Description
Object description
Ms letter (4pp), dated 21 December 1941, to his parents in South London from a lance corporal in the 2nd Battalion East Surrey Regiment (11th Indian Division) giving a graphic description of his experiences during the fighting at Gurun following the Japanese invasion of Malaya earlier in the month; together with a photocopy of a ts memoir (28pp) written in 1997 - 1998 recording how he was left unharmed by the Japanese where he was in the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore at the time of the massacre (February 1942) and his subsequent experiences as a prisoner of war at various camps on the Burma-Siam railway (October 1942 - May 1944), during his voyage to Japan on the prison ship OSAKA MARU and, after she was shipwrecked, the HAKUSAN MARU (June - August 1944) and at Amagasaki and (?) Toyama camps in Japan where he was employed on factory and dock work respectively (September 1944 - August 1945), and emphasising throughout their appalling living conditions, their totally inadequate rations, the brutality of their guards, the prevalence of sickness and frequent deaths among the prisoners, and his own religious faith; also photocopies of two of his postcards home while in captivity, of statements made in the House of Commons in November - December 1944 on the treatment of prisoners of war in the Far East, of later historical notes on Japanese prison ships including the regulations for prisoners on the OSAKA MARU, and of Wyatt's account of the fighting for Kampar in Malaya at the end of December 1941.
Content description
Ms letter (4pp), dated 21 December 1941, to his parents in South London from a lance corporal in the 2nd Battalion East Surrey Regiment (11th Indian Division) giving a graphic description of his experiences during the fighting at Gurun following the Japanese invasion of Malaya earlier in the month; together with a photocopy of a ts memoir (28pp) written in 1997 - 1998 recording how he was left unharmed by the Japanese where he was in the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore at the time of the massacre (February 1942) and his subsequent experiences as a prisoner of war at various camps on the Burma-Siam railway (October 1942 - May 1944), during his voyage to Japan on the prison ship OSAKA MARU and, after she was shipwrecked, the HAKUSAN MARU (June - August 1944) and at Amagasaki and (?) Toyama camps in Japan where he was employed on factory and dock work respectively (September 1944 - August 1945), and emphasising throughout their appalling living conditions, their totally inadequate rations, the brutality of their guards, the prevalence of sickness and frequent deaths among the prisoners, and his own religious faith; also photocopies of two of his postcards home while in captivity, of statements made in the House of Commons in November - December 1944 on the treatment of prisoners of war in the Far East, of later historical notes on Japanese prison ships including the regulations for prisoners on the OSAKA MARU, and of Wyatt's account of the fighting for Kampar in Malaya at the end of December 1941.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 1999-11-19