Description
Object description
Brief wordprocessed account (4pp) written in the 1990s, and longer ts memoir (92pp) written in 2001 giving details of his service as an RAF radar mechanic with No 512 AMES in Singapore (March 1941 - February 1942) and Java where he was captured (February - March 1942), and his experiences as a prisoner of war (POW) in Sourabaya camp on Java (March 1942 - April 1943), Haroekoe (May - November 1943), St Vincentius hospital camp in Java (December 1943 - June 1944), Singapore (July – August 1944) and Sumatra (August 1944 - September 1945). The longer memoir includes extended notes on concert parties, sporting events and POW artists sustaining morale during early captivity (1942); the appalling conditions during his voyage to Haroekoe (May 1943), his time, mainly in the camp hospital, on the island, and then for a three-week period of confinement within the hold of the Japanese prison ship NICHINAN MARU with little food or water during the return voyage to Java (November – December 1943); time spent in St Vincentius and a brief stay at Cycle camp in Batavia prior to transfer to the Pakanbaroe railway on Sumatra (August 1944); the surrender of the Japanese (August 1945) and his repatriation via Ceylon on the SS STRATHNAVER (September - December 1945). There are particularly interesting observations of innovative medical interventions and treatments devised by POWs such as the production of a rice yeast 'brew' on Haroekoe (1943) and the design of sterilisation devices and prosthetic limbs made for prisoners at St. Vincentius hospital (1944). Together with this memoir is a second ts memoir (12pp), written in the 1990s, describing in detail the construction methods, harsh conditions and starvation diet experienced during a typical 'day' whilst labouring on the Pakanbaroe railway, Sumatra (August 1944 – August 1945), plus additional notes (9pp) on further hospital treatment he received at RAF Cosford on repatriation (December 1945 – May 1946), and at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton in the 1970s as part of tropical disease investigations made available to former Far Eastern POWs.
Content description
Brief wordprocessed account (4pp) written in the 1990s, and longer ts memoir (92pp) written in 2001 giving details of his service as an RAF radar mechanic with No 512 AMES in Singapore (March 1941 - February 1942) and Java where he was captured (February - March 1942), and his experiences as a prisoner of war (POW) in Sourabaya camp on Java (March 1942 - April 1943), Haroekoe (May - November 1943), St Vincentius hospital camp in Java (December 1943 - June 1944), Singapore (July – August 1944) and Sumatra (August 1944 - September 1945). The longer memoir includes extended notes on concert parties, sporting events and POW artists sustaining morale during early captivity (1942); the appalling conditions during his voyage to Haroekoe (May 1943), his time, mainly in the camp hospital, on the island, and then for a three-week period of confinement within the hold of the Japanese prison ship NICHINAN MARU with little food or water during the return voyage to Java (November – December 1943); time spent in St Vincentius and a brief stay at Cycle camp in Batavia prior to transfer to the Pakanbaroe railway on Sumatra (August 1944); the surrender of the Japanese (August 1945) and his repatriation via Ceylon on the SS STRATHNAVER (September - December 1945). There are particularly interesting observations of innovative medical interventions and treatments devised by POWs such as the production of a rice yeast 'brew' on Haroekoe (1943) and the design of sterilisation devices and prosthetic limbs made for prisoners at St. Vincentius hospital (1944). Together with this memoir is a second ts memoir (12pp), written in the 1990s, describing in detail the construction methods, harsh conditions and starvation diet experienced during a typical 'day' whilst labouring on the Pakanbaroe railway, Sumatra (August 1944 – August 1945), plus additional notes (9pp) on further hospital treatment he received at RAF Cosford on repatriation (December 1945 – May 1946), and at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton in the 1970s as part of tropical disease investigations made available to former Far Eastern POWs.
History note
Cataloguer LO
History note
Catalogue date 2013-03