Enlistment
There was a war on and there was a lot of advertisements. Please enlist now, you're wanted at the front sort of thing. I suppose it was half and half. Half a bit of a change, and you were sort of needed in the army, so I enlisted in the army. When my father said he'd sign the ... I was under 21, so he had to sign it. My brother had already gone to the war. He was seven years older than me.
My mother wasn't happy about me going in. She wanted me to stay at home, but I finally talked her out of it. My elder brother who was seven years older than me, he'd already enlisted and gone overseas. I sort of had to go with reinforcements, and overseas he would pick me up. But he'd gone to the Middle East, and I, unfortunately, enlisted when this unit had already been formed and was sent to Singapore. So I ended up going to Singapore.
Singapore: Bombing
When I first arrived, I thought it was supposed to be a fortress with all these massive guns, which were useless. But that was all. There were no fortifications or anything. Singapore of course, you must realize, is an island at the end of the Malayan Peninsula...you know, that the Japanese could bomb at will because there was no air force.
We had six planes or something. They were shot down very quickly, and the Japanese were able to invade. Then at that stage too, they had command of the sea after the early battles. They had that. It wasn't cut off from Australia. The ships could go out. They were coming down the mainland from Vietnam, what is now Vietnam.
They were in French Indo China, around there … they bombed Singapore fairly heavily. I thought maybe because they hit the oil tanks, because they blew up, and just came up in black smoke. That was the first raid and the planes ... It was all, 65 planes had come. They came each time because there was no air force much there to resist them. They had an open go, just let them come and unload their bombs.
Singapore: Church Parade
On Sunday church parade in Singapore. The whole unit was together. Of course, we're all lined up. He wasn't very popular the Colonel. He came out to give the Sunday address, and that, and anyway, we're all looking this way, and he's in front of us here. I could see them, and a few others. We whispered, "What is it?" You could see these nine little spots, and then suddenly they start to get bigger. I look at it, and suddenly you start to hear the roar. But he was a bit deaf, the poor old CO.
Of course, he's going on, giving us one of his speeches, and that. He was standing there. Getting closer, and closer, and a few of the lads said, "I'm breaking off. I'm off." He went, "Where are you blokes going? What's going on?" The blokes said, "Have a look behind you." Then when he turned around, there were these nine planes roaring down. He said, "Parade dismissed." And they did. We just managed to get out of the way. That's what it was.
POW in Japan
Singapore wasn't too bad. The food and that, and they had a lot, soon they started to build the railway. But I missed all that, because going to Japan, I spent nearly two years, a year at least, a year I should say, in the tropics. Then they sent us to Japan, and the northern island to start with, in the middle of winter. They had Christmas in November, which up there was snow. But that was probably, well we lost 20 in the first few months there from the cold. That was the big killer.
No, I didn't like Japan, you were better off staying in Singapore. Japan was a killer sort of a thing…it was, well you assume, you know on a map of Japan, you've got Hokkaido, the northern island, then the main island, and then the southern island. We were up on the northern part of the central island, but on the western side facing Siberia. Of course, there's no mountain ranges between the west coast of Japan, and the North Pole, so you can imagine the blizzards just come down. Not a mountain in the whole way. Of course, that means Japan had dreadful winters. It's tough because they still have them. That was the big, the cold was the big killer there…
In Japan, we had to work in a factory, and that was a different thing. The cold, we weren't used to the cold. The snow. The houses would disappear under the snow. We'd have to dig through, people had to dig themselves out. I've never seen snow like it since. That was the greatest killer, I thought out there.
Hospital ships
They had put me on the American ship. I know. Yes, there were two. When we arrived there, there was this great big white ship, with a big red cross on it, lights blazing. A negro jazz band belting it out, up on the quarter deck. They had the beautiful wheel trolleys that were put on it, and in we went. Got up, and it was beautifully done out. It was only built, it was only been built in the last 12 months of the war. Beautiful beds, and that and all these nurses. We hadn't seen a white woman for three to four years. All gathered around, the nurses, going on. A chap, he come down, and said, "Sorry fellows, you're not American". He said, "You're on the wrong ship lads. We put you on ours, but you're to go on the British ship behind us".
Anyway, they brought us out, and put us on trolleys and wheel us down. It's all dark. They wheeled us out of the lights from the American one, and then we came to this other ship. All it had was just its light up on the mast. There wasn't much there, and it was a British hospital ship. I think it had just arrived because we were the first to come on sort of thing. They put us on, I remember, by a crane. Picked us up, by crane, off the ship. Then they dropped you down into the hold with all the beds and everything were. They kept us there. They're going up into the air, and down into the hold and into the hospital. I was the first one to go down. They put me in the bed, and it was pretty quiet. There was nothing going on.
The next minute I thought what was going on, and this hand came round with a cup of tea. When I looked around to see what the ward nurse, one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life. She was. Even now, it was the first one I'd seen in over four years she was still first-class and she said, "There's a nice cup of tea for you." I didn't know, which was the best thing, coming down and meeting her, or being up there while they're beating up the band, and all those nurses were up there. It was good though. I enjoyed the tea.
