Memories of World War Two
Following Bert’s recent death at the age of 105 we offer these pages, that he told us about when he was 99, in tribute
Bert agreed to tell us some of his memories of the last few months of the war when he had been a POW of the Japanese for 4 years.
He was in Thailand, and for 18 months worked on the notorious railway where 14,000 died. Days, weeks and months went by, and with no way of recording the passing of time the only time of year they could know for sure was when on 23 December they were given three days off to celebrate the birthday of the Emperor of Japan, and for them Christmas.
Working groups of about twelve with three guards were sent into the jungle to put up telephone cables. They were there for about ten days and had to make shelters with whatever they could find, plaiting leaves together to make a waterproof roof. Bert said the guards were not bad and got talking to them, telling them of the sinking of a large warship and the death of Mr Roosevelt. Later Bert discovered that the death was in April 1945.
When the job was finished, they were dropped off at a river camp and then moved on to Bangkok where they found the guards were very touchy as they had been bombed by allied aircraft. They were only there for two days before they were loaded on to cattle trucks driven by a steam loco fuelled with wood because they had no coal. They did not move at night because the fire in the loco would give away their position. They arrived at the border of French Indo China and walked on in their ragged clothes and a variety of hats. A Thai officer saluted them with his sword. They followed the river and passed a Temple and arrived at a brand-new camp that was lovely and clean with views towards a range of hills. The next day working parties of twelve were sent out, the sickest man was in charge of the four-gallon tin to boil water to drink. They drank nothing unless it was boiled.
About July 1945 they used to bring rice out for them and if the guard was in a good mood they got a fifteen-minute break. They went into the wood for toilet and used leaves for toilet paper. One day when they went out they saw a chap in full uniform sitting up on a hill. They were kept there all day before they eventually went back to the camp. The men already there were washed and in their best rags and the Sergeant said ‘You are free’. The next day the Sergeant told them that Mountbatten had sent a message to say that the Japanese had to guard them, but they then left and the POW’s posted guards on the inside of the wire in case bandits attacked them.
A parachutist arrived and told them not to celebrate too much as they were in the middle of a Japanese division. Plans had been in place to invade Malaya in late August and the Japanese planned in that event to shoot all POW’s. On the second day after he was freed Bert was able to send a letter to his mother, the Sergeant said he would try to find a pencil and if Bert could find a piece of paper he would try to get a letter out. Bert wrote in pencil saying ‘safe and sound, free and OK’ on the letter his mother had sent him in 1944 when she was told he was a prisoner in Number 1 Camp, Thailand, and when he found it again many years later his mother had written over the pencil writing as it was fading. The letter home was delivered in two weeks. They stayed in the camp for ten days, Bert and his mate walked around the hills and met some Buddhist monks who showed them their temple and their statues.
One day they saw what they thought was a dust storm but it was a convoy coming to fetch them. They just picked up their gear and were taken to Bangkok airport where they were told to leave everything except any personal items and they boarded a Dakota to go to Rangoon; the plane had no door but no-one fell out! When they landed they were just given tins of fruit to eat and taken to a school that the RAF had taken over as a hospital. Bert spent one night in the hospital and was told ‘You are OK, out you go’. They spent ten days on the coast waiting for a ship to take them home.
On 20 September they left aboard the SS Orduna, 16,000 tons and built in 1913. It carried 1600 troops at 14 knots doing 300 miles per day. They arrived at Port Suez on 6 October and went ashore. Bert was able to send two cables home. They were kitted out with winter uniforms and Bert, with a name beginning with W, was tail-end-Charlie and they had a job to get a uniform for him where both halves matched. He was the last one back on the coach to go to the ship, not helped by the fact that there was a group of about forty WRNS who were, what Bert called, a wonderful sight after 4 years with not seeing a woman! They sailed through the Suez Canal and then the Mediterranean to Gibraltar and onwards.
On board they were given a medical examination and the food was very basic, but Bert agreed that it was probably good that they did not have any rich food after living on rice and not much else. The ship arrived in Liverpool on 20 October after a rough trip up the Irish Sea that caused Bert to be seasick. The Dockers were on strike but when they heard that the ship carried ex-POW’s they returned to work to deal with them.
They were put in a warehouse and at 8.30 am they boarded the trains 500 to each train. The troops were divided into four groups and Bert was in Group K to travel south. When their buddies got off, after being so close through such a difficult time, they just waved and were gone. When they arrived at Euston there were only twelve left on the train and they were taken by truck to Waterloo. When they stopped at Southampton Central Bert was met by his parents and his girlfriend, Freda, and a taxi was waiting to take him home to Merry Oak where the neighbours had put out the flags to welcome him home, and the Merry Oak Pub took up a collection for him.
He did not let the grass grow under his feet and on 1 December 1945 he married Freda in Bitterne church.
Bert said that when he was in the cholera camp where most men only lasted twenty-four hours he remembers a dying man asking for his mother, and Bert has never forgotten that.