Keith Fowler - World War II veteran

Two goes at enlistment

I enlisted in July 1941. I had two goes at enlistment. The first enlistment I was qualified as not fit to serve home or overseas abroad.

I was given a certificate by a Syrian sergeant and I was 18, I'd already put my age up to 19 and I said to him "What is this?" And he said, "You read it" and I read it and I said, "You got to be joking." And I tore it up and I've never forgotten his words. He said, "My boy, you may be sorry you ever did that." But I wasn't really.

Colonel Blackburn and a stinking ship

He was terrific. I mean, he was a 14-18 war veteran. I mean, I don't think he was a man that showed a lot of, I wouldn't say feeling. But he kept his thoughts to himself. But I think he was very proud of his boys from what we could gather. I know I got a dressing down from him because when we were going overseas, we went over on the Île de France, and I believe they had tried to scuttle that into Singapore. Consequently of that, one big water tank, and one of the motors of the Ile de France, which used to be a French luxury ship at that time, so she could only travel at half pace.

The captain of the big British ship, the Queen Mary, which was in our convoy, he had already advised that captain that if we were attacked by subs, we were on our own. There was nothing that he could do. He would be taking off. But that was in a pretty shocking state.

What I did. Naturally I wrote home. I wrote and told them what a stinking ship it was and all the rest of it. Of course, not realising all this was being censored. Of course, I got called out. I went up before Blackie. He thought I was a German spy... But he thought, "Well, a good talk to won't do him any harm." So that was the only time I think I ever spoke to Colonel Blackburn, and that was the last time I wanted to. But apart from that it was a good trip over, what have you. It was hardening us up for things to come.

Burnt legs

Came in at about 10:00 o'clock at night, and the cook always had a bucket of black tea, for us to have a refreshing drink. It had been drizzling rain all day, and in the camp they'd dug out a big dugout to let the water rain down into the river. It was my turn to get it and of course barefooted and as I was coming back with it, it was an old bucket. My foot slipped, and I threw the bucket, and the whole lot came down on that leg. Both of them. They were just blistered from top to bottom.

Waited till morning when the sick parade was on. Colonel Dunlop had a look at it, and he didn't say anything. Anyway, I don't know if it was Emanzen tablets or what it was. But I know but they couldn't bandage. We had no bandage, so I just have to stay there with them like that. But the point about it was, if you got a little cut on your leg or anything like, within about a week or 10 days, you had an ulcer like that, and I know they thought I was going to lose both my legs. They thought it was nothing surer. Three weeks, and I was out. I'd healed up, just like that.

Malaria

About a week, two weeks later, I got the greatest dose of malaria you've ever seen in your life. Now, because the Japs had agreed to Major Woods and to Colonel Dunlop to build a shower in our camp, which we didn't have, so the boys could come. And they built it all out of bamboo. Now, if they hadn't have got that agreement from the Japs, I wouldn't be here today. Because my temperature was up to 107.2.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon. I can just remember Dunlop saying, "We'll just strap him under the shower." And that's what they did. I sat on, because it gets very cold in the tropics. In the morning, I was about one point off of normal. In about three days, I was out. I still had the malaria, but I was fit enough to go to work.

Marvellous doctors

Well, I think they were pretty conversant with the whole situation, but that didn't make any difference. They had to have their numbers to go out to work, and our doctor's done a magnificent job by trying to work things out with different ones, so that they could keep the weakest back in the camp. And they did everything they possibly could.

Major Corlette, he was a Queenslander. He was a terrific bloke. Oh, what was his... South Australia doctor. But all our doctors were absolutely... I mean, Dunlop, they fought and battled for us all the time. They did a marvellous job. They really did. I mean, I think we had... if I remember, I think we only had one Sunday off in about what two and a half years of it all told.

Hammer and tap work

Mainly tap and drill, tapping for the blasting, and all that. That was mostly how I would say how I got all these knuckles. But the bloke I had as a tapper wasn't a very good hitter, well he was but... That all come down to it, is strength, energy. But that was most of our work, or either with what they call chunkels, that was a blade like thing. And you used to have to dig into the soil, and all that sort of thing. Scrape it away, and fill in the lines, and all that sort of thing. But that was mostly what we did was hammer and tap work.

The vilest rice

When we lobbed into the camp at Konyu, at Hintok, we were told to step out and we thought we going to be shot because we were no good with glasses on. But, we went into their cookhouse. So we had about three weeks in there. So you couldn't steal anything, but we were allowed to have a certain amount. But we did, we were able to steal a little bit for the hospital. And you took a hell of a risk because... and they used to have block salt. And I took that back to the boys at night time, because salt was something you never saw.

Oh, no, there was a few wild chillis, green chillis. There was sort of a white radish, but mostly it was just some of the vilest rice. Some of the rice had been treated with... You use it in cement work... Lime because it was full of weevils, so they put... And it was just like rotten eggs. It was terrible. And the weevils part wasn't so bad, and then when we had the weevils, we used to blindfold ourselves because the little white ones, and then somebody said, "Well, they're good protein". So we didn't take offence to their brown heads, so in the finish we took the blindfold off our heads and started to...

About once a year, I think, or twice a year, we used to get what we called nasi goreng, that was sort of fried rice with a bit of peanuts and a little bit of...But on the line, normally it was just ordinary boiled rice, pap, no sugar, no milk in the morning and possibly dried rice.

"Look him in the eyes"

There was another thing. This is the worst thing that happened to me. I can't tell you, it wasn't bicycle camp, it was a camp on two sides of the road. The sergeants, and men, and the doctors were on our side, the officers were on the other side of the road. There was Cliff Orchurch, Ralph Blessing, and Laurie McIntyre. Cliff wasn't very well, and we were sitting on our bunks, and they said, "What the devil can we do with this rice, it tastes that shocking."

