Description
Object description
2 notebooks containing his diary / journal for the period February 1942 – September 1945 (98pp ms), beginning with his experiences in Singapore during the Japanese invasion of the colony, finding a place aboard HMS MATA HARI which left Singapore with other evacuees on 12th February 1942 with the intention of making for Batavia (Java), the ship's interception by the Japanese Navy off Sumatra and the landing of her passengers at Muntok on Banka Island, the men being sent to a nearby airfield for forced labour and imprisoned in Muntok jail before being transferred to Palembang on the Sumatran mainland and held in the city's prison (April 1942), conditions and daily events in the prison, including frequent references to named fellow internees there, his inclusion in working parties outside the prison area, Christmas and New Year's Eve in Palembang (December 1942), transfer of internees from the prison to the newly constructed `Timber Camp' in January 1943 where conditions were in many respects worse, protracted periods spent in the camp hospital with severe skin complaints, transfer to Muntok prison in September 1943 ("Banka Island's hell-th resort"), the journal continuing much as before in spite of the grim conditions, transfer of the prison administration from Japanese civilian to military control in April 1944 and the effects of this on the internees, increasing food shortages, malnutrition and illness from this time onwards, resulting in official representations by the internees' committee to the Japanese camp authorities (the exchanges are reproduced in detail in the journal), the deaths from disease (mainly beriberi) of increasing numbers of named internees being recorded, the removal of the internees from Muntok in February 1945 to camps at Belalau (Loeboek Linggau) on the Sumatra mainland, where they stayed until liberation in September 1945; a `letter-journal' written for his wife from captivity, July 1942 –September 1945 (30pp ms), complementing the contents of the notebooks for the same period; circa 30 letters and a few postcards, mostly from Anderson's wife in Australia to her husband in captivity, also from him to her mainly after his release, including letters concerning his fellow internee and business partner in civilian life, F G Ritchie (of the marine surveyor firm Ritchie & Bisset, for whom Anderson worked), July 1942 – October 1945; typed nominal lists: `British internees died in South Sumatra internment camps' (4pp), `British internees as at 9th September 1945, Belalau camp' (2pp), and casualty information for various ships that left Singapore between 13th and 17th February 1942; miscellaneous documents including items pertaining to Anderson's employment in Singapore after the war and to his wife's wartime work for the US Navy, also a pencil portrait of Anderson made in Palembang prison (July 1942); 6 photographs, mostly of Anderson, also an aerial view of Loeboek Linggau (September 1945).
Content description
2 notebooks containing his diary / journal for the period February 1942 – September 1945 (98pp ms), beginning with his experiences in Singapore during the Japanese invasion of the colony, finding a place aboard HMS MATA HARI which left Singapore with other evacuees on 12th February 1942 with the intention of making for Batavia (Java), the ship's interception by the Japanese Navy off Sumatra and the landing of her passengers at Muntok on Banka Island, the men being sent to a nearby airfield for forced labour and imprisoned in Muntok jail before being transferred to Palembang on the Sumatran mainland and held in the city's prison (April 1942), conditions and daily events in the prison, including frequent references to named fellow internees there, his inclusion in working parties outside the prison area, Christmas and New Year's Eve in Palembang (December 1942), transfer of internees from the prison to the newly constructed `Timber Camp' in January 1943 where conditions were in many respects worse, protracted periods spent in the camp hospital with severe skin complaints, transfer to Muntok prison in September 1943 ("Banka Island's hell-th resort"), the journal continuing much as before in spite of the grim conditions, transfer of the prison administration from Japanese civilian to military control in April 1944 and the effects of this on the internees, increasing food shortages, malnutrition and illness from this time onwards, resulting in official representations by the internees' committee to the Japanese camp authorities (the exchanges are reproduced in detail in the journal), the deaths from disease (mainly beriberi) of increasing numbers of named internees being recorded, the removal of the internees from Muntok in February 1945 to camps at Belalau (Loeboek Linggau) on the Sumatra mainland, where they stayed until liberation in September 1945; a `letter-journal' written for his wife from captivity, July 1942 –September 1945 (30pp ms), complementing the contents of the notebooks for the same period; circa 30 letters and a few postcards, mostly from Anderson's wife in Australia to her husband in captivity, also from him to her mainly after his release, including letters concerning his fellow internee and business partner in civilian life, F G Ritchie (of the marine surveyor firm Ritchie & Bisset, for whom Anderson worked), July 1942 – October 1945; typed nominal lists: `British internees died in South Sumatra internment camps' (4pp), `British internees as at 9th September 1945, Belalau camp' (2pp), and casualty information for various ships that left Singapore between 13th and 17th February 1942; miscellaneous documents including items pertaining to Anderson's employment in Singapore after the war and to his wife's wartime work for the US Navy, also a pencil portrait of Anderson made in Palembang prison (July 1942); 6 photographs, mostly of Anderson, also an aerial view of Loeboek Linggau (September 1945).
History note
Cataloguer SWW