up in palm
frond hula –hula skirts with coconut halves for boobs and, without any
music, sing Hawaiian songs such as “To you sweetheart “halloa – halloa”
from the bottom of my heart” and so on.
An
Australian
soldier wrote a book on his experiences on the Railway. He
wrote that at one time he was at the point of despair. He was hungry,
sick and exhausted. He had lost all his mates and was so depressed that
he lay down in the mud to die. I quote. “The Medical Officer who
ran the hospital came to pick me up. I refused to move, all I wanted to
do was die. He had me carried to the hospital ward against my will.
Soon after my arrival the MO and his staff began a concert. It was so
stupid that I started to laugh. I never looked back.”
Lest we Forget

Written by Captain (Medical Officer) Peter Hendry
NX35147 2/10 Field Ambulance
“F” Force at Songkurai POW Camp near the Burma
border
October
2007
| Remembrance
Day
Address 2008 |
| by
Norman
Anderton MBE NX57502 - 8th Division Signals |
| |
I feel greatly honoured to have been invited to give this address today.
What better day than today, Remembrance Day, to remember some
real heroes, I refer of course to the Doctors who were on the Burma
Thailand Railway. These men, who to paraphrase Winston Churchill
"did so much to help so many when they were so few."
There were 43 Australian doctors, even more British doctors, numerous
Dutch, two Americans and a Canadian on the Burma Thailand
Railway. I could not mention them all. I must acknowledge
that present here today there are five members of the family of British
doctor Major Vincent Bennett and the step-daughter and son-in-law of
Australian doctor Captain John Lindsey Taylor MC.
I would like to mention 5 doctors with whom I had some personal
involvement. First and foremost was Dr Roy Mills, the Medical
Officer with Pond's Party, part of the larger "F" Force at Taimonta and
Konkoita. Roy was a gentle, mild mannered soul who was unlucky
enough to come under the control of one of the most brutal Japanese
Camp Commanders on the line, Capt. Muryama, a big brutal, sadistic ex
Military Policeman who was later tried as a War Criminal and was.
sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted.
Captain Mills suffered many bashings at the hands of Muryama and his
henchmen in trying to save sick men being forced out to work. As
a large number of my Unit, 8th Division Signals, were with Pond's Party
he was later made an Honorary member of our Unit Association.
When I went down with dysentery I was transferred to Nikke Camp where I
met Dr Peter Hendry. In his own words Peter said he tried to
accommodate the Japs demands for "workers", as the men would have been
forced out to work regardless. So he had the unenviable task of
selecting the fittest of the sick to fill the work quotas.
While at Nikki I was also infected with Malaria and as the line was
completed down as far as Nikki from the Burma end I was, along with
many others, sent by train to the Tan Baya Sick Camp in Burma.
About 1,900 "F" force men were sent to Tan Baya around August 1943 and
by year's end 671 had died.
At Tan Baya Hospital Camp I met Doctors Major Bruce Hunt, Captain Frank
Cahill and an Indian Medical Service doctor, Dr Patrick
Wolfe. Bruce Hunt, who was in charge, was a strict disciplinarian
and on our return to Singapore suffered some criticism for his
methods. But he brought "order out of chaos" and did a
magnificent job controlling that Camp.
Having recovered from dysentery and malaria I offered my services as a
voluntary medical orderly and was "put to work" in the combined
Ulcer/Dysentery Ward. Not the most salubrious of places in which
to work.
On some mornings I would have to accompany Dr Wolfe, a small but very
happy man, to conduct a "dawn patrol" to see how many patients had died
during the night and arrange for the bodies to be taken to the
cremation area. As was traditional at that time all the British
and Australian doctors were accorded the rank of at least Captain but
Dr Wolfe of the Indian Army Medical Service, despite being a fully
qualified doctor, was only accorded the rank of Sergeant Major.
If my memory serves me right, there were some 40 amputations performed
at Tan Baya and Dr Frank Cahill, being the only surgeon there, did them
all. Working with only the most basic items of equipment, some
scalpels, some forceps and a wood saw that was also used for cutting
wood for the kitchen and the funeral pyre and then had to be sterilized
in boiling water before being used to saw through the bones. On
one or two occasions I was present with an empty rice sack to collect
the amputated limb and take it to the cremation area.
Unfortunately only four amputees survived as most were too debilitated
to withstand the shock of the operation
These courageous and dedicated doctors will always hold a place of
honour in the memory of all those to whom they ministered during those
dark days. It is fortunate that Don Wall published his book
"Heroes of "F" Force". In conclusion, we should acknowledge the
efforts of all the doctors and the others who helped their mates.
They are all truly "unsung heroes".
Lest
we
forget.

******************************************************************************************************************************
We
now
move to WW2 and most of us are aware of the horrors of that War.
For example:- There was the war in Europe. But we are concerned with
the War against Japan in South East Asia. This involved the massacre at
Parit Sulong on the Malayan peninsular, the imprisonment of Allied
soldiers in Pudu Gaol in Kuala Lumpur, the treatment of the Australian
Nurses at Banka Island, the exploitation of Allied POWs and Coolies on
the Thai-Burma Railway, the prison ships used to transport POWs to
Japan. Also those POWs who were in the relatively unknown and
unacknowledged locations such as Hainan Island, Ambon, Timor, Rabaul,
Mukden in Manchuria and that other railway in Sumatra (about which
little is known). This is just to name a few.
******************************************************************************************************************************
| REMEMBRANCE DAY ADDRESS 2006 |
| by
Major
Rowley Richards RAAMC (Ret’d) |
| at
Hellfire
Pass, Thailand |
(This
address
was originally made at Thanbyuzayat 1 May 2003 and has been
modified to apply generally to the Burma Thailand Railway)
We
gather
today to remember and honour all those who slaved, and those who
died, on the Burma Thailand Railway as Prisoners of War of the Japanese
over 60 years ago. We also remember those who have since died as a
result of their experience.
Over
61,000
Allied POWS were sent by the Japanese to slave on this railway,
together with over 200,000 Asian conscripted labourers (Coolies). Over
13,000 Allied POWs died on the railway and it is estimated that over
90,000 Coolies also died.
I
pay
special tribute to the Australians who were in my care and who died
in spite of the TLC (tender loving care) given by my dedicated and
compassionate Medical Orderlies and my own best efforts. The Medical
Officers received kudos which rightly belonged to the Medical orderlies
– they were the ones who did the hard work.
I
admire
those men for the ANZAC qualities they demonstrated – mateship,
courage and bravery, indomitable spirit and determination, sense of
humour, ability to improvise, and their never-ending hope and optimism.
Their
mateship
was legendary – I never once saw a sick Australian who did not
have somebody to care for him.
They
faced
the terrors of cholera, dysentery, malaria, malnutrition,
starvation and other tropical diseases, together with brutality and
bashings, with remarkable courage and bravery.
They
never
lost their spirit to survive, their sense of humour and they
never lost their hope of returning home to their loved-ones.
I
have
many, many memories of life, and death, on the Railway. One that
stands out is our experience with the dreaded cholera which exemplified
those qualities.
In
May
1943 we moved into Taunzan at the 60 kilometre peg from
Thanbyuzayat to find a filthy, muddy and dilapidated camp below a
native Burmese camp and about 100 metres from a native Burmese cemetery
with 150 to 200 open graves. Anderson Force shared this camp with
Williams Force which I had also looked after while their Regimental
Medical Officer, Lt Colonel Eadie, was away. On his return I took over
the establishment and running of the isolation “hospital”
The
entry
in my diary of 12 May 1943 expresses the horror I felt:
“Dead
Burmese
all over the place. Cause of death - ?Cholera, ?Smallpox,
?Plague”.
The entry on 27 May 1943 gives the answer:
“Cholera has commenced! 3 days ago a Nip died in this camp. This AM D….
died and S…. looks like dying. Also one from Williams Force. Nip took
rectal smears of both.
Established isolation”.
For
once
we had cooperation from the Japanese, for they feared cholera as
much as we did.
A
special
squad under Sgt Wilstencroft, an 8 Div Engineer, was detailed
to convert a disused cattle pen into an isolation hospital. It was
complete with fireplaces, latrines, and a series of separate decks,
each carrying four to six patients at intervals of three or four
metres. They were arranged so that patients with cholera, suspected
cholera, dysentery, and severe diarrhoea could be formed into small
groups, making for ease in isolation when any were found to be
bacteriologically or clinically positive cases of cholera. There was no
shortage of volunteer medical orderlies from both Anderson and Williams
Forces to staff the isolation hospital.
This
demonstrated
the benefit of our previous training in hygiene discipline
such as sterilizing the dixies before and after eating, the men’s
ability to improvise, courage in facing the dreaded disease and true
mateship in action.
The
outcome
– There were only four deaths from cholera in Anderson Force
during the first four days followed by two further cases in July and
three in September/ October, the latter being complicated by dysentery
and malaria. The experience in Williams Force was similar but very
different from that of some other forces.
On
behalf
of all the Allied Prisoners of War, and their families, I thank
all who are responsible for assisting us to preserve the memories of
these men. The cemeteries at Thanbyuzayat, Chungkai and Kanchanaburi
are testimony to the release from suffering of so many. This area at
Hellfire Pass is a representative symbol of the railway, without being
able to depict the actual deplorable conditions suffered.
May
they
rest in peace.

Note
from
Lt Col Winstanley – In 2005 Rowley Richards published his story in
a book titled “A Doctor’s War” ISBN 0 7322 8009 5. It is recommended.
| John
Parkes
recollection of the privations of POWs of “F” Force |
| Delivered
at
Remembrance Day Service, Hellfire Pass, Thailand, 11 November 2005 |
| |
Singapore
fell
to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 and around 100,000 allied
troops became POWs in the Singapore region. Early April 1943 the
Japanese demanded 7000 allied prisoners of war from the Changi area, to
be sent north to a camp where there would be better food and no work.
Accordingly light sick could be included. The make up of the party
would be about half British and half Australian and was known as “F”
Force.
My
name
is Vanessa Wade and I am the daughter of John Parkes, here present
today together with fellow ex POWs - Bill Lawson from the UK , Bill
Haskell (Perth), Fred Hodel (Queensland), Cyril Gilbert (Queensland),
Bill Flowers (Victoria) and Roy Whitecross (New South Wales). This is
John’s story in his own words.
It
is
generally conceded that “F” Force suffered most of all the groups
sent to labour on the Railway. Certainly, the mere stats of the deaths
would suggest that. 61% of the British and 28% of the Australians died
in the time they were on the “line”.

The first party of F Force to leave Singapore was known as Pond’s
Party, a group of 700 fit and semi fit men. After we left Singapore
Pond’s Party had no permanent contact with the rest of F Force.
On
17th
April 1943 we left Changi early morning arriving at Singapore
railway station at daybreak. It was obvious from the start that it was
not going to be a pleasure trip. The train was ready at the station. It
consisted of nothing more than metal rice trucks and an engine and
nothing more. The guards were yelling and screaming, waving sticks and
cramming about 30 men into each truck.
The
train
trip lasted 4 nights and 5 days. Food and water were scarce and
if you wanted to go to the toilet someone had to hold your arms whilst
you hung out the open door.
Some were forced to stand, some squatted or sat on the floor and few
were able to lie down. Invariably when the train stopped, it stopped
alongside a swamp. We were not allowed off the train. The mosquitoes
fed well on us.
Finally
we
arrived at Ban Pong in Thailand. There we discovered that we had to
march about 300 kilometres to the region of the Burma border. We stayed
overnight in a filthy camp and for the next 17 days we walked by night
along a narrow jungle track with no light to guide our steps. We slept
by day, if we could. The day temperature was over 40 degrees and the
monsoon rains were just starting
On
the
second night we arrived at Kanchanaburi or Kanburi as we knew it,
on Anzac Day 1943. The town was small then and on the edge of a dense
jungle. We left the next night and walked through more jungle under
similar harsh conditions. We had little food and water. Some nights we
walked for hours with no water or food. It was a dreadful walk.
We
moved
north and passed through Koncoita. This was about 260 Kilometres
from our start point. We stayed there one night and moved on to
Teimonta. We had hardly any time to settle into our accommodation of
huts with no roofs, when we were put to work pile driving. After this
we started work building embankments. Initially the quota for moving
soil was 200 baskets per day for 3 men and after you had reached the
quota you could return to camp. This arrangement didn’t last long
because the quota was fairly easy to meet. The Japanese decided to up
the quota and it rose gradually and finally got up to 700 baskets per
day per 3 men. This was a nearly impossible task, men were struggling
to achieve this and we had to stay there until the quota was filled
even if this meant that you worked on into the night, working under the
light of bamboo flares. We never saw our beds in daylight, as we were
up before dawn for sick parade, a bowl of rice and then off to walk the
2 kilometres or so to the work site.
It
was
at Teimonta that cholera stuck. It was the start of the monsoon and
the rain did not stop until we finished work several months later at
Takanoon. We were working, eating and sleeping in the rain much of the
time. A separate cholera tent was set up and the medical staff led by
Dr Roy Mills and George Beecham did their best to treat the victims of
cholera for whom there was little hope. Men were dying every day and we
had to cremate bodies every day. Dr Mills tried to treat men with
intravenous injections (IVI), but it was almost hopeless and very few
survived. He was unable to cope with the workload on his own and
trained his medical orderlies in the IVI procedures. The cholera
continued to strike right through the rainy season from Teimonta to
Nikke and down to Takanoon. Approximately 56 from Pond’s Party died of
cholera.
The
Japanese
wanted 300 reasonably fit men to go to Nikke. Many of these so
called “fit” men were quite sick and some were later sent on to the
hospital camp at Tanbaya in Burma, along with our well respected
Signals Captain, Fred Stahl. A third of the men sent to Burma died
there.
At
Nikke
there were a lot of Burmese bullocks loose on the edge of the
jungle and it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss to have some
beef. In the 9 days we were there, we acquired and killed 23 bullocks.
The first night we sat up all night eating, the meat was tough and
stringy and it didn’t do our digestive system much good, but it filled
our stomachs.
We
returned
to Teimonta and joined the rest of Pond’s Party and walked and
worked our way back 70 kilomteres down to Takanoon, carrying all our
stretcher cases, cooking gear and tools. Whenever we moved the guards
made us carry heavy bundles of tools up to 10 to 15 kilometres before
we could return to the camp for something to eat. As soon as we were
out of sight of the guards we tossed some of the tools away into the
jungle and retied the bundles as before. The guards never once found
out what we had been doing. We were lucky as other parties were dealt
with severely for losing tools etc. This went on whenever Pond’s Party
moved.
Once
again,
when we arrived at Takanoon there were no huts and we had to
establish a cookhouse and dig latrines whilst sleeping at night under
old tents. Some of us built our own humpies with whatever materials we
could scrounge. The camp was built on what was essentially a mud heap
on the edge of the jungle. The tents leaked most of the time and men
were stacked in like sardines and lying in the mud. We lived under
these conditions for 5 months.
During
this
time 150 of us fitter men were sent 4 kilometres north to work on
building embankments. One morning a party of Japanese arrived with
rifles and bayonets and they marched us out to a ledge on the side of
the river. We were made to line up and they ordered us to remove the
few clothes we had on, including the bandages covering ulcers. We had
to line up against a wall naked and it looked a bit like the end. We
really believed that we were going to be shot. We said goodbye and
shook hands with one another. The guards searched through our clothes
and we were puzzled to find later that they had also gone through our
meagre belongings back at camp, though we couldn’t imagine what they
thought they would find.
During
our
time at Taknoon, our rations were cut. The Japanese said that as
sick people couldn’t work their rations were cut to one meal a day.
Those who were working all agreed to give some of their rations to the
sick to help them survive. That enabled everyone to have at least 2
meals per day.
The
only
food available from the jungle was wild bananas, about the size of
your finger and full of black seeds, the young leaves of the banana
palms, the red banana flowers and bamboo shoots. Our rations per day
for the month of May 1943 were 537 grams rice, 12grams onion, 1 gram
towgay, 1 gram dried whitebait and 1 gram of beef per man. Hardly
sufficient to maintain anyone let alone men working up to 16 hours a
day.
From
Takanoon
we went back up 70 km to Teimonta to the place where the
railway line ultimately joined up. We then had to walk another 20 km
back up the line to catch the train, even though it was going right
past our camp at Teimonta. A ridiculous waste of time and effort for us
and a ludicrous organizational effort by the Japanese.
During the 9 months we were in Thailand we were on the move all the
time. We never had the opportunity of developing a campsite with
improved facilities. We were continually setting up camps, carrying the
sick from one place to another and transporting all our tools, cooking
gear and our tents. An increasingly heavy burden was that we became
more malnourished and sick.
For
the
9 months we were on the line approximately 50% of F Force died, two
thirds British and one third Australian and in Pond’s Party similar
statistics prevailed. Without the efforts of our wonderful doctor, Roy
Mills and his medics I believe it would have been worse. He and the
medical staff worked day and night to try to help the sick with limited
or no medicine or medical equipment. Roy Mills himself had been ill all
the time he was with us. He carried shrapnel in his shoulder from the
defence of Singapore until he managed to have a British Medical Officer
remove it on 18 October near Koncoita. Unfortunately Dr Mills
contracted TB and on his return to Australia, was unable to work and
spent 2 years in hospital.
The
sense
of humour displayed when times were bad and the mateship amongst
the men of Pond’s Party were I believe important factors for survival
and an important part of what got us through the experience. For many
of us, the friendships made then have lasted over 60 years and continue
today.
Lest
we
forget
Sig
CJ
(John) Parkes
NX
72917
8th Division Signals- Malaya,Singapore,Thailand.- 11 November 2005
| Anzac
Day
Address 2003 at Kanchanaburi |
| Memories
Of
The Burma Siam Railway |
| By
Bill
Haskell Ex Wx3279 2nd 3rd Machine Gun Batallion |

