Description
Object description
Photocopies of 15 ms letters to his wife in Halifax, Yorkshire, the first five describing his service as a battery commander in the 80th Anti-Tank Regiment RA in Malaya, November 1941 - January 1942, with particular reference to their living conditions in Kelantan prior to the outbreak of war and the performance of his fellow officers in battle and the remainder, written in September - October 1945, covering his liberation from a prisoner of war camp in Singapore, his passage in a hospital ship to Madras, India, his treatment and convalescence in a military hospital in Bangalore and the start of his voyage home by sea; together with a metal paper knife made in Changi camp, Singapore in 1942 bearing his name and the Royal Artillery crest. The 1945 letters comment on his very poor physical condition on his release, his lack of contact with home during his captivity, the importance of his family nonetheless in sustaining his morale and the warmth of the welcome given to the ex-prisoners of war on their arrival in Madras, while he also mentions how he had been sentenced to 5 years' hard labour by the Japanese in November 1943 for his involvement in the operation of a clandestine radio at Kanchanaburi prisoner of war camp on the Burma-Siam railway, the central event in Eric Lomax's THE RAILWAY MAN (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995)
Content description
Photocopies of 15 ms letters to his wife in Halifax, Yorkshire, the first five describing his service as a battery commander in the 80th Anti-Tank Regiment RA in Malaya, November 1941 - January 1942, with particular reference to their living conditions in Kelantan prior to the outbreak of war and the performance of his fellow officers in battle and the remainder, written in September - October 1945, covering his liberation from a prisoner of war camp in Singapore, his passage in a hospital ship to Madras, India, his treatment and convalescence in a military hospital in Bangalore and the start of his voyage home by sea; together with a metal paper knife made in Changi camp, Singapore in 1942 bearing his name and the Royal Artillery crest. The 1945 letters comment on his very poor physical condition on his release, his lack of contact with home during his captivity, the importance of his family nonetheless in sustaining his morale and the warmth of the welcome given to the ex-prisoners of war on their arrival in Madras, while he also mentions how he had been sentenced to 5 years' hard labour by the Japanese in November 1943 for his involvement in the operation of a clandestine radio at Kanchanaburi prisoner of war camp on the Burma-Siam railway, the central event in Eric Lomax's THE RAILWAY MAN (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995)
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 1996-01