Lieutenant-Colonel E.E. 'Weary' Dunlop*, one of 44 Australian doctors on the Burma-Thailand railway, was renowned for his untiring efforts to care for the sick. In this audio interview 'Weary' Dunlop recalls his ongoing battle with the Japanese works boss in
Audio transcript
Well, this was a continuous treadmill in which I used to have to attend the number 1 works' boss of the Japanese, and he would say, 'Tomorrow so many hundred men', and I would say, 'Impossible! We can't turn out this number', and we would argue until 10 o'clock during which time I could usually beat him down a few men. Then I'd have to wait up and see the last of the workforce in — around 2 o'clock in the morning they would come in practically crawling. So then you've got to make your assessment of how many men would be regarded by the Japanese as 'very fit men, very fit men' and how many would say 'little sick men, or little byoke men' and this really wasn't official, but I used to have a group of 'little byoke men', and these would be fellows standing shivering with fierce attacks of malaria, pouring dysentery, tropical ulcers, great raw ulcers on their legs or their feet like raw tomatoes, just looking like they had no skin on them, and there they would stand in a dejected group. But I had still another group: people who we carried out physically and laid on the parade ground, and so these men can't stand up. Sticks would be waved over them and they would be kicked, and if they didn't get to their feet, they might even be given a hammer to crack stones with, it was a relentless business. We had all sorts of tricks. I would instruct people to collapse on their way out of the camp, and we'd rush and carry them to the hospital. We could usually win a few tricks, but you know, that was a sick parade. [©Copyright ABC]