|
It seems incredible that sixty years have passed
since we laboured on the railway to Burma, by which name we knew it at
the time. Often in those dreadful days you would not have given
yourself a chance of surviving for a few days let alone sixty years. It
is therefore with a sense of deep gratitude that I recall the
unswerving dedication of all medical staff and the abiding friendship
of wonderful mates who made survival possible in a universe of madness
and suffering. When you are bereft of everything, save perhaps a loin
cloth or a tattered pair of shorts the only thing we could offer each
other was a helping hand and encouragement to battle on towards better
times.
In January 1943 as a member of a force known as
Dunlop Force, commanded by Lt. Col. “Weary Dunlop” we moved up from
Java into the Konyu Hintok area to commence work on the railway.
Fortunately it was during the dry season and we were transported most
of the way from Bam Pong in open trucks. What a great advantage this
gave us over our comrades of the various forces who were compelled to
march in monsoonal rain and slush to such camps as Songkurai, Nikki and
other hell holes.
|
Our
initial
job was to construct the Konyu River Camp and clear the rail
trace. We then moved across to Hintok Road Camp and began working in
earnest. Our work area embraced the three major cuttings after Hellfire
Pass culminating in the compressor cutting. It also included the curved
seven metre embankment, the three tier trestle bridge and numerous
smaller trestle bridges that linked knoll to knoll. Circumstances also
made us available to work on the fallen Pack of Cards Bridge that was
mainly built by Tamil labourers.
No
matter
where you worked the job was arduous in the extreme,
particularly for the many men who had to work barefooted. In common
with every POW camp food was at a premium. Rice, of course, was the
staple diet, but there was little enough of it. For the evening meal it
was served with a very watery soup, with sometimes a smidgen of meat or
dried fish known as “Modern Girls”. The Japanese were merciless task
masters and bludgeoned men into long hours of soul-destroying work.
During one of the wettest monsoons on record there were 114 wet days
and our camp was worked for 92 days straight without a break. This has
come to be known as the speedo period. The huge embankment was built by
scraping dirt garnered between rocks into double handled baskets which
were passed along a man made chain. Often the spoil was carried away in
tankas – a rice sack strung between two bamboo poles. Japanese,
strategically placed, bashed anybody they thought might be slacking. In
their weakened condition men often collapsed under a rain of savage
blows and kicks.
The
construction
of the numerous cuttings probably contributed most to the
ruination of so many men. The work would have been hard for men in good
physical shape, but was an absolute disaster for men battling recurrent
disease on starvation diets. Most of the cuttings were put in by men
working with hammer and tap. One man held the drill while his mate
belted it with a sledge hammer. Drilling quotas were set by the
Japanese and the drilled holes were primed with gelignite and fired
twice a day. After firing the clearers moved in to clear the floor for
the next drilling. Clearing was an awful job universally detested. The
blasting left razor sharp edges which tore bare feet to shreds. The
loose rock was carried away in tankas and emptied over the side.
Blasting was indiscriminate and men were frequently clobbered by
falling stones. The cuttings were a sweat box from the radiated heat
and the workers suffered great thirst. We were only allowed one army
bottle of water a day. Many of our strongest men broke down, often
doing too much to protect a sick mate. The Japanese made no concessions
for sick men and often used them as an excuse for handing out more
bashings. Building the three tier bridge presented all sorts of
difficulties. It was a giant of a structure about 25 metres high and
250 metres long. The timber for it and all other bridges was cut from
the surrounding jungle and hauled to the site by prisoners. There it
was prepared and erected under the supervision of the Japanese
engineers. The sergeant in charge was a sadist of the first order who
delighted in throwing tools and pieces of wood at unsuspecting
prisoners working below.
The
long
working hours, the intense harassment on the job, the lack of
footwear and the starvation diet affected men’s health to a point where
they became absolute sitters for all the tropical diseases that were
indigenous to the area. Malaria and dysentery were their constant
companions. There was little quinine available to control malaria and
nothing with which to treat amoebic dysentery. With the monsoonal rain
the camp became a quagmire and going to the toilet at night became an
almost insuperable problem for debilitated men racked with abdominal
pain.
A
lack
of vitamins in the diet soon brought on all sorts of complaints
ranging from beri-beri to red raw mouths, tongues and throats.
Beri-beri caused gross swelling of the limbs and stomach, making
walking in itself very difficult, let alone having to get out to the
rail trace and work when you got there. Cuts and wounds on the legs and
feet generally became infected due to the absence of antiseptics,
disinfectants and bandages. Many lesions soon turned into tropical
ulcers which often as not became gangrenous. Hundreds of men had limbs
amputated as a last resort.
Perhaps
the
greatest scourge of all was cholera visited on our camp by passing
Asian labourers who unfortunately were denied any sort of treatment
whatsoever. Cholera rapidly dehydrates the body through purging and
vomiting. As the fluid leaves the body so do the body salts thus
inducing severe cramp in all muscles. Cholera claimed many lives in our
camp before a still was manufactured from salvaged material, enabling
the production of pure distilled water to be turned into a saline
solution for intravenous injection into comatose patients. This
procedure was marvelously successful resulting in the saving of 60% of
all cholera patients.
When
we
look back over those troubled times is it any wonder that we thank
the Good Lord for his provision of steadfast mates and above all for
the doctors and medical staff who overcame incredible difficulties to
return so many men to their loved ones at home
| Anzac
Day
Address 2004 at Kanchanaburi Thailand |
| Recollections
of
Neil MacPherson WX16572 of 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion, Williams Force
Burma Railway |
| |

|
In February 1942, 3000 Australians, the vanguard
of the 7th Division, returning to Australia from the Middle East on the
SS Orcades, were diverted to help slow the invaders sweeping all in
front of them towards Australia. On the 15th February an attempt to
land the two fighting units, Pioneers and Machine Gunners at Oosthaven
Sumatra was aborted when on landing it was found that the enemy was
only 12 miles away. The force next day disembarked at Batavia, their
places aboard the Orcades taken by the evacuating Wavell’s Headquarter
staff.
In Java despite lack of air and sea support our
lightly equipped force inflicted severe losses on the invaders but at a
cost. In my company alone we lost our Company C.O. two platoon officers
and many others.
|
On
the
8th March the Dutch authorities surrendered the island along with
all allied forces. At 19 years of age I became a prisoner of a cruel
and brutal enemy and joined over 22,000 fellow Australians in
captivity. Of these over 8,000 or 36%, were to pay the supreme
sacrifice. Most were to suffer an intolerable cruel and lingering death.
In
September
1942 under the command of our legendary Pioneer C.O. Lt
Colonel Williams, 1800 prisoners from Java were shipped to Burma in
conditions that today we would not allow sheep to travel. This involved
three separate journeys, in three Hell Ships. Arriving in Thanbyuzayat
in October 1942, we joined the first of Brigadier Varley’s A Force of
Australians just arrived from Tavoy, with them we were the first
Australians to start work on the Burma Thailand railway. The next
Australians to arrive in Burma, in January 1943, also from Java, No 5
Group. The first Australians to commence work on the Thailand end were
also from Java, Dunlop Force in January 1943.
The
following
15 months were to test the metal, the morale, and the Anzac
spirit of the Australian prisoners in Burma. We labored on a starvation
diet of a hand full of rice and watery usually meatless stew, clearing
the jungle, on embankments, on cuttings, on bridges. In the heat of the
dry, and the misery and slush of the wet. Then, we survivors, along
with Anderson Force, were selected as No 1 Mobile Force, to carry out
the arduous and demanding task of laying the sleepers and rails, along
our previously worked ground. We worked continually through the wet,
from Thanbyuzayat right through into Thailand where the two ends were
joined on 17th October 1943. Our clothes and footwear, long destroyed
in the fetid jungle, left our only protection from the burning heat and
the rain, a loin cloth. Bed bugs and lice left by native workers made
for harrowing and restless nights. From the start deaths were
continuous and as our numbers dwindled so our work hours grew With no
drugs whatsoever, malaria, dysentery, beri beri, pellagra, tropical
ulcers, smallpox, and finally cholera took its toll. The dedicated
Doctors and medical staff were supermen. Working with make-shift
instruments and few drugs, without their efforts our losses would have
doubled. Our torment continued till January 1944 when the survivors,
wrecks of men, in rags, staggered out of their jungle camps to be
transported to the well organised better-equipped camps in Tamarkan
& Kanburi (Kanchanaburi).
Despite
a
continuing death rate from the results of our ordeal, after six
months of improved food and lighter work we survivors regained some
semblance of health, little did we know that this was part of a well
designed plan by our captors.
Thousands
of
Railway workers, Australians in a majority were selected for
shipment to Japan as slave labour, to work in mines, factories and on
the docks. Thousands of them were to die in Hell Ships sunk by US
submarines. My luck as a survivor continued, I was on the last ship,
the Awa Maru, my fourth Hell Ship, to successfully make the journey. We
arrived in Japan in January 1945, the coldest winter Japan experienced
in 40 years, to spend the remaining months working in a coalmine.
An
unknown
author described conditions on board these Hell Ships thus
“Crowded onto cramped platforms, with barely enough space to turn
around, a mass of unwashed bodies struggling to survive in a sea of
sweat and revolting smells in the stifling heat of the holds. Initially
in the tropical heat near the equator, but the ensuing month was to see
us making our way across snow covered decks for our l toilet functions”
Today
we
remember those who paid the supreme sacrifice, some of them rest in
this well kept garden setting. But we must also remember those
survivors who returned home. They took up life where they left off,
brought up families, helped build a great nation, most drew a curtain
on the horrors through which they had lived. But for many the hidden
horrors surfaced in the unguarded hours of sleep, and to this day many
still suffer the trauma of repeated night mares along with the ravages
of the diseases they suffered.
Now,
what
were the positives that came out of our experiences, we the lucky
ones, the survivors, discovered the will to survive, we discovered mate
ship, we discovered compassion, a caring and a bond for our fellow
prisoners that transcends that, and is different to that we have for
the opposite sex. For us teenagers, and there were many of us, just
walk along the line of graves here and read the ages, we matured
quickly, we adapted, we found a maturity far above our age, we learned
self discipline, most importantly we discovered mate ship.
“No
prisoner
on the railway survived who did not have a mate” I can best
illustrate that special mate ship between Australian POWs by reciting a
poem written by an Australian ex POW, Duncan Butler 2/12th Field
Ambulance.
MATES
I've
travelled
down some lonely roads
Both crooked tracks and straight
An' I've learned life's noblest creed
Summed up in one word "Mate"
I’m
thinking
back across the years,
(A thing I do of late)
An’ this word sticks between my ears
You’ve got to have a mate
Someone
who'll
take you as you are.
Regardless of your state
An' stand as firm as Ayers Rock
Because "e" is your mate
Me
mind
goes back to 43,
To slavery an' ate,
When man's one chance to stay alive
Depended on 'is mate.
With
bamboo
for a billie-can
An' bamboo for a plate,
A bamboo paradise for bugs,
Was bed for me and me mate.
You'd
slip
and slither through the mud
An' curse your rotten fate:
But then you’d hear a quiet word:
“Don’t drop your bundle mate.”
An'
though
it's all so long ago
This truth I ave to state:
A man don't know what lonely means,
Til 'e ‘as lost ‘is mate
If
there's
a life that follers this,
If there's a "Golden Gate"
The welcome that I want to hear
Is just: "Good on y mate"
An
so
to all who ask us why
We keep these special Dates
Like Anzac day, I answer: "Why"
We're thinking of our mates
An
when
I've left the drivers seat
An handed in me plates,
I'll tell old Peter at the door:
"I’ve come to join me….MATES”...
| Remembrance
Day
Address 2004 at Hellfire Pass Thailand by Don Lee |
| Memories
Of
The Burma Thailand Railway 1943-1944 |
| |

|
General
Nagatano
who supervised the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway
vowed “to build it over the dead bodies of his captives.” (Quoted Big
Weekend April 25th, 1998). Following Pearl Harbour the Japanese found
that the long sea-route to supply their Armies in Burma was becoming
too costly due to attacks from carrier and land based aircraft, surface
ships and submarines. Their High Command decided to extend the railway
in Thailand to link up with Burma and send their reinforcements and
supplies via land, leaving only the well protected South China Sea to
cross.
There
was
a huge supply of labour available. This included thousands of
prisoners of war, rather despised by the Japs at that stage in their
out-of-date Samurai way of thinking, and a practically unlimited number
of Asian labourers.
|
The
route
for the line had been surveyed about 1902 or 1903. With
tunnelling and the difficult terrain, the estimate for construction had
been 6 ½ years. The Japanese decided to do it in 18 months. Then
at a tremendous cost in misery, suffering and death they did it in 12
months.
The
railway
was the biggest engineering feat of World War II. It was 421 km
or 263 miles long. It involved the building of 4,000,000 cubic metres
of earth embankments, shifting 3,000,000 cubic metres of rock and
building 688 bridges (680 timber and 8 concrete & steel). In total
there was 14 km of bridgework.
Then
there
was the laying of the line itself. There were practically no
machines. There were a few elephants. The work force was about 330,000;
61,000 POWs and 270,000 Asians and practically everything was done by
hand. The deaths in 12 months have variously been estimated at 100,000
to 130,000. Add the sick and crippled to this and I doubt if anyone
came through unscathed. Physical hurts could be seen but the mental
strain and stress was ever present, in some cases driving men to
suicide.
As
a
reasonable example of what happened on this infamous railway I will
deal mainly with the experiences of our section of “H” Force at Kanyu
No. 2 Camp, later known as Malayan Hamlet. “H” Force, 3,270 men, left
Singapore early in May 1943. Our section numbered 750; there were 500
Australians and 250 British. In this Kanyu No. 2 Camp our losses were
43% dead in six months.
Both
“F”
and “H” Forces had the double misfortune to have been “loaned” by
Japanese Malayan Command to Thailand Command instead of being
transferred as was the usual practice. The jealousy between Japanese
Commands resulted in our being neglected in every way, especially
regarding food and medical supplies. Those workers on the line under
Thai Command had more and better food than we had and some medicines.
Our other misfortune was that “F” and “H” were in the central or
primeval jungle sections of the line.
Our
party
arrived at Bam Pong on 12th May. It was filthy and fouled by the
prior transit of many large groups and tropical storms (monsoons). The
men were besieged by local Thais eager to sell food. On the journey
from Singapore we were given only five meagre meals during the four
days and nights. The ravenous men traded clothes, hats and even boots
for food. It was to cost them dearly.
We
arrived
at Kanyu No. 2 Camp early in the afternoon of May 21st. It was
not really a Camp. It was a small area of felled bamboo with the stumps
sticking up everywhere. We were given one day to establish our Camp.
Then it was straight out to work on the railway .
When
work
was commenced on the cutting, I was allocated to the night shift
and remained on it until the Cutting was completed on August 24th. The
only break to my continuous night shift was for about ten days on the
day shift at the end. The work was relentless. In one of the wettest
seasons ever, the rain never ceased. Our rations were meagre, I think
about 20½ ozs per day, later reduced to 15½ , mainly rice
and sea-weed. More and more men fell ill from dysentery, malaria,
beri-beri, pellagra, tropical ulcers, pneumonia and practically every
skin affliction known. The Japanese went into the sick mens’ tents and
ordered seriously ill men to go out to work. These men had to be helped
to walk, then could only sit down and hold the chisel while another man
belted it with a sledge hammer.
There
were
some shocking cases of cruelty. 33 men were beaten to death in the
Cutting. Three of them were in my party. One man fainted and the Jap
thought he was malingering so he thrust his wire knout (about 20 or 30
lengths of wire bound at one end used to clean the drill holes before
the explosives were put in) into the fire. When the ends were red hot
he thrust them onto the man’s feet. The smell of burning flesh was
awful. The faint was genuine, the man’s body only twitched violently.
He died shortly after.
Another
man
who hadn’t been able to keep up battled to get down into the
cutting. The Jap guard drew us up strictly to attention and waited –
perhaps ten minutes in an awful silence. Then with a roar he pounced on
the weak, emaciated man and punched him unmercifully, then kicked him
and finally seized the man’s bamboo staff and beat him so brutally that
he died a few days later.
One
incident
I have often recalled is that of a small weak man deliberately
going up to one of our most brutal guards and hitting him. Suicidal? In
three or four minutes seven Japs were on to him, hitting and kicking.
They beat him to a pulp and he died shortly after. I have often
wondered why he did it. I have a feeling that he had decided to give up
but go down fighting the enemy. Whatever his motive, I think of him as
a brave little man – a hero.
As
more
men became too sick to work the Japs drove those on the job harder
and longer and the shifts went from twelve to fourteen, then sixteen
and finally eighteen hours. Then cholera hit our Camp.
The
men
had been warned repeatedly to drink only water that had been boiled
and was readily available from the cook-house. Many ignored this and
filled their water bottles from the clear creek near the Camp.
One
evening
before we went out on the night shift, everyone who was able
was called on to parade. The Adjutant called us to attention, then
addressed us. “I want you all to listen to that man screaming. He is in
agony. He has cholera. Before he got into his present state he informed
us that he had been drinking water from the creek. Also, that many of
you have been doing so. It is my awful duty to tell you that within a
month many of you will be dead. May God help you.” This sounds callous,
but I think it was the most severe warning he could give to stop the
practice of drinking unboiled water.
We
on
the night shift had a bad time. There was no labour in Camp.
Everyone was working in the Cutting so in the afternoons we were called
out to carry back bags of rice and other items from the barge landing
or cremate the bodies of the cholera victims. Cholera dehydrates the
body which burns up. Some were so light they could be picked up with
one hand. After a week or so the Japs objected to the smell and ordered
that we bury the bodies. One afternoon we buried eighteen.
One
Sunday
I was ordered to take a party to an Asian camp to dispose of
bodies. At the entrance to the Camp was a man standing on a stump. He
had defecated between the tents, no doubt driven to do so by dysentery.
The Japs had beaten him, rubbed his head and face in his discharge,
tied his hands and stood him on the stump. The flies covered his face
and head like a black balaclava. Inhuman.
We
collected
bodies around the camp. Four of us to a mat and we took eight
each time, ordered by the Japs to throw them away like garbage. These
were human beings who had suffered along side us, experiencing the same
brutalities, same starvation, same illnesses, same over-work, lack of
sleep and awful stress. The expression so often quoted “man’s
inhumanity to man” was never more evident.
The
Cutting
was finished on August 24. Then the Japs ordered 100 men to be
sent further north to continue working on the railway. Only 83 could be
mustered, the fittest of the unfit. We went by rail to the Konkoita
area to work on bridge building. I alone was sent to an all officers
camp at South Konkoita. I entered that camp a stranger and do not know
the fate of the other 82 of my original group.
My
new
Camp was an all-Officers working one and we hauled teak logs
together with elephants. The huge logs were cut high up on the
mountain, trimmed, then sent thundering down to bury themselves in the
river bank. They were hauled out by 100 or 200 men on ropes plus two or
three elephants.
To
conclude,
I would like to say how grateful we were to our Doctors who
all did a wonderful job. Our Doctor, Major Kevin Fagan was so dedicated
that he nearly died from his efforts to help the sick and wounded.
Also, the great spirit of friendship where we helped each other to
endure the hardships.
There
were
a few despicable incidents.
We
can
all thank with pride and reverence the brave men who suffered so
much and gave their lives for our freedom. We should also remember in
our prayers the thousands of Asian workers who suffered and died as
slaves of a cruel and implacable enemy.
In
the
20th century we were all reduced to total slavery by the Japanese,
where a 2nd or 3rd class Private could beat a man to death with
impunity.
History
will
record to Japan’s eternal shame, and never to be erased, the awful
atrocities committed on the Railway of Death.
**************************

