Private Papers of Lieutenant F Brewer CMG OBE

Copies of his diary (15pp ms/ts) kept during August – October 1945 in Sungei Ron prisoner of war camp in Palembang on Sumatra, with useful descriptions of fellow prisoners' reactions to liberation and repatriation; five postcards sent home from Palembang (January 1943 – August 1944), and one received in camp (July 1944); four small notebooks, plus loose sheets (18pp) he kept as a POW, in which he made extensive lists including Dutch and Malay vocabulary and notes on gardening, cooking and travel; various loose papers connected with Brewer's Army service as a Second Lieutenant and his repatriation in 1945 (150pp); his 'Prisoner of War Pay Book' transcribing in full the records of the camp Paymaster in Palembang for rates of pay received by POWs, deductions made by the Japanese and actual monies received by POWs in Palembang (August 1942 – August 1945); together with ts account (155pp) written in 1946 and based in part on Brewer's notes. This account, including amendments and correcting commentary from him in 1986, covers capture on Muntok (February 1942), his move to, and imprisonment in, Palembang where he remained until liberation (March 1942 – September 1945), the bombing of Sumatra by Allied forces (late 1943), medical improvisations devised in the camp hospital in Palembang, the wait following the surrender of Japan to being liberated from the camps (August – September 1945), and commentary on the varying responses by families to the homecoming of former POWs. Included with Brewer's papers is a contemporaneous diary of Lt Stanton RNR, survivor of the sinking of the HMS LI WO in February 1942, containing sporadic entries regarding the bombing of the ship and his subsequent imprisonment at Palembang (February – April 1942).

Copies of his diary (15pp ms/ts) kept during August – October 1945 in Sungei Ron prisoner of war camp in Palembang on Sumatra, with useful descriptions of fellow prisoners' reactions to liberation and repatriation; five postcards sent home from Palembang (January 1943 – August 1944), and one received in camp (July 1944); four small notebooks, plus loose sheets (18pp) he kept as a POW, in which he made extensive lists including Dutch and Malay vocabulary and notes on gardening, cooking and travel; various loose papers connected with Brewer's Army service as a Second Lieutenant and his repatriation in 1945 (150pp); his 'Prisoner of War Pay Book' transcribing in full the records of the camp Paymaster in Palembang for rates of pay received by POWs, deductions made by the Japanese and actual monies received by POWs in Palembang (August 1942 – August 1945); together with ts account (155pp) written in 1946 and based in part on Brewer's notes. This account, including amendments and correcting commentary from him in 1986, covers capture on Muntok (February 1942), his move to, and imprisonment in, Palembang where he remained until liberation (March 1942 – September 1945), the bombing of Sumatra by Allied forces (late 1943), medical improvisations devised in the camp hospital in Palembang, the wait following the surrender of Japan to being liberated from the camps (August – September 1945), and commentary on the varying responses by families to the homecoming of former POWs. Included with Brewer's papers is a contemporaneous diary of Lt Stanton RNR, survivor of the sinking of the HMS LI WO in February 1942, containing sporadic entries regarding the bombing of the ship and his subsequent imprisonment at Palembang (February – April 1942).

Cataloguer SJC / LO

Catalogue date 2006-02-14