We come up with the idea, if we could toast it, it might taste all right, you see? So we had to devise a means by where we could find a bit of tin, a couple of rocks and some wood, and some matches. Well, this was all duly found by one way or another, and I got appointed as cook. So we borrowed... We got four bowls each. So I went out and I cooked the 12, and we finished them. Clifford, he wasn't well, he woke up and he said, "What are you eating?" We said... We told him what we'd done. "Oh," he said, "Chook, you wouldn't mind doing mine would you?" I said, "Yeah, all right."

So I go out there and I light the fire. We get it going, and they're almost cooked, and I'm not kidding, a stone about that big missed my nose by that much, and went flat bang right in the middle of poor old Cliff's doovers. It was the Japanese guard. We didn't know you weren't allowed to light a fire, nobody had told us anything about it. So I went in to Cliff, I said, "Look, Cliff, if you want your rice, you'd better go out and scrub it off the ground." So that's okay.

So about a quarter of an hour later, we were all rounded up to go out into the square to line up. There was a lieutenant chap there, and a sergeant, and Captain Godley was our doctor, terrific bloke. He spoke with the Japanese lieutenant, and Tim Godley said, "I've been asked for the man who lit the fire in the yard to step forward." There was no way I'm going to step forward. So we just stood there. After about five minutes, there was a bit more conversation. Dr. Tim said, "The officers advised me if the man doesn't step forward within the next three minutes, we will start shooting from the front line, each man, until he does, or otherwise you'll all be shot."

Well, I had no alternative. So I was led to the middle of the road, and a Colonel Black in the other camp, I got him and an interpreter, and I don't know what the interpreter said to the sergeant, but he really got mad. Well, the whole object was, I was to be made a show of. The captain, our captain had to hit me, and the Jap sergeant hit me from this side. Of course, our captain he was just tapping me. I said, "Look, shape your fist and give me a donger and I'll go down."

He's trying to, because they hit you with that part, and you're just shudder. You're trying to ride it." So in the finish, I don't know what's going to happen here. He had his rifle up, I thought, "Oh God." So out of the blue, not me, somebody said, "Look him in the eyes." I thought to myself, "I'm not looking... That's going to aggravate." I had no choice then. We looked...We looked at one another. It must have been about three seconds, he put his rifle down and walked off.

Cheating the system

The speedo, yes, the speedo. What would they do? They promised if you were down so many centimetres a day, which was normal for a reasonably fit man but for a man that's sick... And that's what happened. You see, these blokes would put their number down, that amount of centimetres down for the day. They'd go home early, they could go home, and they'd get a little bit of [rest] or they'd get two or three cigarettes. In those days, that was a fortune sort of thing. But not realising what was happening to the other poor blokes who had to stay there three or four hours longer to try to reach that same, and that's what they used to do.

Imaginary feasts

The other thing we used to love, when they cooked the rice, they used to cook it, when we went down in the staging camps to stay, they used to cook it in big quarls, you know, and on the outside of the rice would be all, on the outside of the quarl would be all this toasted rice and the blokes used to go mad for it, used to line up to get a bit of toasted rice. Stupid isn't it?

But I mean it was…even a little bit of nasi goring was a feast and it's amazing how your imagination plays havoc with you. How you can imagine smelling apple pie and roast dinners. That eventually disappeared, you just didn't think of anything. You're just a human on two legs you might.

No such thing as toilet paper

We used to have these quarls over a fire, burning, boiling water, and whatever container you had to eat in, you used to have to dip in the boiling water before you had your meal. It was a normal thing for us to wash our hands. I mean, let's face it. It wasn't like you were living in a luxury hotel. I mean, you did the best you could over the circumstance. But I think the main thing was the boiling water, and the scoring of the mess tins and all that.

I think it was one good thing. Toilets were practical, were as hygienic as practical. But that had its moments too, because there was no such thing as toilet paper and that, and a lot of the blokes found this out when you going through the dunny, especially when you have dysentery. Many men were very sore because they had to use leaves. But they didn't realise one side of the leave was like a fibre...It's like the sign of an early spring. See, these are all the things you used to learn as you went along.

Mine collapse

We were sent up to Pagoda Pass and up there we were doing tunnelling into the hills and that was for the Japanese to have all their storage of rice and that for the troops up in Burma. There was another incident I could have been involved in. With us was a couple of Western Australian chappies, who were miners. We went out this morning to go into the mine and they said "We're not going into it."

The Japanese sergeant starts. They said, "We're not going in." He said, "It's talking." Of course, we thought they were off their la la. We never knew anything about timbers talking or anything like, from our experiences. They said, "No." Said, "It's going to collapse."

Then in the finish the sergeant, Jap thought he'd be a big, brave man. So he walked in, he no sooner got to the end of it, and, bang, it went. Caved in. And he never came out. So the two blokes, Western Australians, sat down and ate his rice and bamboo shoots.

The Duke of York's plane

When we were released, we were released up there at the Seven Pagoda Pass and entrained down to, eventually got finished up in Singapore. There was 20 of us, and fortunately we were flown home. See, a lot of the boys come back by ship. We came back on the Duke of York's plane, the Endeavour, the York plane. All the centre was taken out, mattresses and that. About 20 of us were flown home on that and landed at Parafield, taken to Wayfield and my wife who had been waiting five years.

We were engaged before we left, and I think that's what kept me alive. She was there, my auntie was there. I can remember the horrored look on her face because when we were in Singapore, the temperature being like it is there, they'd given us these towels. I had this wet towel, and she thought they had cut me throat.

But anyway, all the boys, they all got missed. There was two of us. We had to go to hospital. We had helminthiasis. That's a hookworm. So the two of us, we had to go to hospital, and the rest come home, so.