As
is
known, the railway was built from the south in Thailand and the
north in Burma.
It
was
joined on 17 October 1943 at a place identified as Koncoita in
Thailand. Progressively after that date the POWs from the Burma
side were moved into Thailand. The initial location where they
were mustered was at Tamakan (beside the concrete and steel bridge
spanning the Mae Klong River). It is not clear which camps Lt Col
Eadie was in during 1944 and 1945. But, from another area of
interest it is known that at the end of the War he was in the POW camp
at Tamuang (he was one of 69 Freemasons who met in that camp on 18
August 1945).
FAMILY
- In the early 1930's Norman
Eadie married Eileen Larkin, a delightful lady working as the nursing
sister in his medical specialist rooms in Collins Street,
Melbourne. They built a beautiful home on 16 acres of land
overlooking the Yarra River at Lower Plenty, 13 miles from Melbourne,
and in 1935 Norman and Eileen had a son Edward (Ted), who was born two
months prematurely.
POSTWAR
- After the war Norman, with
the help of Eileen, established and operated a poultry farm for laying
hens on the Lower Plenty property, a hobby Norman had been involved in
prior to the war. Sadly, his wife Eileen died within a few years
of his return from the war. Norman's health was not sufficiently
good to re-establish practice as an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist,
but he did return to medical practice with the Repatriation Commission
in Melbourne.
RE-MARRIAGE
- In 1949 Norman married Lt
Col Edith Butler RRC from Adelaide whom he had met during the war, and
she remained his wife until his death at the age of 91 in 1984.
During their marriage they lived at Lower Plenty then moved to a
property at Yea in Victoria in 1954 and later to Adelaide in
1958. Subsequently, they enjoyed a number of overseas trips
together after Norman finally retired from medical practice, which he
resumed in Adelaide.
************************************

| MAJOR
EWAN
LAWRIE CORLETTE NX 350 2/2 Casualty Clearing Station |
| From:
Middle
East – Java- Thailand |
In
1983
he prepared a speech to be given after the Anzac Day march and
service. The following is an extract from that speech-
“Today,
we
particularly remember those of them who gave their lives that we
might enjoy our present freedom. I suppose each one of us during the
two minutes silence was recalling some particular moment. For me, it
was on an occasion sitting in a leaky tent in Siam in teeming monsoonal
rains and surrounded by mud, holding the hand of a nineteen year old
soldier, whilst he died from the effects of haemorrhage complicating
severe dysentery, knowing that given the tools I could have saved his
life. My heart was filled with hatred and I was cursing our captors –
those little yellow bastards who by starvation, brutality and neglect
had murdered this boy and many others of his companions just assuredly
as they had murdered our nurses with their machine guns on the beach at
….”.
Ewan
Corlette
never displayed outward hate for his captors, but it appears
that he felt it inwardly.
| A
TRUE
STORY |
| Surviving
the
sinking of the Rakuyo Maru |
| |
At
Tamarkan
(Thailand), a miserable bamboo Japanese Prisoner of War camp
on the banks of the River Kwai, a staging camp for the skeleton thin
and diseased prisoners of war, dressed in tatters of clothing, some
only in loincloth ‘G’strings, bare footed with open sores and ulcerated
legs. These Australians were a portion of the survivors of the
‘Railway of Death,’ the Burma Railway, built through the rugged
mountains of Thailand and Burma. Driven on by sadistic Japanese
and brutal Korean guards, the POW’s had worked on starvation rations,
refused proper housing and medical care, resulting in the death of
around 13,000 white POW’s and over 80,000 coolies. Word had just
swept the camp that ‘all fit up and had to be chosen by a Japanese
doctor, who was only a dental student. Eventually 900 men were
chosen. If you had dark skin or bad freckles you were automatically
excluded.
The next day we were issued with our first clothing in two years,
consisting of a Dutch army shirt, shorts and hat, a Japanese t-shirt
and a pair of split-toed rubber shoes. What a sorry sight these
clothes looked on the POW’s skeletal bodies.
On the 27th of March 1944 I left in a group of POW’s called a ‘Kumi’ of
450 men, which was considered a train load. The only good part of
the Kumi was that Lieutenant Yamada, the only Japanese Commander, who
was considered one of the best Japanese officers on the Burma railway,
intended to get the POW’s to Japan in as good a physical condition as
possible.
We were then lined up and given a speech by a Japanese Commander.
“All men should be honoured to know that they are going to a land of
peace and tranquillity where even the birds can nestle on the hunter’s
hand and will not be harmed. Where the snow covers the land in
winter and the warm sun of spring melts it, leaving the country
clean. A land of milk and honey. In Japan it is a sin to
eat and not work, so to prevent all men from becoming sinners, we shall
put you to work”.
After the speech all POW’s were thoroughly searched for contraband
resulting in the finding of nothing. All men were then marched
past a group of Japanese officers and guards, saluting as we passed,
later waving to friends we were leaving behind. We marched for
four miles to a railway siding at Kanchanaburi. There we formed
up beside open flat cars, ‘railway trucks’. The 450 POW’s
boarded trucks with the Korean guards.
After a short journey the train arrived at the Nom Pladuk railway
junction in Thailand, near Bampong. This was another POW camp
containing the English and Dutch POW’s. We stopped here for six
days. During that time the other 450 POW’s joined us. On
the first of April we left Nom Pladuk in Kumis of 300 men for the short
trip to Bangkok where we camped at the railway yards. We saw
hundreds of Japanese troops on their way to Burma. They gave us a
meal of rice from a rail side kitchen which catered to the Japanese
troops. It was from Bangkok that we thought we were catching a
ship but we were wrong, our destination was now revealed to be Saigon
in French Indochina. We were packed into steel cattle cars, after
we had cleaned them of straw and manure. Then 60 POW’s and 6
guards to a truck, we moved off.
We travelled through the night until 8:00am the following day when we
stopped at another rail side kitchen where we had a meal of rice and we
were given permission to wash under the water pump used to fill the
steam engines. We travelled all day and at about midnight we arrived at
Phnom Penh, Cambodia where we lay down on the side of the railyard to
stretch our cramped bodies.
At daylight we had rice from the rail side kitchen, then marched to
Phnom Penh docks on the Mekong River. On this march we saw our
first white woman and some beautiful Eurasian women. Cambodia was
a French Colony so they claimed to be Vichy French, loyal to the
Nazi-dominated Vichy Government. A few of the women flashed ‘V’
for victory signs and gave us smiles. Some had tears
in their eyes at the sight of our plight.
At the docks we boarded the Long Ho, a clean and modern river
steamer. We were well fed on the Long Ho and not cramped as we
had been in the cattle trucks. It was actually a very scenic and
educating river cruise, taking 33 hours.
After arriving at a modern concrete dock on the Mekong River in Saigon
we disembarked and marched to a POW camp which had 200 English
POW’s. This camp was once a Foreign Legion camp and had a tiled
roof, concrete floors, 2-tiered bunks, mosquito netting and bugs the
Legionnaires left us. We brought our own body lice with us.
The camp had electricity, sewered toilets, a volleyball court and a
miniature golf course. To top it all off, a well stocked canteen with
fair prices. You could buy soap, powder, toothpaste, tooth
brushes, fish pastes, tailor made cigarettes and plenty of fruit.
We were paid 5 cents a day working on the railway so most of us had
money. While waiting for the ship we worked on the docks and ate
more food than in Burma. All the POW’s put on weight. During the early
part of Easter week we were to embark on a ship down river at Cape St
Jacques where a Japanese convoy was staged.
On the 9th of April the first party of POW’s boarded motorised barges
which took 11 hours to arrive at Cape St Jacques. The barges pulled
alongside a large new looking freighter. We climbed rope ladders
and rope nets to get on board and on looking down at the water saw
large schools of sharks. The ship was spotless and the crew
helpful and not one bit unfriendly. We bedded down on the top
deck as the holds were full. The crew gave us a good meal of rice
and beans. We slept the night under the stars and the next
morning we were all ordered back to Saigon because the ship’s captain
refused to be responsible for so many lives if the ship was torpedoed,
as he told us you could nearly walk to Tokyo on the periscopes.
So, back on to the barges we went and back to the camp at Saigon from
which we were sent out on small working parties.
One night after lights out, the air raid sirens started their mournful
wail and allied bombers were making a low level raid on the ships and
docks. We had no air raid shelters so we went to ground and next
day we had trenches dug everywhere. One bomb hit the tobacco
factory 100 yards from our camp, showering the camp with tobacco leaf
which next day resulted in POW’s making homemade cigars. Two days
later we received news from the French that the Allies had landed in
Europe.
Only days later, we got the order “all men pack, all men go to
Singapore”. So after two and a half months in Saigon
where all men had gained weight and better health we boarded the river
steamer ‘Tian Guan’. However, this trip back to Phnom Penh was
not as good as our previous trip on the ‘Long Ho’ because we were below
deck, but not below water line. We had one opening to the water
where we could wash. The days were much hotter, since we were
close to the equator, however the crew was good to us.
We disembarked at Phnom Penh and went to a run-down old French Foreign
Legion camp where we stopped for three days. Here French men and women
smuggled us medical supplies.
On the 27th of June we marched to the railway yards singing French
songs but the sight of the closed-in cattle trucks in this heat did not
cheer us up. First, we had to load bags of rice into the trucks,
then, pile in on top of the rice; 30 men and your guards to a truck,
with the guards taking a position closest to the door.
Eventually we arrived in Bangkok and here we saw lots of damage from
Allied air raids. The coolies actually tossed stones at us, blaming us
for the work they had to do repairing the lines.
We only stopped for two days in Bangkok. Leaving and travelling
slowly down through Malaya we saw the decline in the economy of
Malaysia. We sneaked a lot of rice out of the bags we were
sleeping on and exchanged it with natives for fruit. On the 4th
of July we crossed the causeway to Singapore Island.
From the station we marched through the lifeless streets to River
Valley Road POW camp. We were shocked with the vermin infesting
the camp. One morning, with vicious Korean guards, the Japanese
moved the majority of the Australians to the small island off
Singapore. Damar Laut, southwest of Keppel harbour. The island
had no water, very little food and a sadistic Japanese commander who we
nicknamed ‘The Jeep’ due to his pudgy build. We also called the island
after him. Jeep Island. We had to go across to the
mainland by landing barge to work as coolies digging a dry dock by pick
and shovel. The Japanese were trying to build a dry dock 500
yards by 100 yards by 50ft deep which would be big enough for a battle
ship. More than 1,000 workers, mostly coolie natives plus
ourselves, worked three shifts a day on its construction.
This project had been going on for nearly two years. I worked
mostly night shift and this was the best shift because you dodged the
hot sun but you caught the rain. Luckily this job did not have
high priority like the Burma Railway. The food was bad and we
soon started losing the weight we had put on in Saigon. We could
scrounge shellfish around the island, even caught some fish in
waterholes and on homemade fishing lines. One man, Cpl. R.
Gorlick died from crab poisoning. Our first death since leaving
the ‘Death Railway’. We worked a hungry five weeks on Jeep
Island, from 27th July to 3rd September and on that morning the pudgy
Jeep announced that all men would go to Nippon (Japan).
We left that day and went back to River Valley Road camp. It was
on this day that we received our first and only Red Cross parcel.
Four men to a parcel so we did not get very much but that was not the
Red Cross’s fault since there were thousands of parcels at the
Singapore docks. However, the Japanese would not distribute them
to the POW’s. It was here that we also received our first and
only mail. Some POW’s got lots of letters, some got none. I
got five letters.
Now we had 750 Aussie POW’s but only 718 were fit enough to sail to
Japan with the British supplying 1500 POW’s. We marched to the
docks, 2218 POW’s in all. The Japanese had two ships sailing to
Japan, the Rakuyo Maru and the Kachidoki Maru. Both were very old
ships, both flew the Rising Sun but neither had a Red Cross or any
other indication that they were transporting POW’s. The coolies
were still loading the two ships with rubber and tin so we had to sit
on the docks in the sun.
Eventually a lot of Japanese trucks arrived taking wounded soldiers to
Japan. Japanese nurses and Korean and Japanese Geisha girls
(prostitutes), Japanese civilians and a few children. Most of
these boarded the biggest ship, the Kachidoki Maru. Then the
Japanese guards had all the POW’s line up, sending 900 British to the
Kachidoki Maru, 600 British and 718 Australians to the Rakuyo
Maru. Two Aussies and 1 British not fit enough were sent back and
3 more POW officers took their place- 3 Aussies and 1 American.
We sailed with 2218 POW’s. As we were being loaded on the Rakuyo
Maru each POW was given a 2ft by 2ft cubic block of rubber with a
rubber handle to carry on board. The Japanese told us they were
life preservers but we could not see them as that. Only another
way of getting more raw rubber on board the ship. As we boarded
we had to pass a lot of Jig-a-jig girls, prostitutes for the Japanese
soldiers. These girls spat at us so you can imagine what language
we used on them.
POW after POW, we shuffled up the gangplank, hurried along by Korean
guards with sharp pointed bamboo sticks. Half of the men were
sent forward, the remainder aft. I went forward where there were
three large cargo hatches. Hatches 1 and 3 were battened down
full of cargo, hatch 2 was open and 10ft deep with two decks built for
soldiers. So, we were brutally forced down into this hatch.
Eventually the Japanese allowed half of the POW’s to stay up on
deck. Luckily I was one of these.
After some delays, the two ships pulled away from the docks and
anchored midstream. Then on 6th September 1944 the Rakuyo Maru,
the Kachidoki Maru, two cargo ships and two heavily laden oil tankers
thought to be brand new slipped their moorings and got under way
forming a convoy with four naval escorts, setting a course for the
Formosa Straits. Shortly after leaving Singapore we passed a
Singapore bound convoy of transport ships, two oil tankers and naval
craft including a queer looking aircraft carrier.
Our convoy steamed steadily day after day in calm weather, every day
sighting Japanese air cover. We were allowed to shower under a
salt water hose near the Jig-a-Jig girls who used to sit and watch us,
with some holding their hands apart to show what size they saw.
On the fifth night at sea we were given an excess of fresh water but
not by the Japanese, it was supplied by the Good Lord as torrential
rain fell on the convoy. Most POW’s danced naked and filled water
bottles and lunch dixies, while greedily drinking all they could.
The weather then became very cold and these mates and I crawled under a
heap of canvas sails to try and warm ourselves.
The Japanese air cover discontinued from 12th September at
approximately 2:00am. Most POW’s were asleep with almost 500 of
them top side. Three mates and I were awake on the port side
close to the rail watching a Japanese destroyer flashing code to the
rear of the convoy, when we heard an explosion and saw a bright flash
of flame. The Japanese guards close to us told us it was an
island on fire from gunnery practice but then there was one loud
explosion, a brilliant flash of fire followed by complete
darkness. My mate said “Hell someone has pulled the plug out of
the island.”

