Transcript
We had a very peaceful three months after the war there. I used to have to go, we were taken from our squadron and put into an RSU compound down on the water waiting to be transported home.
We had to wait three months and my duty was to drive up to the camp where the Japanese prisoners of war.
They were all sea marines and a lot of women, Korean women up there that were taken prisoners with them and went into Borneo.
They were, I used to go up in the truck and get twenty of them and bring them down for them to work around the areas and that and we used to watch them because they were very suicidal and they would have knocked themselves off, you know, but we had to stay there and keep an eye on them and when they finished work I'd take them back up and that went on for quite a few weeks and then the LST came in and said ""You're all going home"" and that was it.
They were very, very severe people. They had one idea to die and any chance they got they were going to knock themselves off but they had nothing to do it with because they had no guns.
Nothing. [Q: You didn't feel that they were happy that the war was over?] No. They wouldn't get up and shake your hand or anything. No. No chance of that. They were just disappointed they had lost the war. There was quite a few suicided there, you know, in the camps and that, a helluva lot.
The Gurkhas were looking after them there. It was a very stressing time for them because they had to surrender, you know, and they never got over it the Japanese. They would have died for their country for sure.
