Description
Object description
British signalman served with Royal Corps of Signals attached to 135th Field Regt, Royal Artillery, 18th Infantry Div in Singapore, Malaya, 1/1942-2/1942; prisoner of war in Changi Camp, Singapore, Malaya, on Burma-Thailand Railway and Saigon Camp, Saigon, French Indochina, 2/1942-8/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Glasgow, GB, 1915-1940: political leanings; desire to fight Fascism; employment; reasons for volunteering for Royal Corps of Signals, 3/1940. Aspects of operations as signalman with Royal Corps of Signals attached to 135th Field Regt, Royal Artillery, 18th Infantry Div in Singapore, Malaya, 1/1942-2/1942: voyage from GB to Singapore, Malaya, 10/1941-1/1942; arrival in Singapore, 13/1/1942; Japanese air attack; duties as batman; Japanese air attack on camp; opinion of lack of Allied air and naval opposition to Japanese; Japanese tactics; opinion of Japanese equipment; character of Japanese soldiers; how troops' received instructions from Malaya Command; comforting fearful cook; narrow escape during line-laying work.
REEL 2 Continues: story of casualties during Japanese bombing of line-laying team; low level Japanese air attacks; 135th Field Regt's action against Japanese; heavy Japanese casualties during final attack across Causeway; his reaction to capitulation of Singapore, 2/1942; question of escaping from Singapore; instances of suicide; awareness of Japanese atrocities. Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Changi Camp, Singapore, Malaya, 1942: march to Changi; rations; sight of Japanese shooting of Chinese civilians; Japanese attitude towards Gurkhas; Japanese and Gurkhas jungle tactics; treatment of prisoners of war by Sikhs of Indian National Army; civilian aid given to prisoners of war; work parties on Japanese Bukit Timah War Memorial and docks.
REEL 3 Continues: attractions of dock work parties and relations with Japanese Navy personnel. Recollections of period as prisoner of war on Burma-Thailand Railway, 1942-1943: train journey from Singapore to Thailand; witnessing Japanese execution of woman; accommodation at Tamarkan Camp; prisoner of war pay; officers purchasing supplies for men; prisoner of war sickness; work of Japanese engineers on railway bridge; rape and pillage by Japanese in Thailand and Malaya; Japanese camp commandant's speech to prisoners of war at Nong Pladuk Camp; behaviour of Japanese guards; Korean guard nicknamed 'The Undertaker' and his view of the war's progress; Japanese interpreter nicknamed 'The Yank'.
REEL 4 Continues: behaviour of Japanese guard nicknamed 'The Yank'; nature of Japanese war reporting; role of Kempeitai in camps; torture of prisoners of war in attempt to find concealed radio; question of impossibility of escape; nature of work on railway; effects of malnutrition; stories of prisoner of war cannibalism; absence of sex drive among prisoners of war.
REEL 5 Continues: incidence of homosexuality; cases of prisoners of war with good jobs who lived relatively well; Japanese prostitutes; suicide of prisoner of war who contracted syphilis; male prostitutes at Kinsaiyok Camp; spare time activities including chess playing; story of Japanese guards who became demented for trivial reason; his apprehension on being discovered to be Jewish; Allied air raid on camp and later in French Indo-China.
REEL 6 Continues: construction of Kinsayo Camp by Tamil labourers and their insanitary habits; squalor of Kinsayo Camp; 'speedo' period on railway; cholera outbreak; prisoners of war giving up and maintaining will to live; his return to site of Kinsayo Camp during 1978; leaving Kinsayo Camp; conditions in hospital camp; prisoner of war police force and organisation of camp; death rate; duties retrieving Union flag from buried corpses; belief in personal survival.
REEL 7 Continues: Aspects of journey from Thailand to French Indochina via Singapore, Malaya, 1943: contact with civilians in Singapore; conditions aboard SS Awa Maru; prisoner of war desire to kill Japanese in event of successful Allied attack. Aspects of period as prisoner of war in Saigon Camp, Saigon, French Indochina, 1943-1945: signs of Allied bombing in Saigon; sight of French civilians; improvement in diet; accommodation; prisoner of war deaths in Allied air raids; receiving news of Japanese surrender from Vietnamese, 8/1945; Royal Air Force leaflet drop on camp, 8/1945; arrival of Royal Air Force officer, 8/1945.
REEL 8 Continues: Royal Air Force officer's encounter with Japanese camp commandant Captain Suzuki and stripping him of rank; arrival of clothes, food and mail for former prisoners of war. Reflections on prisoner of war experience: long-term effects of captivity on former prisoners of war; question of treatment received by British Government and inadequacy of compensation; attitude to Emperor Hirohito's visit to GB, 10/1971; attitude towards Japanese, 1981.