The Rakuyo Maru was sunk in the South
China Sea between Hainan Island and Luzon 12 September 1944.
Examination of the
map will reveal the location of the Burma Thailand Railway, Saigon in
French Indo China and Singapore. All these locations are
relevant to the Roy Cornford story.
She was sunk and we all knew it was the destroyer sinking and by now
everyone was wide awake with Japanese running to battle stations and
manning the forward guns. Then the gun crew on our ship fired a
great bright flare. It lit up the sky and we noticed Japanese on
our ship already sitting in the lifeboats with life jackets on.
We could not see any submarines but could see most of the convoy.
Now there were dozens of kapok life jackets around so the POW’s started
putting them on. I had one, so did my mates but not all POW’s got
one (later on in the water they got life jackets by taking them off
floating dead Japanese). The men top side relayed what was
happening to the POW’s in the hold. Later we learnt that the
submarine that sank the destroyer lost the convoy when it dived to
dodge depth charges from other naval ships. However, the other
three subs were giving chase.
Then one of the oil tankers only 500 yards away from us exploded
lighting up the ocean. I could see the Japanese trying to get
away from the tanker. The tanker lit up the entire convoy.
Then there were two explosions forward of our ship and two transport
ships sank. By now the Japanese escorts were zipping everywhere
dropping depth charges. Then another large ship got hit and it
sort of just drifted into the burning tanker and burst into flames just
as the second tanker exploded, again lighting up the ocean with burning
oil.
It was at that moment that two torpedoes hit our ship the Rakuyo
Maru. The first torpedo hit us in the bow at No.1. hold.
The explosion nearly washed us overboard. It flooded the hold
containing the POW’s causing panic because ten seconds after the first
torpedo hit, the second torpedo hit the engine room causing the ship to
list and sink ten feet, after which it just floated. I can
remember the Japanese in the lifeboats on our ship singing out
“torpedoes” before we got hit. I did not see them but some of the
POW’s said that they did. How lucky we were, with a torpedo
hitting both sides of the hold containing the POW’s. By now we
realised the ship was not about to sink immediately. The POWs in
the hold calmed down and climbed the ladder to the deck in an orderly
manner. The shock of the water washing us around the deck and
water pouring into the hold is something hard to forget. The
torpedoes killed a lot of the Japanese, mostly in the engine room and
blew those on the gun turret overboard.
The Japanese on our ship had abandoned ship with no word to us. They
had taken 11 lifeboats and 2 small punts. Some Japanese just
jumped into the sea and any POW’s trying to get into the lifeboats
were kept back with guns and bayonets. I saw one
Japanese boat drift into the flaming oil and you could hear the screams
of men burning and drowning. Since there were lots of
Japanese from other ships also in the water, approximately 15 POW’s did
manage to get into a lifeboat with about 20 Japanese.
Our ship had settled with a serious list to the port side, sitting
about 10ft lower in the water. The POW’s were tossing overboard
6ft by 6ft rafts, hatch covers and anything else that would
float, with POW’s jumping overboard to hang onto the
rafts. In some cases the English POW’s killed a few of their own
men by tossing rafts onto men in the water. These rafts were not
made for you to sit on, just to hang on to the ropes on the side of the
raft. By now most of the POW’s had left the ship so we left four
men to guard the last raft that we had for seven of us while we found
water. We all had a good drink, donned our life jackets, tossed
our raft overboard and jumped into the sea.
The seven of us paddled and kicked the water to get away from the
slowly sinking ship. We had only got about 100 yards away when a
Japanese naval escort came back, flashing signal lights
when it also got torpedoed and exploded. That torpedo exploding
made us sick, causing us to lose all the water we had drunk.
It was now 4am and most of the rafts had drifted close together.
A lot of the English POW’s drifted into burning oil and a lot also died
after being hit by rafts and hatch covers which were being thrown into
the water. The English had been on the starboard side of the
Rakuyo Maru. A few men had still not abandoned ship and they
found a lifeboat that the Japanese could not launch but which they
managed to launch. They also found one terrified Japanese
Jig-a-Jig girl still on the ship whom they took with them. Once
in the water they met up with a boatload of Japanese and handed the
Jig-a-Jig girl over to them.
Now quite a few POW’s swam and paddled back to the ship and climbed
back on board. By daylight the ocean was heavily dotted with
debris, POW’s on rafts and lifeboats. There were also a lot of Japanese
on rafts. By now we realised that the ship was doomed since it
was slowly sinking into the water. However you could still see
men walking around the decks. While all this was going on two Japanese
naval ships appeared on the horizon and slowly nosed their way through
the oil and floating debris. Our spirits soared, after spending
so long in the water, thinking rescue had arrived. The frigates picked
up all the Japanese from the lifeboats then lowered a motorised
lifeboat which moved among us picking up all of the Japanese and
Koreans in the water. While this was going on an old Japanese
transport ship also arrived but did not do any rescuing. The
lifeboats the Japanese left in the water were soon filled with POW’s,
350 or so spread evenly between the 11 lifeboats. Luckily, I did not
get in one. By now it was late on the first day with the two Japanese
ships and the transport ship still close by when our ship suddenly went
down nose first, tossing blocks of rubber high into the air and
generating great spouts of water. Men who had remained on the
ship went down with the sinking ship.
The two Japanese naval ships and the oil transport ship just sailed off
and left us floating around in the water. It soon became dark so
we tied two rafts together and pushed bamboo and bits of timber under
them. Eighteen of us could sit on the rafts and the kapok life
jackets took the rest of our weight.
During the first night the rafts drifted apart and our two rafts were
100 yards from the next raft. There were lots of rafts and
men spread all around the ocean, with dead Japanese and POWs floating
around in life jackets. Any POW’s who did not have life jackets took
one off a dead Japanese. We spent the first night floating
around listening to POW’s calling out for
friends.
On the second day all of the POW’s who had managed to get into
the abandoned lifeboats had set out to try and row to land. We
later learned that they had been sighted by a Japanese naval vessel
which opened fire on them, killing all 350 POW’s in the
lifeboats. We did not know of this until after the war. The
POW’s who had launched the last lifeboat from the Rakuyo Maru had rowed
in a different direction and they were sighted by a different Japanese
vessel which picked them up and took them to Hainan Island.
Back on the rafts during the second day we lost three men. They
just sort of drifted away. There was nothing we could do to save
them. We saw lots of dead POW’s floating around. We floated upon
a big freezer box with one POW sitting on top. He told us it was
full of boxes of dried salted fish. We got a box of fish but you
could not eat them because they were too salty.
We drifted away paddling with boards we had found floating about.
We were covered with oil and the blazing sun burnt your arms and face,
the only parts of your body not covered with water. We took life
jackets off the dead Japanese and busted them open to use the kapok to
wipe the oil out of our eyes and off our face. I was lucky I had
a hat and a Japanese t- shirt on but had badly burnt arms and face.
Our rafts used to go up and down on the swell of the China Sea.
On the rise of the sea swell we could see black dots which were rafts
far in the distance. We saw sharks but did not see any sharks
attack any POW’s.
During the third night some POW’s drank salt water and became
deliriously happy, singing and telling great stories of what they could
see. During this period we saw lightning, then it started
to rain with all of us looking up to the sky with open mouths to catch
any water we could. By cupping your hands to your mouth you could
get a fair amount of water.
We sort of dozed and slept half sitting and half lying on our mates
until daylight. On the fourth day we only had seven men left out of the
original eighteen. With the rafts nearly floating now it was hard
to sit on them because they were greasy with oil. I can remember
seeing a dead Japanese floating near us with a water bottle
around his neck. I swam to him, got the bottle and was
nearly too weak to swim back to the raft. The bottle was full of
salt water. It had no cork in it.
We never once talked about not surviving. Late on the fourth day
we could see only a few rafts well away from us. We could hear a
sort of engine drone and thinking it was an aeroplane we kept looking
to the sky but could not see anything. The grind of an engine
still haunted us. Then once when we rose on the swell we thought
we saw a small ship going to a raft. It seemed like hours,
watching this black looking dot going to rafts. It was then we realised
it was a submarine. Then we noticed it was coming our way.
Eventually it came close to our raft and an American sailor dived into
the oily water with a rope and pulled us alongside the submarine with
many eager hands to help us on board.
I can remember lifting my hands up pleading with the sailors not to
grab my arms because they were just blisters and sores. They got
us on deck and surprisingly we could walk. They told us to drop
all our clothes off and as we did we heard a short “planes,
planes”. So the sailors just grabbed us, dropping us down the
hatch onto a big plump sailor’s stomach. Then we heard “all
clear.” They were only large sea birds.
By now it was close to dark and the submarine only found one more raft
with one man on it. Our submarine, the Pampanito, had a crew of
seventy two and they picked up seventy three POW’s. Sadly, one
man died on the first night. The Pampanito was the first
submarine to sight us in the water and radioed three more submarines in
the area. One submarine arrived the same day to pick up some
survivors, the other two submarines arrived on the night a typhoon
sprung up which would have finished off any hope for more survivors.

The four submarines which rescued us were the same submarines that sank
us and were on their return from chasing the remainder of the
convoy. They had sunk nearly all of that convoy including the
other POW ship. Our submarine set its course for Saipan and on
the second night surfaced to meet an American destroyer to transfer us
to it. Unfortunately the seas were too treacherous for them to
try and move us, so we set off for Saipan taking five days.
The
four
submarines which rescued us were the same submarines that sank us
and were on their return from chasing the remainder of the
convoy. They had sunk nearly all of that convoy including the
other POW ship. Our submarine set its course for Saipan and on
the second night surfaced to meet an American destroyer to transfer us
to it. Unfortunately the seas were too treacherous for them to
try and move us, so we set off for Saipan taking five days.
The
sailors
gave us small drinks of water and fruit juices at first.
They even gave us their bunks and with us black with oil and water
crinkled skin, what a mess we made of those sailors bunks and bedding.
At Saipan we went into a big American tent hospital where we were cared
for by lots of American doctors and lovely American nurses. I
spent six weeks in this hospital and cannot speak highly enough of the
sailors who rescued us and gave us back our lives and the
way the nurses nursed us back to health.
God Bless
America
Roydon
Charles Cornford Private 2/19 Battalion NX 44955
A
lucky
survivor.
Roy Cornford returned to Australia from Saipan by air in October, 1944
and was discharged from the army on 24 May 1945, coincidentally his
birthday. He married Joan Lees in 1947 and they had 3
children. He retired from work when he was aged 55. Together with
Joan he established a Plant Nursery and they donated the proceeds of
this enterprise to various charities. Some of the charities which
have benefitted have been Camp Quality around $3,000, ex-POW Welfare
around $10,000 and Legacy around $9,000. In fact, today they
still send the odd additional donation away. In 2009 they reside
in their family home in Vincentia, New South Wales.
The submarine Pampanito is on display at Pier 46 San Francisco (See
picture above)
Roy wrote his account of his survival of the sinking of the Rakuyo Maru
in 1982.
This
article
was kindly provided to me by Roy Cornford as the result of my
contact with the widow of another ex POW- Doug
Whalley.
The
article
was retyped by Jean Hartz and subsequently proofread by Beryl
Wood (Roy Cornford’s
daughter).
Lt
Col (Retired)
Peter
Winstanley
OAM RFD JP
|
|
CIVILIAN INTERNEES IN BURMA 1942-45
|
| Life
for
Prisoners of War during their period of incarceration was harsh.
However, it was also very hard on the civilian internees in Burma,
Malaya, Singapore, Timor, Java and Sumatra , to name some of these
locations. This is the story of an Anglo Burman family. It is worth
reflecting on the effect on the women and children. |
WICKED 1942
Beginning of trouble in Burma. 23rd December 1941.
Rangoon was bombed on the 23rd December1941 at about 10.30am. I
was in Insain at the time in Mrs. Cotton’s house. About 80
aircraft were over the Rangoon area, docks, Phayre St., Lewis St.,
Judah and Ezekiel St., Boatatam Mingaladon Aerodrome were bombed badly,
more than 2000 people were killed. After the bombing there was a
terrible stampede and over 100,000 citizens fled overnight, leaving the
docks and railways deserted. Fires broke out and destroyed the
homes of many more. On Christmas Day they came again. The
RAF and the American Volunteer Group (AVG) fought the raiders, bringing
down 52 for the loss of two defending aircraft in the two attacks.
In the meantime, the Japs were advancing from the south
(Moulmein). For a month no air raids over Rangoon. But they
started bombing Rangoon once again, mostly by night. The RAF strength
was by now reduced to (?) Hurricanes, 10 Blenheims and 43
Buffaloes. With the AVG, they had brought down more than 200
enemy aircraft, exacting a 6 to 1 casualty rate. But Rangoon
burned. Once more a multitude of refugees poured down the roads
from the city, crammed the outgoing trains and fled into the jungle.
The “E” evacuation warning signal was hoisted on
February 20th, 1942. The last days of dear old Rangoon was at
hand. Singapore had fallen, releasing Jap troops and airforces
from Malaya. With the loss of Singapore there passed also the
command of the Indian Ocean. Rangoon became indefensible.
The British Army withdrew to the North, scorched the oilfields.
On the 7th March 1942 at 2 pm the demolition squad started to
dynamite Government buildings, powerhouse, post office and industrial
installations. To the east of the port (Syriam) a billowing black
cloud rose; the B.O.C refineries had been blown. The Allied Air
Forces received a mortal blow when the Japs destroyed most
of the remaining aircraft on ground at Magwe Airfield. The AVG
withdrew into China. At the time of the battle of Prome, the
Burman 5th Columnists were about 4000. As the Japs were winning,
the recruits swelled to 30,000. Three years later disillusioned
by Japan’s broken promises, many of them passed over to the British
side as the “Patriot Burmese Forces” and rendered some service.
My own experiences after the bombing of Rangoon 1941
Nadine and I evacuated Rangoon for Maymyo about the end
of January 1942. We had to travel in a 3rd class compartment
together with a number of criminals who had been released by the
Government. On the journey, food was distributed by the villagers
all along the railway line; water also was supplied in earthware pots
(an act of charity by those villagers – “God bless them”). We
arrived in Maymyo after 2 days and 1 night (after a most uncomfortable
and tedious journey). We stayed in Zigon Pagoda Road for five
days only. Betty, (Nadine) went to live with Mrs O’Reilly in
Forest Road and I stayed with Mrs. Visalovich in Burma Road.
(Note: In our compartment were 8 folks– Mrs. Nasse, her married
daughter, Mrs Brady and 2 young children Violet Nasse and her 2
brothers and I with George Andrews and the rest of the boys who were on
duty at Ywataung in another compartment when the accident occurred.
They had many guns in their compartment (military).
Here there seems to be a page missing and I continue at
the next point in the manuscript as it was found:-
…had to join the unit as Ashton was on duty, his family
had already left Sagaing with Harold Payne’s family as things were
getting too hot* around that area (*means
Japs coming closer to the units – closing in). We left Ywataung
on 21st April by the night train; we arrived at Shwebo next morning
(all’s well). Ashton managed to get out of the train and prepare
us some tea while the train was at the station. The Treasury was
attached to our train as Shwebo too was getting too hot*.
Well, we moved off (I mean the train). Two or three hours after
our departure we met with a terrible accident somewhere between Kinu
and Madaung Hla, (work of the Bumans – Sabotage. They were after
the currency which was attached at Shwebo). Many people died,
Ashton very badly hurt and had to be taken to the military hospital.
Mrs. Brady too was hurt; we were all taken back to
Shwebo, where we stayed under trees for 2 days. We had to continue a
journey back to Shwebo, but poor Ashton had to remain in hospital as
they said his leg was broken because he was in great pain. Anyway
I reached Mayan at 8 pm the next day where I met Kay and the Payne
family who had settled down in the village among the Kachins.
Karenhla was the headman (pro British fellow), he was very good
to us. Myitkyina was bombed in May 1942 – the Aerodrome was the
target and many of the wounded soldiers and also the civilian evacuees
who were waiting to be flown to India were killed that day (curse the
yellow dogs). There were no more planes to India after that
terrible day so all those who were at Myitkyina came down to Mayan (our
village) and lived among the Kachins. The Japs entered Mayan at
the end of May, the yellow dogs managed to get a train assembled at
Myitkyina to proceed on their journey down South. They, of
course, stopped to inspect us (poor Anglo-Burmans), we were scared out
of our wits. I remember the time clearly, it was at 7 in the
evening. A Jap Officer and his orderly came up to our bungalow (
a Kachin school in the British time). It was our dinner time and
our grub was on the table. I remember we had pork curry and rice
and fish fry. The two yellow dogs had dinner at our place; after
dinner they returned to the railway station where their soldiers were
cooking their dinner. These fellows ransacked the village, took
away poultry which belonged to the Kachins and relieved our people of
their jewellery such as wedding rings, bracelets and wrist watches.
After a while they moved off down south.
In the month of July the Japs sent 10 cattle wagons from
Myitkyina for the refugees to return to their respective homes.
There were 20 in each wagon plus all our paraphernalia. No
WC or water for 2 days and 2 nights, but we were allowed to get down at
places where the train stopped for half and hour. We got into
Sagaing after a very tedious journey. Kay, Ashton, the 2
children (Michael and Gloria) and I lived near the Ava Bridge in Mg
Mya’s house, after 2 weeks we shifted to Mg Kan Nyun’s house.
Most of the folks went down to Rangoon and a few went to Maymyo
(I made friends with Mrs. Joe Martin at Mayan), she went to Maymyo.
Sagaing was bombed by the RAF sometime in January 1943.
Good work done that night, the ammunition dump got a direct hit
and we saw fireworks till 4 next morning. Most of our crockery
broke that night as the vibration was terrible, but we were very happy
(cheers to the RAF). “God bless them” and keep them free from
harm.
We had to thank God for keeping us safe that night
because what we saw the next day was a sight never to be forgotten.
There were shrapnel of all sizes and shapes all over the ground
around where we lived as the ammunition dump was quite close to our
house and it was the railway Bund which protected us. Well we got
into a boat and ‘hooked it’ to the other side of the river (a place
called Inura or Ava) but we were not allowed to stay there. The
Kempetai (the Gestapo of the East) Jap police ordered us to be interned
at the police station at Tadau which is in Sagaing District. The
Police Station Officer (P.S.O.) was pro-British, so was kind to us but
was afraid to help us on account of the Japs. We managed to live
by selling our good clothes and we also had to do some needle-work and
knit sports shirts for the villagers (the yarn they supplied).
The price of foodstuff was rising by leaps and
bounds. Rice was 1100 Rupees for a bag, oil was 180 a viss, brown
sugar 75 a viss, milk 10 R’s a viss, onions 6 R’s a viss, tomatoes 5 Rs
a viss, eggs 5 Rs each and beef 6 Rs a viss. We managed to live
on rice with tomato curry & boiled white peas. We could eat
beef twice a month; it was a luxury.
No news at all about the arrival of the British and we
were getting down-hearted. We dared not ask about the pamphlets
which were being dropped by our planes. The police station was
turned into a sort of camp for the Jap soldiers, some going up north
and the sick fellows returning from the front line at Myitkyina.
Some of them had malaria and beri-beri. The P.S.O. and the police
sergeants sent their families away to the jungles to be out of the way
of the Jap armies but we internees had to stay put. Those were
dark days for us, some of the stores which were in the police station
(such things as wire, cement, petrol and different items) were moved
down South. We began to get suspicious. We asked each
other, what are the yellow dogs up to now? And we came to the
conclusion that they were retreating and we were glad but frightened
because we did not know what they would do to us. Whilst all this
was going on, our police station was bombed sometime in January (about
the 24th or 25th 1945) and, believe it or not, our house was bombed.
After the bombing we managed to collect some bedding
from under the debris and a few pots and pans which were all dented and
bent, but could be used. We had another raid the same day and
this time the village was dive-bombed and I was the unfortunate one to
run into the village not knowing it was the next place to be
bombed. Well God spared my life as the trench I was in got a near
miss as the exit was blocked. Thank God that there were two
entrances and thank God my children were not in that trench. Well
after the 2nd raid we hooked it into the jungle and stayed there till
nightfall. We slept in the trench that night at the police
station and all night long the tanks, soldiers and their paraphernalia
moved down south, making a hell of a racket. The RAF too was busy
in the air, going backwards and forwards. We did not hear any
bombs being dropped and we presumed that paratroops were being dropped
in the jungle instead.
After the bombing of Tadau Police Station and the
village, all the people evacuated and ran into the jungle and we
followed suit of course. That night was slept under a tree and
next day the P.S.O. sent a man with a cart to fetch us to Gadoseik, a
small cultivating village with about 60 houses, mostly bamboo shacks;
the people were illiterate. I must say it was a filthy village,
no latrines of any kind and the cultivators were 100 years behind time.
Some of them had never seen a white man, but they were honest and
simple folk; they hated the Japs. The policemen and their
families were now stationed at that village. We were given a barn
to live in but we were thankful to have a roof over our heads once
again (we could not possibly get back to the Police Station at Tadau as
everyone fled with their belongings and Tadau was a dead city and we
could not remain on in the Jungle for fear of the Dacoits and
jackals). We stayed only 10 days in the barn and we were asked to
shift into a bamboo shack which was quite close to the barn and was
required for the prisoners and Gadoseik was the headquarters of the
policemen. So we humbly shifted to the tumbled down bamboo shack
which was quite close to the barn. We had just made ourselves at home
in this shack when the Japs came to stay a month in our village and the
villagers took their paraphernalia and hooked it into the fields and
the police too ran away so we too followed suit and ran once
again. All the trees in the field were taken up when we shifted
to where had to live under a small tamarind tree right out of the
village. The large trees were taken up by those who went first
into the field and I must say the villagers made themselves comfortable
by building mat huts under the trees but we Anglo-Burmese had to make
the best of it by hanging mats to keep away the sun during the
day. What a miserable existence, the British were quite close,
but we did not know it at the time.
Our money was coming to an end and we sold 2 towels and
some baby sheets and bought some tomatoes and oil with the money.
It was a hard, hard struggle. Just imagine living
under a tree for 1 month and 18 days without proper food and not enough
water. There was only one well in the field and we could not go
to the village as the Japs were there. All the wells were in the
village so the headman allowed people to take water only for cooking
and drinking from the well in the field. One blessing, the Japs
did not come into the field to pester us but kept to themselves.
One day we were told that they had left the village and we
thought we had got rid of them forever, but no such luck because some
of the retreating troops from the North came into the fields and took
up the huts which the Burmans had erected and worse luck, a few of them
came and paid us a visit under our tree and they took Ashton away with
them. We could not stop them. I mean they would not leave him
alone. Two British planes were hovering around our village and
the Japs hid in the huts. More troops came in the afternoon and
this time we decided to run back into the deserted village as our field
was full of Japs. In the meantime Ashton managed to join us and
we were just getting away from our tree when one of the Japs lay hold
of him and threatened to throw a hand grenade at him if he ran away.
So Kathleen and I and the two children ran back to the village
but poor Ashton had to stay back with the Japs. Kay and I reached
the village and had barely jumped into a trench when the British
started shelling our village. God help us, the shelling lasted a
few hours; after it stopped we got out of the trench which Hla Shin
kindly allowed us to share, as our trench was taken by another family
of Burmans. At about 9 pm the shelling started all over again,
but this time it was going over the village (I mean the shelling).
Having no where to sleep we changed into our own trench as the
Burmans had run away to another jungle.
All peaceful to 2 am, except for the noise of the shells
passing over. Well, at about 2am a Jap who was prowling around
fell into our trench and seeing it was nice and spacious asked us to
move out as he said the Big Master (meaning his officer) wanted to come
into our trench. So we quickly got out and ran back to Hla Shin’s
trench, who kindly allowed us to enter. We were awakened by Hla
Shin’s mother at 4 am who informed us that Jap troops had come into our
village and that they were digging fox holes. She presumed that
they were getting ready to defend from our village. She kindly
advised us to follow them as they were leaving before sunrise, so
Ashton, Kay, and the 2 children joined the crowd of Burmese people and
managed to pass the Japs. They thought we were Burmese because we
had longyis (Burmese skirt type garment) on. We walked towards a
huge tree where all the villagers from the surrounding villages had
congregated. I left the crowd and went towards our tree in the
field to get some food for the children, when on my way a Jap got hold
of my hand and dragged me about. I yelled blue murder and he let
me go. I ran back to our tree, I mean the tree we lived under for
1 month and 18 days. I was just trying to kindle the fire when I
heard the tanks coming towards me. I looked up and there I saw
the dear British soldiers. I was so overjoyed and I cried.
I never felt so relieved in my life as I did that day, a day of
deliverance, a day of liberation, a day never to be forgotten – the
13th March 1945. God bless our 14th Army, 2nd Div (Cross Keys).
I was so happy when I saw white faces after seeing
yellow ones for 3 years that I forgot all about the Japs for that
moment. All of a sudden a soldier said to me, “Are there any Japs
around here?” Then only I remembered I gave them all the
information they wanted. While I was talking to a British
soldier, pointing out the Japs positions, the battle began as the Japs
started shelling. God alone knows where the Japs had their big
guns, but thank God the shells were going over our area and no-one was
hurt by the shelling. While the shelling was going on we jumped
into our trench. After the shelling subsided we (the civilians)
were told to go into another village which was already in British
hands. I ran with the crowd and remained in a Phoongyi Kyaung
(pronounced paonji chown) in the meantime. Ashton, Kay and 2 kids
were still under the tree where the villagers where congregated.
You see they were still in the Japanese lines and were nearly
killed by bullets flying all over that area. Most of the time
they had to lie flat anyway. One of the Burmans who knew the
place well managed to bring them into the British lines that same
evening, and they were taken by a jeep to a place of safety where the
other Anglos were stationed (Mrs. Talbot and daughter and Brian her
son. Mr. McMinus, Bridie and Eilene Mathews were the other
folks). I was left behind in the Phongyi Kaung (different
spelling – which is correct?) when they were taken away by a jeep, so I
slept at night in the Kaung and next morning I went back to our tree to
see if I could find any of our belongings were there.
The British army was still in the field, it was waiting
to push forward into the village (our village). I saw the officer
in charge and told him I wished to be taken to my people and explained
how I happened to be left behind. He was very kind to me and
asked one of his men to take me to join our Anglo-Burmese crowd, so one
of them got a truck and took me into the village where they were being
looked after by CAS officers. When we arrived I saw my children
safe and sound and all beaming with smiles. (God bless our
British). Next we were sent to Nazoon Island by bullock carts.
After about 2 miles we hailed out to a British soldier who was
driving a ration truck and asked him to take us to Nazoon town.
He helped us to load our paraphernalia into his truck and we all
got in and drove off to Nazoon. When we arrived we lived in a
bungalow (Dak) for 1 day after which Captain Webb came across from the
Island and took us across by carts right through the stream at low
tide. When we got there we were given Mat bashas to stay in, remained
on the island for 6 days then we were sent to Ye U by trucks. In
that place there were about 1000 refugees, each family had a basha with
a kitchen, bathroom and latrine attached. Rations were issued
every week. Capt. Murrell and B.A. Williams were in charge of the
Refugees.
The first night of our arrival we were given blankets
and longyis (Burmese skirt type garments). We stayed in Ye U for
2 months and a few days. We were very happy at Ye U; there was a
terrible storm some time in May and some of the basha’s collapsed and
we were sent up to Maymyo. We lived in Kachin barracks from 20th
May till the 1st November 1945 after which we were once again shifted
to Alexandra Barracks. In the meantime, Ashton was taken back
into the railway and posted at Thazi (where Charles and Lorna were born
in 1946 and 1947) so Kay and family left the camp, but I stayed on till
the 28th December 1945. About 30 of us refugees left Maymyo for
Rangoon to sail to India. We left by trucks from Maymyo to
Myitgne, from there we travelled by train right into dear old Rangoon
(a place we hadn’t seen since 1942). From the station we were
taken once again by trucks to Kamaynt to Ali Khan’s house until 12th
January 1946 when we left for India in the troopship, Nevasa. We
had a glorious time on board, arrived Calcutta on the 15th. We
were housed at Lake House for a few days then left for Lahore and met
Nadine after having been separated for nearly 3 years.
Written by Alice Hanks and given to Lt Col Peter
Winstanley by Gloria Senior (grand daughter of Alice Hanks and the
infant mentioned in the article) of Merriwa, Western Australia.
Kindly typed by Edna Wright and proofed by Helen Winstanley.

Tons Tons of Saddam Gold
Treasures Found by US Army

Saddam Gold
Rubber
and
Tin
It should be stated, however that most of the unofficial Europeans were
engaged, directly or indirectly in the rubber and tin industries which,
by order of the Home Government, were working at maximum pressure.
Bearing this fact in mind, Malaya, taken as a whole, shouldered its
responsibility as war approached in the same loyal spirit as was
evident elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
The bulk of the Asiatic population consisted of Malays and Chinese in
approximately equal proportions. In general, the Chinese were to be
found in the towns and larger villages while the Malays inhabited the
country districts and the sea-boards. The reason for this was that the
Chinese, being more industrious by nature and more commercially minded,
had gained control of a great deal of the business of the country while
the Malays, a more easy going and less ambitious race, were content to
live on the natural products of the soil.
Chinese
Divided
The Chinese themselves were of two categories – those who were and
those who were not British subjects. For practical purposes the
political sympathies of the Chinese population could be divided into
four groups: -
(a) The pro-Kuomintang. This was probably the most powerful group.
(b) The pro-Wang Chingwei, i.e., those who were in sympathy with
Japanese aims. A small and not dangerous group.
(c) The pro-Communists, predominately Chinese of the working classes.
The most active and vocal group.
(d) The pro-British and Independents, the former being genuinely loyal
adherents of the British Empire, and the latter those who wished to be
left alone in the pursuit of fortune and their own self-interest. This
group formed the large majority but unfortunately was only too prone to
dragooning by (a) and (c) above.
The temporary reconciliation between the Kuomintang and the Chinese
Communist Party following the invasion of Russia by Germany resulted in
the formation in Malaya of a “United Front” which on the outbreak of
war with Japan, absorbed all Chinese with the exception of Group (b).
As will by readily understood from the above summary, the Chinese
population taken as a whole lacked homogeneity and centralised
leadership.
The
Malays
The Malays were divided into four classes, i.e., the Ruling class of
Malay Nobles, the “Intelligentsia”, the artisan and clerical class, and
the peasant. The Ruling Classes naturally felt that there should be an
ever-widening control by the Sultans. Among the “Intelligentsia” were
signs of a movement towards Nationalism. The other two classes were not
in the broad sense politically minded.
The remainder of the Asiatic population totalling less than 20 percent
of the whole consisted of Indians, Eurasians, Japanese, etc. The
Indians, the great majority of whom were Hindu by religion with an
active proportion of Sikhs were divided politically into: -
(a) Indian Nationalists who, through the Central Indian Association of
Malaya, were bidding for control of the Indian population of the
country on a strongly nationalist basis.
(b) The general mass of Indians, normally a peaceful but ignorant
section of the population which was mainly interested in the quiet
pursuit of its livelihood but was becoming an easy prey to the agitator.
(c) Indians who were whole heartedly British in their loyalty.
The
Eurasians
The Eurasians were to be found mainly in the Colony and particularly in
Singapore. The community as a whole was loyal and presented no
political problem. It was not politically active. There were a number
of Japanese in Malaya and, as all foreigners were treated alike, no
special restrictions had up to 1941 been imposed on their activities.
They were located mainly –
(a) In Singapore City, where there were large business houses, stores,
hairdressing and photographic establishments, etc.
(b) In Johore, where they owned rubber and other estates and iron ore
mines
(c) In Trengganu and Kelantan where they owned large iron ore mines.
(d) In Penang where they carried on similar activities to those in
Singapore.
To sum up, the majority of the Asiatic population were enjoying the
benefits which British occupation had brought to Malaya. They had so
long been immune from danger that, even when that danger threatened,
they found difficulty in appreciating its reality and in bringing
themselves to believe that the even tenor of their lives might in fact
be disturbed.
As will be appreciated from this brief review of the civil population
of Malaya, the sense of citizenship was not strong nor, when it came to
the test, was the feeling that this was a war for home and country.
Perhaps more might have been done by the Government in pre-war days to
develop a sense of responsibility for service to the State in return
for the benefits received from membership of the British Empire.
Malaya’s
Charter
Prior to the outbreak of war with Japan Malaya had been given a charter
for its participation in World War 11. It was to produce the greatest
possible quantities of rubber and tin for the use of the Allies. This
was a factor which had considerable influence on its preparations for
war.
The subject of the proper utilisation of the available manpower had
been carefully examined in peace-time. There was no leisured or retired
class in Malaya which could be called upon for wartime expansion.
Soon after the outbreak of World War 11 the Governor and High
commissioner, under the powers conferred upon him, ordered that all
European males resident in Malaya should between certain ages be liable
for service in one of the local volunteer corps.
At Singapore a Controller of Man-Power was appointed in place of the
Man-Power Sub-Committee and in each Colony and State Man-Power Boards,
on which both civil and military interests were represented, were set
up to consider and give decisions on claims for exemption. Many
exemptions had to be granted, even after allowing for the fact that in
many cases Government and business could be carried on temporarily with
reduced staffs. No liability to military service was imposed upon the
Asiatic population.
Many of the Asiatics were of a type unsuitable for training as Soldiers
and the difficulties of nationality, of registration and of selection
would have been great. Moreover, as already stated, there were no
rifles or other arms available with which to equip Asiatic units.
There was, however, great difficulty in filling the Chinese sub-units
in the existing Volunteer organisation. This was in no way due to lack
of available material or to lack of effort on the part of the military
authorities. It was due chiefly to the lack of unity and of forceful
leadership which existed among the Chinese population.
At
the
Ford Factory
In reply to the above I notified him of the decision to cease
hostilities. In the afternoon the deputation returned with instructions
that I was to proceed personally with my staff to a given rendezvous.
The meeting with the Japanese Commander (Lt. – Gen. Yamashita) took
place in the Ford Factory north of Bukit Timah Village. There is not,
and never has been, any copy of the terms of surrender in my possession.
As far as my recollection goes, only one copy was produced by the
Japanese and this was retained by them. Certainly no copy was handed to
me. The actual terms of surrender cannot therefore be recorded
accurately.
The main conditions were as far as my memory goes, as under: -
There must be an unconditional surrender of all Military Forces (Army,
Navy and Air Force) in the Singapore area.
Hostilities to cease at 8:30 p.m. British time, i.e. 10 p.m. Japanese
time.
All troops to remain in positions occupied at the time of cessation of
hostilities pending further orders.
All weapons, military equipment, ships, aeroplanes and secret documents
to be handed over to the Japanese Army intact:
In order to prevent looting and other disorders in Singapore town
during the temporary withdrawal of all armed forces, a force of 100
British armed men to be left temporarily in the Town area until
relieved by the Japanese.
As regards paragraph (d) above I informed the Japanese Commander that
there were no ships or aeroplanes in the Singapore area, and that the
heavier types of weapons and some of the military equipment and all
secret documents had already been destroyed under my orders.
This he accepted.
Cessation
Ordered
Orders for the cessation of hostilities were issued to all formation
Commanders soon after 7 p.m. Hostilities finally ceased at 8:30 p.m.
February 15 British time.
The general line of our foremost positions at the cessation of
hostilities was from right to left as under: -
All inclusive the Kallang Aerodrome (Civil Airport) – The Tariat Air
Strip – The Junction of Braddell and Thomson roads – the Broadcasting
Station – Bukit Brown – Adam road – Raffles College area – Tyersall
area – Tanglin area – Mount Echo – the Biscuit Factory – The Alexandra
ammunition Magazine – Mount Washington – The eastern end of the Keppel
Golf Links.
We also held Blakang Mati, Pulau Brani, Tekong and the Pengerang area.
Japanese troops entered Singapore town on the morning of February 16.
There was a military demonstration in which 175 Medium and Light Tanks
took part. The majority of the Japanese troops, however, were retained
outside the Town area.
After the cessation of hostilities it was five-and-a-half days with
engineers and water parties working at full pressure before water again
reached the lower areas of Singapore town which had been deprived of it
and the first floor of buildings in the lowest areas. It was 10 days
before water again reached the General Hospital and many other
buildings on higher levels.
Numbers
Employed
On the basis of 20,000 men per division and 150 tanks per regiment, I
estimate that the Japanese employed a minimum of 150,000 men and 300
tanks in the Malayan campaign.
Against this we had on the outbreak of hostilities the equivalent of 3
½ divisions with Fixed and Anti-Aircraft Defences but no tanks.
Later we received as reinforcements about the equivalent of another two
divisions and one squadron of obsolescent light tanks. The total number
of officers and men who took part in the campaign on the British side
was a little over 125,000, though the strength in Malaya at any one
time was considerably less than this. This number included a high
proportion of Command, Base and Lines of Communication troops, many of
whom belonged to non-combatant units or were unarmed owing to shortage
of personal weapons,
The initial attack on Singapore Island was carried out by three
Japanese divisions. There were two and possibly three divisions in
reserve. Two of the reserve divisions had recently arrived in Malaya
and it may be assumed that they were at full strength. Some of the
others may have been at less than full strength. On this basis I
estimate that there were at the cessation of hostilities a minimum of
100,000 Japanese troops on Singapore Island or in South Malaya.
There is evidence to show that at least 23,000 crossed on the first day
of the attack. There were also a minimum of 175 Japanese medium and
light tanks on Singapore Island at the cessation of hostilities.
The total of the British forces in the Singapore fortress area at the
same time was in the neighbourhood of 85,000. This figure included a
large number of non-combatant troops i.e., Medical Services, Pioneer
and Labour units, etc., of troops for whom no arms were available owing
to a general shortage of personal weapons, and of sick and wounded.
Probably about 70,000 of these men were armed and equipped, but many of
them belonged to Base and other administrative units and were very
inadequately trained. There was one squadron of obsolescent light tanks.
Jap
Strategy
In the final section of his despatch Gen. Percival makes this
assessment of Japanese strategy: This Japanese attack on Malaya was
very carefully planned and there is now no doubt that preparations had
been going on for a very long time before hostilities actually started.
The Japanese themselves admitted that the terrain of Malaya, our battle
methods and our equipment were all carefully studied for years before
the outbreak of war. The Commander-in-Chief of the 25th Japanese Army
detailed for the Malayan campaign had spent six months in Germany
before taking over command. He was given the best possible senior staff
officers. Japanese divisions employed in Malaya are known to have been
among the best in the Japanese Army.
Pre-war
Preparations
The Japanese in commenting on the Malayan campaign, have attributed
their success to their pre-war preparations, to the fact that this
campaign was the centre of interest throughout their whole Army to the
fact that their commanders, senior staff officers and troops were
officially selected, and to the fact that their land operations were
closely supported by their Navy and by their Army and Navy Air Forces.
The policy for the defence of Singapore Fortress area necessitated weak
forward defences and inadequate reserve. The Japanese were able to
concentrate their forces for an attack on a selected portion of our
defences. By doing so they affected a landing and made a deep
penetration in spite of severe losses.
The Japanese in accordance with their strategy of a vigorous offensive
invariably attacked with the least possible delay. They seldom made
frontal attacks. Their usual tactics were to probe the front and search
for flanks. Having found the flanks they would then push mobile forces
round to an attack on our communications, which usually followed a
single road. They also employed widely infiltration tactics by
individuals and small parties of men as a means of creating alarm; the
use of trees as fire positions and the use of noise i.e. fireworks and
crackers resembling machineguns in action as a weapon of war.
There is no evidence to show that there was an extensive fifth column
organization in Malaya, but there is no doubt whatever that the
Japanese obtained considerable assistance at times from local
inhabitants. On many occasions, arrows indicating the position of
headquarters or other important targets were found on the ground.
It stands to the credit of all ranks that in many critical situations
which developed in the course of the long withdrawal down the peninsula
the enemy, in spite of the great advantages which he enjoyed, was never
able to effect a complete breakthrough, an occurrence, which, in view
of the lack of reserves with which to meet such a situation, would have
spelt immediate and irreparable disaster.
WW
II submariner survived scuttling and more than three years in Japanese
POW camps
When Kenneth Schacht
was freed from a Japanese POW camp at the end of World War II, he took
home an unusual reminder of his grim experience - some 70 drawings of
his three and half years of hunger, deprivation and torment.
His secret drawings -
some resembling cartoons, others more shaded and serious - didn't
explicitly portray the beatings, the deaths from starvation and
overwork, and the other depravities levied upon POWs in Japan. But they
offer a rare glimpse into a life concealed from much of the world
during those painful years.
"He was a fantastic
artist," said his daughter, Marcia McInerney of Annapolis, Md. "It kept
him mentally straight."
Marcia
McInerney | courtesy to The Bellingham Herald - A typical sight was a
POW sitting in the courtyard with his pillow to soften contact points.
Pipe is drainage and not heat and food drying in window is a POW
delicacy, the Hoshi cake. This was made from the (Japanese) medicinal
pills plus water and some flavoring if available set out to dry in the
sun. Final results usually gave maker a dose of the 'runs' but did help
to stave off hunger pangs to a minor degree.
-

Marcia
McInerney | courtesy to The Bellingham Herald - Kenneth Schacht
|
Schacht grew up in
Skagit County, one of four sons of William and Evelyn Schacht, owners
of the department store that bore the family name in Burlington.
Schacht died in 1985 at the age of 71.
The last of the four
brothers, Bill, a teacher at Bellingham Technical College, died last
year.
Surviving relatives
include two Bellingham nephews named Fred Schacht; one a retired
insurance businessman, the other the owner of Benchmark Document
Solutions, a downtown business.
Described by one
writer as "tall but thick," Kenneth Schacht excelled at sports, earning
varsity letters in football, wrestling and lacrosse at the U.S. Naval
Academy, where he graduated in 1935.
He was a first
lieutenant aboard a submarine, the USS Perch, in the Pacific when
Japanese pilots attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. A few months
after the outbreak of war, Schacht and his crewmates narrowly escaped
disaster at sea, but fell under the control of Japanese guards and
interrogators for the remainder of the war.
As an officer,
Schacht should have been afforded extra consideration as a prisoner of
war, but that wasn't always the case in Japanese camps.
According to Laura
Hillenbrand's new bestseller "Unbroken," the story of an aviator
imprisoned by the Japanese, American POWs in German and Italy fared
much better than those held in Japan. Of the nearly 35,000 U.S. POWs
held by Japan, more than a third, almost 13,000, died during captivity.
Six Perch crewmen
died as POWs. Schacht and 52 other crew members survived.
"He was so abused,"
said McInerney, now 65. "He never wanted to talk about what he went
through."
STRICKEN SUB
On Feb. 25, 1942, the
Perch surfaced to attack a Japanese freighter, but the freighter fired
first with its deck gun, damaging the sub's conning tower.
Four days later,
while running at the surface at night in the Java Sea, a Japanese
destroyer fired at the sub. The Perch dove and hit bottom 147 feet
down. Depth charges damaged the sub, but the destroyer left, apparently
persuaded that oil on the sea meant the Perch had been sunk.
The next morning,
March 2, a destroyer saw that the Perch had resurfaced. The Perch dove
200 feet and became stuck on the bottom as 30 more depth charges were
dropped. Again, the Japanese left after air bubbles smelling of diesel
burst the surface.
The Perch later
surfaced at dusk with extensive damage.
"We had to limp away,
hopefully to some shallow water area where we could stay barely
submerged during the day," Schacht later wrote. "We could surface at
night and work on the damage. That was the thinking."
They tried a test
dive, but couldn't stay below. Later that morning, Japanese ships saw
the Perch low in the water, unable to dive and unable to defend itself.
With no other choice, the crew sank classified material in weighted
bags and jumped into the water to await an uncertain future.
"Somewhere along the
line our cook had shoved a couple of turkeys into the ovens," Schacht
later wrote. "They were never touched but we were to think about them a
lot over the next 31/2 years."
To scuttle the sub
and keep it out of enemy hands, Schacht and another crewman ran to the
engine room to open vents, then dashed a goodly distance to the sole
open hatch. Schacht was the last man out, fighting through a torrent of
water in the hatch, by then below the surface.
Schacht didn't
mention his role in the scuttling in a 1972 article, but the Navy
certainly valued his contribution. He received the Navy Cross, the
service's second-highest award, below only the Medal of Honor, for his
effort to repair the sub and then, when all else failed, to scuttle it.
The Perch was one of
52 U.S. subs lost in the war. Japans took POWs from seven of them.
HIGH-VALUE PRISONER
Schacht was soon
taken to Ofuna, a camp in Japan where officers, submariners and
aviators were, in Hillenbrand's words, "starved, tormented, and
tortured" with the hope they would divulge military details.
Under questioning,
Schacht sometimes lied and sometimes mentioned submarine information
readily available elsewhere. At one point, he was placed in solitary
confinement on a starvation diet for 10 days, according to "Presumed
Lost," Texas writer Stephen Moore's book about submarine POWs during
the war in the Pacific.
Schacht was sent to a
hospital twice for dysentery, Moore writes. One time, he was beaten on
his kidneys and buttocks for talking to a nurse. Another time, he was
struck in the jaw numerous times for allegedly watching a Japanese
plane fly over the hospital, even though he was asleep at the time.
Schacht spent time in
several other POW camps, including the last two and a half months of
the war at Rokuroshi, an isolated, frigid camp for more than 300 U.S.
prisoners on a 6,500-foot peak in western Japan.
On Aug. 15, 1945,
after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
announced its surrender. Five days later, the camp commander at
Rokuroshi presented the news to his prisoners.
Within a few days,
pallets of food began to drop from the sky from U.S. planes. An
American flag, long hidden by a POW, was raised over the camp.
Along with his
drawings, Schacht left with a one-page, 1,200-word "loss report" about
the Perch that he had written while a prisoner.
GETTING ON
After the war,
Schacht finished out his 32 years of active duty in the Navy. Among
various assignments, he commanded the Pacific submarine fleet and
chaired the department of seamanship and navigation at the Naval
Academy.
McInerney said her
father sometimes talked to midshipmen about his experiences in the war
and showed them his drawings. But he didn't reveal much about his time
in the war to her, his only child.
"He did his thing,"
she said. "He did what he had to do, and that was it."
Fred Schacht, the
retired insurance businessman, didn't see his uncle Kenneth often, but
recalls visiting him at the Naval Academy in the 1970s.
During dinner in the
officers' club, Fred Schacht didn't finish the peas on his plate. His
uncle, the decorated war hero and POW, put the uneaten peas on his own
plate and finished them off.
"He still couldn't
stand to see food go to waste," Fred Schacht said.

Snakes
caught and cooked in the bush added some proteins to a man's diet.
Snakes, snails, frogs, toads, hornet-nests, anything to supplement the
diet.–Marcia McInerney|courtesy to The Bellingham Herald

The 'First Egg' ceremony. In 1944 we were advised we would receive one
egg approximately every 45 days. Actually about half the camp received
these eggs before this policy was changed. An egg for Xmas per prisoner
was the only other individual issue of eggs received as a POW while in
Zentsuji. Occasionally 60 or 80 eggs were put in to the stew for 700
men but their presence was not tasted. Some had access to eggs through
our black market but these were few and far between.–Marcia
McInerney|courtesy to The Bellingham Herald
Bellingham
flier survived crash, capture in jungles of Asia
CORA HOFFMAN - FOR THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
Cora Hoffman's older
brother, George Gustavson, served in World War II.
George, who attended
Whatcom High School in Bellingham, enlisted in the service at the age
of 17 soon after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
"George had been a
duck hunter and knew what it was to shoot at will and figured he wanted
to use his experience," Hoffman later wrote. "After Mom signed for him
to go in the winter of '42, he went off to Texas to boot camp."
When he returned home
near the end of the war, Gustavson discussed his experience fighting in
Asia. Many years later, Hoffman asked her brother questions about his
war service, and wrote up an account before he died in 2006 at the age
of 82. Excerpts from her account below:
I had been flying
over the hump (Himalaya Mountains) with fuel and supplies for the
Flying Tigers, who were stationed in China. Being the flight engineer
and our camp being in India, I was in charge of putting the oil drums
on the plane.
One day as I was
working with the elephant chief's men, I spotted a tiger that had
attacked the chief's son on the edge of the jungle. I raised my gun and
shot the tiger and saved the boy's life.
The chief was so
happy he gave me his personal knife as a "thank you" gift. It had a
huge ruby on the handle.
I had a houseboy who
had worked on the tea plantation. He polished shoes, washed uniforms,
kept the tent clean and did other duties. He also taught me how to talk
on tree drums. He was native to the area, but had learned English from
the British tea plantation men.
This day the orders
had been changed and I was put on a bomber for a special mission. The
Japanese had a big offensive on in Burma and had to be stopped. We were
using old airplanes, which were not very reliable, but I was put on as
the tail gunner, along with a pilot and co-pilot.
We hadn't gone far
when a voice spoke to me and said, "Jump out, this plane is going to
blow up."
I called to the pilot
on the walky-talky, a two-minute delay in those days, and told him of
the voice. He and co-pilot had a good laugh, but the plane had been hit
and I knew it was real.
The voice spoke again
and repeated the warning. I called to the pilot and said the voice
spoke again and said I'm going. The warnings from the pilot of court
martial if I went, went unheeded and I dove out into space.
The chute opened and
within two minutes the plane blew up. Soon I was on the ground. That
day I had taken my knife with me. I didn't always.
It wasn't long before
I was captured and tied to a tree. The natives had been promised rice
if they would kill all white men who came through there, so many men
had died even if they had escaped death on their plane.
I was set on fire and
was burning. I passed out. The next thing I remember, I was in a tent
and an Indian woman was nursing my wounds. She kept a record of the
days by putting a stone for each day. The days were all lost to me,
because of the time I was passed out in the tent.
After some time I
left there with my knife and started through the jungle. I talked to my
houseboy on the tree drums and got the right direction toward the big
river. Our camp was on the other side.
The hair on my body
had burned off. I had reddish hair and skin, and it was easy to see I
was a white man, but no one bothered me anymore.
I arrived at the
river and, after a while, a British plane went over. I signaled, but it
refused to land. I waited there for three days before an American plane
saw me and dropped down and picked me up. Back at the camp I learned
some interesting things.
Army personnel had
come for my personal belongings and the houseboy said, "No, you will
not take them." Why, they asked. "Because, sahib is still alive."
How do you know, they
asked. "Because he talked to me on the tree drums."
They left with a
puzzled gave. When I was home to my tent again, Mrs. Indira Gandhi came
to see me. She had three bodyguards with long spears.
She said, "What is
your story?" I repeated the story above.
She said, "What do
you think we could do so that more men would be released? You are the
first white man to ever walk out of the jungle alive."
I answered, "Give
them rice."
Arrangements were
made and I was on the first plane to Calcutta for a load of rice. We
went back and dropped it on the captors.
Bellingham
retiree helped U.S. bulldoze to victory against Japan in WW II
DEAN KAHN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
The U.S. military
played leapfrog in its campaign to defeat Japan during World War II.
That was the strategy
of isolating Japanese strongholds in the South Pacific by instead
capturing other islands. That helped block supplies to the Japanese,
and provided bases for the next round of assaults.
Unsung heroes in the
strategy were the soldiers who built the U.S. airfields as soon as an
area was taken, and then moved on to repeat the job, island after
island.
One of them, Peter
Davidson of Bellingham, has recounted their work in his personal and
often personable book, "Bulldozing the Way: New Guinea to Japan."
Davidson, 87, served
with the Army Air Corps' 1897th Aviation Engineering Battalion. The
battalion wasn't a combat unit, but he and other members came under
enemy fire on occasion.
U.S. pilots used the
battalion's airfields to launch attacks closer to the Japanese
mainland, and to intercept fuel, weapons and food bound for the
increasingly desperate Japanese troops stranded behind.
"Most of them died by
starvation and disease," Davidson said.
After the war,
Davidson became an engineer for Saudi Aramco, Chevron and Bechtel. He
and his wife, Josephine, retired in 1985 in California but moved to
Bellingham three years later when Davidson began working for Anvil Corp.
His wife, who had
polio, became a columnist for The Bellingham Herald writing about
disability issues. She died four years ago.
Peter Davidson grew
up on a farm in Southern California. His dad was an auto mechanic, and
Davidson was familiar with small tractors.
Along with his
mechanical chops, Davidson also had smarts. He was studying chemistry
at the University of California, Berkeley when war broke out, and soon
was off to engineering training.
His book describes
life for the enlisted men in the battalion from early 1943 to early
1946 as they saw action in New Guinea, the Philippines, Okinawa and
occupied Japan.
They built airfields
in jungles and in swamps, and on islands so small they had to scrape
coral at low tide for airstrip filler. They also built hospitals,
warehouses and, as Davidson writes, "any small projects the brass
fancied."
In the Philippines,
Davidson was running a grader to keep a muddy road open. An armed guard
rode with him for protection from snipers, but they were attacked from
above by an enemy plane.
"Fortunately the
machine gun bullets went on both sides of me," Davidson wrote, "but I
will always remember staring into the face of the Japanese pilot."
At times, the work
was grim. On another island, Davidson used a ditching machine to dig
graves for 150 American prisoners of war slain by the Japanese.
Davidson's book
sparkles with details - from placing the legs of their cots in cans of
diesel fuel to prevent jungle critters from crawling up while they
slept, to the quickest way to make jungle hooch. The recipe: Drill a
hole in a green coconut, stuff in sugar, raisins, papaya or canned
fruit, then plug the hole and put the coconut under your cot.
"When the plug blew
out," Davidson writes, "it was ready to drink."
Davidson landed in
south-central Japan in September 1945 to rehab the local airfields. He
was the fresh face of the victorious enemy, yet despite years of bloody
fighting between the countries, he ran into no trouble.
"By afternoon we had
a mixed American-Japanese ball game on the beach," he recounts in the
book.
ABOUT THE BOOK
"Bulldozing the Way:
New Guinea to Japan," by Peter Davidson, is available online and at
Village Books. It retails for $19.50.
|
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Philippines Issues Gold Tax Compliance Regulations
by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong
April 29, 2013
The Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has recently issued two Revenue
Regulations (RRs) – on sales of jewelry, gold and other precious metals,
particularly to non-resident foreign individuals or corporations; and of shares
of stock of domestic corporations not traded in the local stock exchange –
to improve the collection of taxes.
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima welcomed the regulations as further increasing
the transparency of the business environment, in addition to curbing tax evasion.
"These RRs are important because they allow the BIR to account for a wider
scope of economic activity in the country. With these issuances, the government
is more empowered to collect the taxes due from transactions that used to be
hard to spot," he said.
In April 2012, the BIR issued RR No. 6-2012, which imposed excise, value added
and income taxes on the sale of gold and other metallic minerals to other persons
or entities, including the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The BIR has observed,
however, that in order to avoid taxation, many parties have chosen to sell their
gold to non-BSP buyers that do not impose the taxes, thereby avoiding taxation.
Under new RR No. 5-2013, sellers of jewelry, gold and other metallic minerals
are now required to pay the appropriate taxes in advance through the BIR Revenue
District Office (RDO) having jurisdiction over the place where the transaction
occurs. Once the tax has been paid, the transaction will be validated by the
issuance of an official revenue receipt.
The advance tax payments will, subsequently, be credited against the actual
business tax and income tax due from sellers for the taxable period in which
such advance payments were remitted to the BIR.
In addition to the regulations on advance tax payments, owners and operators
of venues where organized meetings for sale of gold take place are required
to provide RDOs with identification information on foreign individual or corporate
buyers, including their names, nationality and passport numbers.
On the other hand, RR No. 6-2013 amends the rules for the sale, barter, exchange
or other disposition of the shares of domestic corporations not traded on the
local stock exchange. The RR provides that non-publicly traded shares shall
be assessed at their fair market value for capital gains tax purposes.
28 gold ingots found in India farm field

As
many as 28 gold ingots were unearthed while two farmers were digging a
well at Toduru Gunagiwada village in Karwar taluk on Saturday.
Digambar
Gunagi and Umakanth Gunagi were surprised to find that the box
contained several gold ingots. Eight of them carried imprints of Lord
Shiva, goddess Parvathi and god Jainbeera.
The
revenue inspector who arrived at the field, on receiving the
information, seized the ingots. “The blocks will be handed over to the
State Treasury,” he said.
Tahsildar
Sajid Mulla who accompanied the revenue inspector, said: “We are unable
to identify the period the gold blocks belong to. We shall write to the
Department of Archaeology to conduct further research.


BOOKS FOR SALE:


LIFE SENTENCE FOR JAP. GENERAL
(A.A.P.-Reuter)
Friday 15 July 1949
MANILA, Thursday.
Lieut General Shigenori
Kuroda has been sentenced to
life imprisonment by the
Philippines Military
Commission
Kuroda, a former Commanderin-Chief of the Japanese forcesin the Philippines, succeededLieut-General Homma, of the Bataan death march infamy"who was shot by a firing squad,and was in turn, replaced by Lieut-General
Yamashita
the"Tiger of
Malay," who died on the gallows
TIGER
OF
M
AL
A
Y
ASURRENDERS
TO
GEN
WAINWRIGHT
MANILA,
Monday.Sept
4
1945
General
Yamashita,
now
a
tame,
docile
"Tiger
ofMalaya,"
surrendered
at
Baguio
this
morning
to
Lieut.General
Wainwright,
the
document
which
was
signed
be-ing
similar
to
that
which
marked
the
general
surrender atTokyo
on
Sunday.
The
ceremony
was
delayed
fourhours
to
permit
the
arrival
of
Lieut.General
Percival.
Yamashita
remained
standing
throughout
the
surrender
ceremony.
After
the
ceremony
Lieut-GeneralWainwright
remarked:
"They
arethe
last.
The
war
in
the
Philippines
is
over.''
Yamashita's
smiling,
pleasant,
courteous
manner,
when
he
surren-dered
to
the
Americans,
was
a
mark-ed
change
from
his
former
blusteringboastfulness.
He
wore
a
clean
uni-
form
and
carried
a
Samurai
sword.He
appeared
to
be
in
good
conditionthough
he
had
lose
weight.
He
repeatedly
expressed
his
grati-tude
for
the
courtesies
and
goodtreatment
from
the
American
32ndDivision
which
chased
the
Japanesefrom
Buna
in
New
Guinea
to
North-
ern
Luzon
He
expressed
himself
as
happy
at
the
end
of
the
war.
When
asked
if
he
would
commithara
kiri,
Yamashita
jokingly
an-swered:
"No.
No
hara
kiri."
An
American
military
policeman,assigned
to
guard
the
Japanese
sur-render
staff,
discovered
that
one
ofthe
orderlies
had
a
live
grenade,
"It's
a
heck
of
a
thing
to
come
to a
peace
conference
with
a
live
gren-ade,"
he
remarked.
After
the
signing
of
the
surrenderYamashita
and
his
party
were
takenprisoners.
The
Japanese
on
Palau
Islandssurrendered
yesterday
to
the
MarineBrigadier
(General
F.
O.
Rogers)
Itis
estimated
there
are
44,000
Japa-
nese
on
the
Islands.
The
surrender
covers
40,000
troops,
including
an
admiral
and
a
viceadmiral
who
were
sheltering
in
themountains.
''That
friction
had
developed
be-tween
the
army
and
naval
officers'
inthe
surrender
party
was
indicated
bythe
fact
that
the
vice-admiral
re
quested
a
separate
section
for
hisstaff,
Morale
High
at
Hongkong
KANDY,
Monday.
Despite
malnutrition,
the
morale
ishigh
among
prisoners
of
war
and
in-ternees
in
Hongkong.
A
British
naval
officer,
who
hasbeen
there,
said
the
Japanese
wereprevented
from
taking
food
and
otherstocks
from
the
city.
They
were
be
ing
"handled
rather
roughly"
by
the
Chinese
section
of
the
population.
Clearing
Sea
Passage
to
Singapore
RANGOON,
Monday.
Minesweeper
flotillas
of
the
RoyalNavy
and
Indian
Navy.
Began
toyesterday,
preparatory
to
the
occu-
pation
of
Malay
Peninsula,
Sumatraand
Singapore.
It
will
take
several
days
to
sweepclear,
a
lane
for
the
Fleet
and
con-
voys
which
are
ready
to
pass
downthe
Straits
to
Singapore.
The
Japanese-controlled
radio
atSingapore
broadcast
two
messagesto-night
asking
for
permission
tomake
two
plane
flights.
One
was
to
carry
orders
to
Kush-
ing
and
North
Borneo
for
the
cessa-tion
of
hostilities,
and
the
other
tofly
to
Batavia,
Sumatra
and
Talplngto
bring
back
Jap
staff
officers
forparticipation
in
the
surrender
cere-
mony.
YAMASHITA
IN
GAOLAWAITING
TRIAL
MANILA,
Tuesday.
Sept
5
1945
General
Yamashita
and
his
party
have
been
taken
to
theNew
Bilibid
prison
where
afew
months
ago
his
military
police
ill-treated
captives".
Ma-nila
newspapers
are
demandinghis
trial
and
execution
as
a
warcriminal.
Yamashita's
cell
contains
a
cot,
atable
and
two
chairs,
while
two
win-dows,
which
overlook
the
courtyardwhich
is
filled
with
members
of
hisbeaten
force,
are
barred
and
screened.
In
the
same
block
of
cells
are
sixother
Jap
generals.
At
the
surrender
ceremony,
Lieut.General
Wainwright
quietly
observed"Retribution,
has
come.
It
is
a
greatgratification
to
me
and
all
officersand
men
who
served
under
my
com-mand."
ARRESTS
ORDERED
OF
AUTHORS
OF
PEARL
HARBOUR
,
COLLABORATORS
AND
MORE
SEPTEMBER 13 1945
TOKYO.
Wedneday.
Prompt
action
is
being
taken
by
General
MacArthurto
ensure
the
punishment
of
Japan's
war
criminals
andhe
has
ordered
the
arrest
of
Cabinet
Ministers
at
the time of
the
Pearl
Harbour
attack
as
well
as
that
of army gene-rals
and
puppet
administrators.
The
German
Ambassa-dor
(Stahmer)
is
included
in
the
list
of
39
arrests which
have
been
ordered.
The
Cabinet
Ministers
comprise
Shigenori
Tojo
(Foreign
Minister),
Okinori
Kaya,
a
centre
representative
who served under Prince Konoye,
Admiral
Shimada
(Minister
forthe
Navy),
Rear-Admiral
Terashima(
Minister
for
Communications),
Miichiyo
Iwamura,
Nobusuke
Kishi,Kunihiko
Hashida,
Hiroya
Ino,
Chi-kahiko
Kozumu
and
Sadaichi
Suzuki.
Others include:
Lieut.
General
Homma
-
commander of the Jap forces inthe
Philippines,
who
was
responsible
for
the
death
march
from
Bataan,
President Laurel -
puppet president of thePhilippines
Benigno Aquino - President
of the puppet Philippine National Assembly
and
Dr Maung - puppet
ambassador
to
Japan,
Colonel
Josef
Meisenger
,
police
at-tache
at
the
German
Embassy,
whois
already
in
custody.
He
was
theformer
Gestapo
chief
at
Warsaw.
Wathakan
Wichit,
the
ThailandAmbassador
in
Japan;
Lieut-General
Shigenori
Kuroda,
the
Jap
commander
in
the
Philippines
during
the Occupation
Colonel
Kira
Tagahamacommander
of
the
gendarmerie
in
the
Philippines,
who
is
alleged
to
be
re-
sponsible
for
the
tortures
at
FortSantiago,
Lieut-Colonel
Seiichi
Ohto,who
is
wanted
for
atrocities
in
Manila
Dr. Tokuda, who is declared responsible
for medical experiments onprisoners
of
war
and
Colonel
Suzukiwho
commanded
the
Shimagaw
prison
and was responsible for atrocities.
Certain
guards
and
officials
arealso
charged
with
atrocities.
Among
those
whose
arrests
wereordered,
is
on
American
civilian,
'named'
'Streeter
who
was'
employed'on
Wake
Island
-when
it
was
takenby
the
Japanese.
Although
the
Australian
Govern-ment
compiled,
an
extensive
reporton
the
atrocities
committed
by
Japanese
forces in the South-West Pa-cific
against
Australians,'
'
no
actionhave
so
far
been
taken
to-ensure
thearrest
and
punishment
of
those
re-sponsible,
and
there
is
no
mention
inthe
list
of
war.
criminals
'
of
the'South
Pacific.
?
It
is
presumed
-here
that
Aus-tralian
forces
will
be
called
on
to
as-sist
in
the
apprehension
of
war
criminalsin
areas
under
their
control
andthat
further
lists
will
be
issued.
Arrest
of
Major
Cousens.
Ordered
Lt
General
MacArthur
also
ordered
the
arrest
of
Major
Charles
Cousens,who
broadcast
regularly
over
Tokyoradio,
and
John
Holland,
an
Australian
also known" as David Lester,who
broadcast
on
Shanghai
radioand
later
transferred
to
Tokyo.
Others
on
the
list
include
LilyAtoegg
or'Sybille
Abe,
a
naturalised
German,
who
was,an
alleged
radiopropagandist
at
Tokyo,
and
Joseiasvan
Dienst,
for
broadcasting
anti
European
!
propaganda
in
Dutch.
The
N.B.C,
announced
that
GeneralMacArthur
had
ordered
the
dissolution
of' the Black Dragon Society andthe
names
of
seven
of
Its
top
members
Captain Grant of London who was captured at
Singapore said the greatest Japanese Crime was the Refusal to give
Prisoners Medical supplies and the Refusal to permit Prisoners to get
Supplies for Themselves.
Japanese guards hit General Wainwright so hard that he staggered back
about 10 feet said Brigidier General Carl Drake who with two other
American Generals was taken prisoner with Wainwright.
He said that the Japs treated officers worse than enlisted men, one
even stating that they should not be allowed to live.
The 14th Area Army, until
recently commanded by Lieutenant General Shigenori Kuroda, was charged
with the
defense of the Philippines. It had a strength of over 260,000 men but
they were scattered all over the Philippines, and Allied air and naval
pressure was making it increasingly difficult to move them from place
to place. Terauchi, expecting an attack somewhere in the Philippines,
secured General Tomoyuki Yamashita, an officer with an outstanding war
record, to replace General Kuroda. Although the landing on Leyte
achieved complete strategic surprise in terms of timing, weight, and
location, it was soon evident that the Japanese were going to make every
effort to hold the island. Reinforcements were moved in from Mindanao,
Luzon, Cebu, Panay and other islands.
JAP
OFFICERS
TRAINED
TO
BEHEAD
VICTIMS
-
Sept
13
1945
NEW
YORK,
Wednesday.
Japanese
officer
candidateswere
especially
instructed
howto
behead
prisoners,
withoutnicking
their
Samurai
swords,according
to
a
Japanese
ser-geant,
who
admitted
he
was
aninstructor
in
"the
cutting'
of
necks."
The
sergeant
told
Americansoldiers
who
have
just
returnedto
New
York
that
the
Japanesemostly
beheaded
Chinese
but
oc-casionally
Allied
airmen,
"just
tosee
how
It
felt
to
cut
an
Allied
neck."
NIPPON
GESTAPOMORE
POWERFULTHAN
HITLER'S
NEW
YORK,
Tuesday.
Sept
12
1945
Documents
dealing
with
the
activi
ties
of
the
Black
Dragon
and
the"Jîoko"
organisations-which
makesthe
Gestapo
look
like
a
Boy
Scouts'Association-are
in
the
hands
of
theAmerican
authorities,
says
"The
NewYork
Times"
correspondent
at
Tokyo.
Under
the
"Hoko"
system,
one
Japin
every
ten
is
detailed
to
report
tothe
police
on
the
activities
of
theother
nine.
It
was
carried
to
a
pointwhere
50,000
were
controlled
by
12
men.
The
Black
Dragon
was
smaller
innumber
than
the
"Hoko"
but
muchmore
violent.
¡
JAPANESE OUTWITTEDBY
INGENUITY
OF
THAILAND
PRISONERS
-
-
Sept
12
1945
SINGAPORE,
Tuesday.
The
persistency
and
ingenuity
ofthe
Thailand
prisoners
in
defeatingthe
Japanese
attempts
to
deprivethem
of
news
parallels
the
stories
ofthe
Singapore
camps.
Sets
were
builtand
hidden
in
water
bottles
and
allsorts
of
fantastic
places,
declaredGroup
-
Capt
C.
C.
Bell,
of
theR.A.AF.,
who
has
arrived
from
Thai-
land.
The
Japs
beat
two
officers
to
deathfor
having
sets
but
the
undergroundnews
service
still
went
on.
Leafletsdropped
by
Allied
planes
weregathered
carefully
and
concealedeven
in
the
men's
mouths.
"There
may
be
odd
cases
of
prison-ers
having
died
from
locally
acquireddiseases
but
the
majority
had
experi-enced
relatively
good
conditions
sincethe
beginning
of
1944,"
added
GroupCapt.
Bell.
He
said
that
dreadful
conditionswere
endured
during
the
constructionof
the
Moulmein-Bangkok
railwayand
in
all
13,000,
including
about5,000
Australians
had
died.
After
the
railway
was
finished
the
prisoners
were transferred to an area
where
there
was
good
food
and
this,combined
with
the
superb
work
ofdoctors,
hygiene
staff
and
the
men'sown
fortitude,
resulted
in
their
survival.
EARLY
TRIAL
OFJAP
OFFICERSFOR
ATROCITIESSINGAPORE,
Tuesday.
-
Sept
12
1945
Major-General
Saito,
com-mander
of
prisoner
of
war
camps,
and
the
other
Jap
offi-cers,
who
had
been
arrestedas
war
criminals,
are
the
firstto
be
charged
here
with
atroci-
ties.
Friendly
Japanese
sourcesreported
that
300
Jap
officerscommitted
suicide
with
hand-grenades
after
a
saki
party
tomourn
the
Japanese
surrender.Lieut.-General
Itagaki
is
re-ported
to
have
suppressed
thewave
of
suicides.
Japs
Not
Yet
Cured
of
War
The
Japanese
grasped
the
atomic
bomb
as
an
opportunity
to
get
out
of
the
war,
but
they
are
not
yetcured
of
the
war,
said
a
spokesmanof
Lord
Mountbatten’s
staff
at
aPress
conference.
The
Jap
army,
particularly
in
thistheatre,
consider
themselves
un-
defeated.
They
are
totally
unconvinced
they did not deserve to win.
The
spokesman
added
that
Japan,at
present,
is
back
to
where
it
wasin
1868.
Possibility
of
it
again
ris-ing
depended
on
what
foreign
sup-port
was
received.
SECRET
LAIR
OF
JAP
SUBMARINES
FOUNDTOKYO,
Tuesday
-
Sept
12
1945
A
United
States
naval
demolitionforce
has
taken
over
Katsura
navalbase
on
the
east
coast
of
the
Chinapeninsula.
They
found
34
suicidecraft,
seven
midget
submarines
aswell
as
torpedoes
and
coastal
de-fence
g'ins.
"
'
-
Five
lange
submarines
were
discov-ered
in
a
cave
in
Urlara
Bay.
The
Katsu
naval
base
was
foundto
contain
a
major
repair
station,seven
radar
stations
and
a*
radio
sta-tion,
all
in
working
order.
WEBB REPORT REVEALS TERRIBLE JAPANESE ATROCITIES PRISONERS AND
CIVILIANS TORTURED AND MUTILATED ENEMY ATE FLESH OF PRISONERS AND
COMPATRIOTS
Japanese
in
the
Pacific
tied
Australian
soldiers
to
trees,
bayoneted them andleft
them
dying
with
their
bowels
hanging
out,
raped
and killed two Roman
Catholicnuns,
dissected
two
American
soldiers
alive
and
removed
their
livers,
horribly muti-lated
native
women,
and
burnt
alive
at
least
two
Australian soldiers who took
re-fuge
in
a
hut.
Flesh
cut
from
the
bodies
of
dead
Australian
and
American soldiers was cook-ed
and
eaten.
These
and
other
horrors
are
disclosed
in
the
report
of the Chief Justice ofQueensland
(Sir
William
Webb)
who
was
instructed
by
the
Australian Governmentto
conduct
an
investigation
into
Japanese
atrocities
in
the
Pacific area.
The
report
was
released
on
behalf
of
the
Minister
for External Affairs (Dr.
Evatt).
Details
of
the
shocking
outrages
against
both
civilian
and
militarypersonnel
were
made
public
when
theMinister
for
External
Affairs
re-leased
Mr.
Justice
Webb's
report
onJapanese
atrocities.
The
report,
said
Dr.
Evatt,
reveal-
ed
not
only
individual
and
isolatedacts
of
barbarism,
terrorism
andcriminality,
but
also
practices
beyondthe
pale
of
accepted
human
conduct,which
could
not
have
become
generalwithout
the
connivance,
encourage-ment
and
direction
of
superior
offi-
cers
up
to
the
highest.
"If
those
responsible
for
these
out-rages
are
allowed
to
escape
punish-ment,
it
will
be
the
grossest
defeatof
justice
and
a
travesty
of
prin-ciples
for
which
the
war
has
been
fought,"
said
Dr.
Evatt.
Massacre
of
Australians
at
Tol
Plantation
In
his
report
to
the
Australian
Go-vernment,
Sir
William
Webb
outlinedthe
frightful
massacre
of
Australianswhich
followed
the
fall
of
Rabaul
tothe
Japanese
on
January
23,
1942
When
the
small
force
of
defenderswas
threatened
with
encirclement,
it
withdrew
to
various
points
south
of
Rabaul.
A
number
of
them
reach-ed
Tol
plantation
on
Wide
Bay
onFebruary
2.
Beyond
Tol
were
two
rivers
which
could
not
be
crossedwithout
boats
or
native
canoes
and
Tol
thus
became
a
trap.
Five
Japanese
landing
craft
land-ed
troops
at
Tol
without
oppositionafter
firing
some
mortars
and
ma-chine-guns.
Some
Australians
werewaiting
on
the
beach
to
surrenderand
the
Japanese
took
them
prisonersand
at
first
treated
them
reasonably
well.
During
the
day,
other
men
werecaptured
or
surrendered.
Early
on
the
morning
of
February
4,
the
men
were
marched
to
Tol
plan-tation
house
for
an
attempt
at
rollcall,
when
identity
discs
which
had
been
taken
from
the
men
were
re-
turned.
After
trying
to
find
the
menwho
surrendered
under
a
white
flagon
the
beach,
the
Japanese
separatedabout
22
men,
including
two
officers,from
the
others
and
took
them
away.
The
rest
were
again
deprived
oftheir
identity
discs,
equipment,
pay-
books
and
personal
belongings.
RedCross
brassards
were
torn
from
the
arms
of
medical
personnel.
With
hands
tied
behind
their
backs
andlinked
by
white
fishing
cord
into
par-
ties
of
ten
or
twelve
the
men
were
then
marched
through
the
plantation
and
in
different
directions
into
theundergrowth.
One
man
succeeded
in
escaping
andmet
a
party
of
civilians
who
released
his
hands.
Another
escaped
and
succeeded
in
cutting
his
bonds
by
rubbing
the
cordagainst
stones
This
man
later
died
in
New
Britain.
The
men
who
were
marched
intothe
jungle
were
bayoneted
and
shotin
the
presence
of
hearing
of
those
still
awaiting
their
turn
who
either
saw
the
actual
killings
or
heard
thescreams
as
the
bayonets
were
driven
home.
Many
of
the
victims
werebayoneted
from
behind
about
the
kid-
neys.
A
Japanese
motioned
one
of
thevictims
to
go
into
the
jungle
wherehe
was
bayoneted.
The
other
heardhis
screams
and
then
a
Japanese
sol-
dier
emerged
from
the
jungle
wipingblood
from
his
bayonet
with
a
cloth.At
this
frightful
spectacle,
one
Aus-tralian
next
in
line
broke
loose
and
tried
to
escape
but
was
cut
downwith
a
sword
by
a
Japanese
officerwho
then
shot
him
in
the
head
witha
pistol.
Shot
in
Back
With
Hands
Tied
but
Escaped
Two
victims
who
were
badly
bay-oneted
in
the
stomach,
succeeded
inreaching
a
hut,
but
some
days
laterwere
found
by
Japanese
who
set
fireto
the
hut
and
burnt
them
to
death.
One
soldier
while
still
tied
to
theother
Australian
and
with
his
thumbstied
behind,
was
stabbed
in
themiddle
of
the
back.
Those
tied
tohim
were
also
stabbed
about
thesame
time.
The
Japanese
standingover
him
when
he
fell
stabbed
himanother
six
times
in
the
back,
andwas
walking
away
when
the
soldier,who
had
been
holding
his
breath,
could
do
so
no
longer.
The
Japanese
then
stabbed
another
four
times,once
through
the
ear,
and
the
pointof
the
bayonet
came
out
through
thesoldier's
mouth
after
severing
thetemple
artery.
Blood
gushed
fromhis
mouth
and
the
Jap
pulled
leavesover
him
and
the
other
Australiansand
left.
The
soldier
eventually
gotup
and
managed
to
reach
the
beachabout
30
yards
away
where
he
bath-ed
himself
in
the
sea.
Finally
he
met
other
Australians.
At
Waitavalo
plantation,
a
partyof
eleven
after
their
discs
and
otherpossessions
were
taken
away
andtheir
names
had
been
written
downby
them
had
their
hands
tied
behind
them.
They
were
marched
into
thatplantation
and
shot
from
behind
withrifles
and
machine-guns.
Six
ofthose
left
for
dead
by
the
Japaneserecovered
and
escaped.
Sir
William
Webb
said
it
was
im-possible
to
say
how
many
Austra-lians
were
killed
in
the
Tol
and
Wai-tavalo
massacres,
but
he
agreed
withthe
military
court
of
inquiry
that
thenumber
was
not
far
short
of
150.
The
scars
of
the
men
who
escapedwere
consistent
with
their
evidence.It
had
become
unnecessary
to
makea
separate
finding
on
the
lesserbreaches
of
warfare
which
precededthose
"frightful
massacres"
Terrible
Mutilations
in
Guadalcanal
Crimes
In
the
Guadalcanal
sector,
a
nativeboy
was
bayoneted
eight
times
afterrefusing
to
give
information
aboutAmerican
troops.
One
thrust
of
thebayonet
pierced
his
neck
and
severedhis
tongue.
He
was
left
for
dead,but
other
natives
picked
him
up
andtook
him
to
the
American
lines.Later,
he
partially
regained
his
powerof
speech
and
was
awarded
theGeorge
Medal.
At
the
village
of
Tasimboko,
Japa-nese
troops
bayoneted
two
RomanCatholic
priests,
a
Dutchman,
and
anAmerican,
also
two
nuns,
aged
25and
35.
The
bodies
of
the
nuns
werestripped
naked
and
they
had
beenraped.
A
third
nun,
about
60
yearsold,
was
allowed
to
escape.
In
the
Kokumbone
area
of
Guadal-canal
in
late
September,
1942,
Japa-nese
recaptured
two
Americans
whohad
escaped
into
the
jungle.
To
pre-vent
a
second
escape,
pistols
werefired
at
their
feet
but
it
was
difficultto
hit
them.
The
two
prisoners,while
still
alive,
were
then
dissectedby
a
medical
officer
and
their
livers
taken
out.
Horrible
details
of
atrocitiesagainst
Australian
soldiers
andnatives
at
Milne
Bay
during
the
com-paratively
short
period
of
Japaneseactivity
were
outlined
in
the
report.
Sir
William
Webb
said
the
Japa-nese
without
justification
or
excuse,killed
36
Australian
soldiers
and
upto
59
native
men
and
women.
Many
of
the
women
had
been
subjected
tofrightful
mutilation
and
some
hadbeen
used
for
bayonet
practice
while
still
alive.
Near
Moteo,
a
native
female
wasmutilated
on
the
ground
with
eachwrist
and
leg
tied
to
a
stake
withsignal
wire.
Lying
on
her
back,
shewas
naked
and
had
been
ripped
fromthe
stomach
upwards
and
there
wasa
knife
slash
across
her
stomach.
In
a
hut,
a
native
female
had
herhands
tied
to
her
sides
and
to
stakes.Her
feet
were
tied
to
stakes
and
herlegs
spread
out.
She
had
been
knock-ed
on
the
head.
Her
breasts
werecut
off
and
her
body
slit
from
herthroat
down.
Killing
Carried
Out
With
Savage
Brutality
Half
a
mile
west
of
KB,
a
native,whose
hands
were
tied
behind,
wasstripped
and
bayoneted
around
theposterior.
Another
native,
was
tiedto
a
tree
and
bayoneted
in
the
stomach.
Between
Waga
and
Goroni,
near
aJapanese
radio
station,
a
nativefemale
about
20
years
of
age,
wasstripped
and
pegged
out
on
the
ground
with
wrists
and
ankles
tiedto
stakes.
The
Japanese
raggedlycut
off
her
breasts
with
a
knife
andplaced
one
on
her
face
and
the
otheron
her
stomach.
Also
near
Goroni,
a
young
native
woman
was
disembowelled.
Just
east
of
KB,
a
young
female
was
strippedand
staked
out
before
her
breastswere
cut
off.
A
native
girl
of
about
14
wasstripped
naked
and
her
hands
andlegs
were
tied
to
stakes.
The
Japan-esc
drove
a
bamboo
stake
throughher
chest
into
the
ground
and
cut
off
her
left
breast
which
they
put
near
her
legs.
The
Japanese
ripped
out
the
pos-terior
of
a
native
man
after
tyinghim
face
downwards
with
arms
andlegs
stretched
out.
Describing
these
atrocities,
SirWilliam
Webb
said
that
in
everycase
the
killing
was
carried
out
withsavage
brutality.
The
women
stakedout
were
no
doubt
raped
and
then
had
their
breasts
cut
off
by
sadists.
Appalling
savagery
was
inflictedon
Australian
soldiers
at
Milne
Bay.
Between
KB
and
Wago,
the
Japan-ese
tied
one
soldier's
hands
in
frontand
ripped
out
his
stomach
with
a
bayonet.
At
the
first
ford
past
KB,
theytied
a
soldier's
hands
behind
his
back,then
bayoneted
him
in
the
back,leaving
the
bayonet
there.
At
Wanadala,
two
Australianswere
tied
to
separate
trees
andbayoneted
about
the
chest
and
stomach.
One
was
left
with
hisbowels
hanging
out.
At
Japanese
headquarters
at
Waga,
two
soldiers
with
hands
tiedbehind
their
backs
and
bound
totrees
six
feet
apart
were
badly
bay-
oneted.
Another
man
on
the
ground
had
his
hands
tied
in
front
of
himbelow
the
throat
and
was
so
markedas
to
indicate
that
he
had
tried
toprotect
himself
from
bayonet
thrusts.
He
had
wounds
on
his
chest
and
both
forearms.
His
buttocks
and
genitalswere
cut
to
ribbons,
and
the
tops
ofhis
ears
were
cut
off.
His
eye
sock-ets
were
missing
and
his
body
hadabout
20
knife
wounds.
Also
near
the
Japanese
headquar-ters
were
two
soldiers
tied
to
a
sagopalm
facing
inwards,
who
had
beenbayoneted
around
the
posterior.
Another
soldier
tied
with
rope
to
a
coconut
tree
to
allow
free
move-
ment,
was
probably
used
as
a
run-
ning
target,
as
the
back
of
his
tunicwas
badly
ripped.
SANDAKAN
CAMPWAS
DEATH
FORWAR
PRISONERS
MELBOURNE,
Monday.
-
Sept
11
1945
Army
Headquarters
announced
to-day
that
an
Australian
party
wentto
Sandakan
(North
Borneo)
by
fly-ing
boat
to-day
and
made
contactwith
representatives
of
the
Jap
com-mander
(Colonel
Otsuka).
Sandakan
was
once
a
large
P.O.W.centre,
but
the
Jap
envoys
reportedthat
no
prisoners
remain
alive
in
thearea
and
that
a
number
had
beenburned
in
compound
barracks.
There
are
a
number
of
graves,some
marked
with
names
or
num-bers.
The
Australian
party
ordered
theJaps
to
make
a
list
of
all
Identifica-tion
marks
on
the
graves.
The
Japs
said
the
prisoners
hadbeen
marched
to
Renau
and
theyheard
many
died
and
some
escaped
on
the
way.
Official
Jap
figures
obtained
else-
where
indicate
that
at
one
stage
3,726
prisoners,
including
1,900
Aus-tralians,
were
held
at
Sandakan.
areas
occupied
by
United
States
4,000
PRISONERS
RELEASED
FROM
THAILAND
to
work
on
Railroad
to
Transport
Looted
Gold
-
Gems
-
Diamonds
and
Others
SYDNEY,
Monday.
Sept
11
1945The
names
of
more
than
4,000
Aus-tralian
prisoners
of
war,
recoveredfrom
Siam,
will
be
released
within
aday
or
two,
stated
the
Minister
for
the
Army
(Mr.
Forde)
to-day.
The
list
of
men
was
flown
from
Siam
and
arrived
at
Perth
to-day.
It
is
being
checked
by
Army
Head-quarters
and
the
next-of-kin
will
beadvised
as
soon
as
possible.
Mr.
Forde
stated
that
there
wasno
truth
in
statements
that
some
of
the
prisoners
had
arrived
in
Austra-lia.
This
is
the
Japas
Australians
Experienced
Him
-
Sept 10 1945
Many
of
the
horror
storiescoming
to
light
here
are
tooobscene
for
publication,
butthe
less
sordid
should
be
toldin
order
to
show
the
worldhow
inhuman
and
pervert
theJapanese
really
is,
says
the
Exchange
Telegraph
corres-pondent
in
a
dispatch
filed
onFriday.
He
states
that
the
Japaneseat
the
outset
of
the
occupa-tion,
in
order
to
impress
theMalays,
beheaded
seven
ofthem
for
minor
offences
andput
the
heads
in
the
publicsquare
and
left
them
there
until
they
were
no
more
than
skinand
Bone.
When
wholesale
abuse
ofwomen
was
the
order
of
theday
the
Japanese
stripped
ayoung
married
woman
for
fail-ing
to
bow
to
Japanese,
andtied
her
to
a
post
in
the
mainstreet
of
Singapore.
A
Chinese
who
threw
a
sarong
to
her
was
forced
to
kneelfor
three
days
without
foodand
water
on
the
spot
wherethe
woman
was
tied.
The
Japanese
seized
threegirls
for
speaking
to
a
group
ofAustralians
who
were
toilinglike
coolies,
stripped
them
andput
them
in
a
display
windowof
a
department
store.
A
complete
list
of
atrocitiesagainst
Australian
prisoners
ofwar
on
Singapore
Island
andindictments
against
the
Japan-ese
responsible
have
been
pre-pared
by
the
commandant
ofthe
Australian
troops
in
Changi
prison,
says
the
special
rep-resentative
of
Australian
As-sociated
Press.
Until
action
has
been
takento
bring
the
Japanese
to
jus-
tice,
specific
cases
will
not
berevealed,
adds
the
correspon-dent.
"The
most
appalling
atroci-ties
are
believed
to
includeshooting
and
in
some
cases,burning
alive,"
he
stated.
"A
party
of
more
than
I00
was
wounded.
Petrol
waspoured
without
discriminationon
the
dead
and
alive,
and
thiswas
set
on
fire.
There
werefrequent
cases
of
water
tor-ture,
in
which
water
was
pour-ed
down
the
victim's
throat
un-til
the
stomach
was
distended,after
which
the
body
was
pum-melled.
Standing
with
armsabove
the
head
for
hours
inthe
sun,
beatings
with
iron
barsand
other
tortures
peculiar
tothe
Orient
were
widely
prac
tised.
Prisoners
Worked
to
Death
NEW
YORK
Sunday
The
Japs
put
more
than
1,200
Al-lied
prisoners,
including
Dunkirkveterans,
to
work
from
dawn
to
duskin
copper
mines
in
Northern
For-
mosa
Two
men
who
tried
to
escape
weredeliberately
worked
to
death
and
all
bore
markings
of
constant
floggings.
JAP
SWORD
MAYCOME
TO
CANBERRAOFF
RABAUL
-
SEPT
10
1945
When
General
Hitoshi
Imamura
placed
his
sword
before
Lt.-GeneralSturdee
at
the
surrender
signing
onboard
the
Glory
on
Thursday,
heprobably
thought
that
in
accordancewith
tradition
it
would
be
returned
to
him,
especially
as
he
retains'
au-thority
over
Japs
in
the
SouthEastern
Army
until
all
are
disarmedand
under
the
control
of
the
occupa-
tion
forces.
If
so,
he
was
badly
mistaken.
Hissword,
like
those
of
all
Japs
who
came
aboard
the
Glory,
was
confis-cated
and
probably
will
be
placed
in
the
Australian
War
Museum
at
Canberra
The
Japs
were
resentful
at
thistreatment
but
were
hardly
in
a
positionto
press
the
objection.
BOLD
RESCUE
OF
WAR
PRISONERS
YOKOHAMA,
Friday.
One
of
the
boldest
rescues
of
war
prisoners
took
place
when
a
team,including
five
nurses,
took
a
Japan-ese
troop
train
to
Kobe,
300
milesfrom
the
nearest
occupation
troops,and
released
603
prisoners
of
war.
The
prisoners
included
men
whohad
been
captured
at
Bataan,
Corre-gidor,
Wake
Island
and
Guam.
A
naval
task
force
visited
For-
mosa
and
brought
away
1,200
Allied
prisoners.
JAPAN'S
NAVY
NOWCONSISTS
OF
ONLYA
FEW
WARSHIPSTOKYO
-
Sept
08
1945
The
virtual
destruction
of
Japan'sonce
great
navy
was
confirmed
by
aGovernment
statement
in
the
Diet,revealing
that
the
serviceablestrength
of
the
navy,
at
present,
con-sisted
of
two
carriers,
'three
cruisers,30
destroyers
and
50
Submarines.
Japan
possessed
eight
coast
defencevessels
and
a
large
number
of
ser-viceable
"small
warcraft."
According
to
the
statement
Japanentered
the
war.
with
390
warshipsbut
built
an
additional
872.
The
combined
air
strength
at
theoutbreak
of
the
war
was
4200
planes.
JAPANESE
RELUCTANTTO
OBSERVE
TERMSAT
SINGAPORE
The
Japanese,
retreating
from
Singapore
Islandacross
the
Joher
Causeway,
showed
a
reluctance
to
dis-arm
their
military
guard
under
the
surrender
terms,
in-sisting
that
Japanese
commodities,
stores
and
civil
ad-ministration
needed
protection,
The
Japanese
were
ordered
todump
their
arms
by
10
a.m.
at
thecauseway
and
to
evacuate
South
Johore
by
6
p.m.
The
Japanese
admin-istration
will
be
permitted
to
re-
main.
The
British
commander,
recognis-ing
the
danger
to
the
Japanese
ofwithdrawing
to
hostile
areas
filledwith
vengeful
Chinese
and
Malayanguerillas,
said
the
enemy
would
beallowed
to
keep
10
rifles
for
each
100
soldiers,
The
Japanese
quibbled
for
sometime,
alternately
showing
flashes
ofarrogance
and
submission.
Theyonce
said
they
saw
no
reason
to
ac-cept
(but
the
argument
terminatedwith
the
weighted
suggestion
thatthey
must
carry
out
the
surrender
as
directed.
The
Japanese
claimed
they
ownedthe
stores
where
the
Chinese.,
tradi-tionally
monopolised
the
retail
tradeand
also
said
that
currency
depositedat
the
post
office
was
Japanese.
Thebroad
Mghway
leading
to
the
cause-way
presented
a
strange
sight
withJapanese
and
Indian
convoys
inter-spersed.
Prisoners
watched
the
motley
Japanese
procession
silently
but
burstinto
cheers
when
their
liberatorscame
in
trucks.
The
occupation
of
Singapore
is
be-ing
completed
without
fuss.
It
is
anuncanny
feeling
to
pass
squads
ofarmed
Japanese
who
either
starestraight
ahead
or
respectfully
salute.
'Prisoners
of
war,
who
clusteraround
each
Australian
visitor,
ask-ing
for
news
of
home,
are
maintain-ing
magnificent
discipline,
quietlygoing
about
their
routine
and
wait-ing
patiently
lo
be
evacuated,
London
Paper
Demands
Inquiry'
LONDON,
Friday.
Demanding
that
a
full
official
in-quiry
should
be
held
into
the
fall
ofMalaya
and
the
"impregnable"
Singa-pore,
the
"Daily
Mail
said
that
theexample
of
the
United
States
in
re-gard
to
Pearl
Harbour
should
be
fol-
lowed.
The
paper
added
that
such
an
in-vestigation
had
been
refused
in
thepast
on
the
ground
of
Insufficient
evidence
and
that
it
could
await
thefuture.
That
future
was
now
thepresent
and
those
who
took
the
prin-cipal
parts
in
the
tragic
drama,
wereavailable
to
give
evidence
.
JAP
GESTAPOTORTURES
WAR
PRISONERS
Describing
the
conditions
experi-
enced
in
the
Singapore
gaol
during
internment,
Lady
Shenton-Thomas
told
Reuters
correspondent
that
every
now
and
then
Jap
secret
police
would
take
away
male
internees
andalmost
without
exception
they
cameback
to
die,
while
one
-victim
wasbrought
back
dead.
"It
was
dreadful
to
see"
men
whowent
away
big
and
burly
come
backweighing
only
about
5
stone
addedLady
Shenton-Thomas,
who
said
thatthe
atrocities
were,
committed
in
theY.W.C.A.
building,
which
was
theheadquarters
of
the
secret
police.
The
Japs
kept
internees,
waitingsix
months
for
letters
and
then
onlyallow
one
letter
to
be
sent
out
afterthree
had
been
received.
"The
news
of
the
Jap
surrender
wasgiven
by
a
daring
Eurasian
lad
whocycled
past
the
gaol
singing
a
songin
which
he
conveyed
the
news.
Inthe
Changi
gaol,
female
interneeswere
placed
in
cells
with
male
Japprisoners
and
were
compelled
tocarry
out
the
most
sordid
tasks.
The
building
occupied
by
the
sec-ret
police
resounded
day
and
nightwith
blows
and
yelling
from
the
in-quisitors
and
shrieks
from
the
tortured
victims.
Jap
Treatment
Of
Australian
POWA
heart-rending-
story
of
the
Aus-tralians
who
helped
in
the
construc-tion
of
the
Moulmein-Bankok
railwaywas
told
by
Maurice
Ferry,
who
wascaptured
with
the
Eighth
Division
inApril,
1943,
when
he
reached
here
to-day.He
mentioned
that
there
were
52,000prisoners
at
Chang!
gaol,
including3,600
Australians
and
3,400
British,
andthey
were
sent
to
work
on
the
con-struction
of
the
railway
from
Siam.
They
were
forced
to
march
200
milesalong
old
elephant
trails
often
kneedeep
in
water.
They
marched
at
nightfor
17
hours.
It
was
on
this
journeythat
the
men
got
the
first
taste
of
theBlack
Triangle
guard,
who
would
bat-ter
the
men
with
their
rifle
butts
andclubs.
At
Shan
Songhural
camp
they
all
suffered
from
dysentery,
and
cholerabroke
out,
until
the
whole
camp
wasaffected.
The
funeral
pyre
never
wentout.
The
hospital
was
merely
a
collec-tion
of
roofless
huts
which
could
nev-er
be
repaired,
as
the
Japs
would
neverallot
the
necessary
labour.
The
menwere
forced
to
sleep
in
the
open
withonly
a
ground
sheet
each
to
protectthem
from
the
rain.
Within
a
month,
200
out
of
2,000
haddied.
The
sick
were
taken
in
a
lorryto
a
camp
80
miles
south
from
Moul-mein,
but
on
arrival
each
truck
con-tained
six
dead.
From
September
to
November.,
1,600had
died.
Medical
supplies
were
non-existent
and
doctors-had
to
use
sawsfor
amputations
of
limbs
and
spoonsto
scrape
out
tropical
ulcers
U.S.
NAVY
WANTSISLAND
BASES
IN
THE
PACIFIC
-
SEPT 7 1945
Assistant
Secretary
to
theNavy
(Mr.
Hensel)
told
a
Pressconference
that
the
Navy
in-tended
recommending
to
Con-gress
the
establishment
andmaintenance
.of
the
followingmajor
bases:
Kodiak,
Adah,Hawaii,
Bnlb
:,
Guam,
Saipan,Tiniîin,
two
Jil.
:,
Manus
and
thePhilippines.
"These
bas<_
inclu'de
onlythose
we
need
îor
our
own
useand
are
limited
to
those
we
In-tend
to
maintain,
and
are
sus-ceptible
to
defence,"
he
added.
Additionally,
islands
such
asWake,
Midway,
Eniwetok,
Kwujalein
and
Truk
should
be
keptaolely
to
prevent
use
by
anyother
Power,
Mr.
Hensel
declared.
PRISONERS
TELLOF
SADISTIC
JAPANESE
CRUELTY
AND
KOREAN
GUARDS
UNDER
JAPANESE
ARMY
(From
our
Correspondent,
James
O'Connor)
HAMAMATSU,
Thursday.
More
grim
stories
of
Japanesebestiality
were
told
by
900
British,
Americans
and
Dutch
prisoners
re-covered
from
Japanese
camps
nearNagoya.
They
had
been
in
variouscamps
and
found
the
worst
in
Thai-land,
Manila
and
Java.
Dutchmen
told
feelingly
of
howtheir
comrades
were
bayoneted
todeath
in
their
presence,
and
theywere
then
forced
to
bury
them
Many
prisoners
related
unspeak-able
humilities
including
an
incidentwhen
an
Englishman
was
forced
tolick
a
brick
wall
during
floggingsuntil
his
tongue
bled,
and
another
ofan
American,
hung
by
the
arms
withhis
feet
not
touching
the
ground,while
he
was
beaten
into
insensibility |