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    I Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway
    I Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway
    I Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway
    Ebook104 pages2 hours

    I Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway

    By Alan Smith

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    About this ebook

    these are the diaries of a scottish rubber planter who joined the volunteers in malayasia and then the indian army as an officer. this book relates his experiences fighting the japanese when they invaded malaysia, then his capture in singapore and incarceration as a prisoner of war, followed by his travels in various camps in siam (thailand) and working on the death railway along the river kwai. the diaries were written in excercise books and hidden throughout his imprisonment. had they been found torture and death were the penalty. contains some original photographs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlan Smith
    Release dateJun 12, 2014
    ISBN9781311632012
    I Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway
    Author

    Alan Smith

    Born in Ashton-Under Lyne in Lacashire (now Tameside) at a date I am not going to disclose for now! I spent a long unsatisfying childhood of broken dreams and promises. I decided I was going to start work as an apprentice cook, so I started work illegally at the age of fourteen,- still not satisfied, at Walls factory in Hyde in Cheshire. That was during the school holidays. Once the holidays had finished, it was back to school to finish at the age of fifteen.After a brief period of being an apprentice welder at Sturtevant Engineering in Denton I started on my Electrical career and being then a "nearly time-served" electrician, after a 4 year period, I decided to go labouring for the extra money needed. Having an electronics background as a hobby, I thought it was only natural that I should persue this and when I was 21, I joined the Royal Signals, studied Telecommunications, got married, had two wonderful girls and travelled throughout Cyprus, Germany, England, Gibraltar and Ireland. I Started a folk group whilst stationed in Laarbruch in Germany, called Penny Farthing. We travelled all over Europe with the group. (Well, Belgium, Holland Germany) I Play G banjo,Tenor Banjo, Guitar, Cittern, Bouzouki, Mandolin, Bass, Tin Whistle, Dulcimer and sitar. Keyboards figured well into my life as I learned to play the piano at an early age, materialising as keyboards in a band.I got my first computer, which was the ZX Spectrum 48K (wow, so much memory!), I started to program in BASIC. When I left the Army in 1987 - now you can start to put together the clues on age! I started working in Telecomms and later on Data companies like IBM and Lucent Technologies. I wrote many comedy songs. During the course of my writing career, I have written many thousands of pages of comedy, speeches and commissioned works for other people and their companies and many hundreds of CV's for people looking for work. So, in effect, my writing has literally helped me through the hard times when I was out of work.I still write the books using a real pen and paper, the analogue version of a word processor. When I first started writing books, I was amazed at, after using computers for work and providing documents, how hard it was to control my hand to do real writing. It was unbelievable! It was like a drunken spider had crawled out of an inkwell and walked across the page. If it wasn't for the fact that I use lined paper, I think it w...

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      Book preview

      I Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway - Alan Smith

      I WAS A JAP PRISONER OF WAR ON THE DEATH RAILWAY

      (Diaries Of a Japanese Prisoner Of War)

      Published by Alan J. Smith

      Copyright 2014 Alan J. Smith

      Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

      THE DIARIES OF A JAPANESE PRISONER OF WAR

      Foreword

      William Herbet Baillie's was a successful rubber planter at this time. Prior to mobilisation he was leading an English planter’s life in Malaya. His diaries cover the Japanese invasion of Malaya as well as life in the horrendous prison camps and Three and a half years working on the infamous Burma/Siam railway.

      In the POW camps this diary was written on scraps of paper and exercise books and hidden throughout his incarceration, had it been found by the Japanese at the time, execution or a severe punishment would have swiftly followed!!!!

      Chapter 1

      CHANGI, SINGAPORE 11th APRIL 1942.

      I have been a prisoner of war for eight weeks, arriving here on the 17th of February after capitulating at Singapore. I am writing this diary to help pass the time, and to defeat the infamous Malayan memory, but realise that I shall still have memories when we are released.

      On 1st of December 1941, I was driving along to Carey Island Club, when Meikle stopped me with the news that mobilisation orders had been issued and we should leave the following morning by the 7.30am launch for our company HQ at Klang. Being the beginning of the month, we had various Progress Reports, and other office routine to attend to, but all of this was gladly handed over to the Conductors, and the evening spent at the Club. Mobilisation was no surprise to us, wireless news made it obvious that events in the Pacific were moving fast, but few of us, if any, realised that in a little over two months we would lose everything we possessed, everything which we stood for and worked to maintain, the standards we set and lived by, all would be gone, and Malaya, a lovely peaceful happy country, would become a land of chaos and disorder, culminating in the fall of Singapore our proudest possession in the Far East, a magnificent Naval Base, but, wrongly regarded as a fortress.

      2nd DECEMBER 1941.

      I packed my army kit, and left instructions with my cook and boy re: salaries, etc., arrived at the launch and sailed down the river for the last time for many years. Mr and Mrs Waite, Hazel and Rosemary, were with us, and arriving at Port Swettenham we all had champagne and wished Hazel good luck as she was going up to Kotha Bharu to marry Major Borrie of the Royal Engineers. The wedding which was to have taken place in Kuala Lumpur having been cancelled, owing to all leave being stopped.

      I arrived at Range Camp, Kuala Lumpur about 3 pm. Five days were spent organising issue of tin hats, emergency field rations, field dressings, etc., and then our company was sent to Port Swettenham for Aerodrome defence. Quarters were pretty bad, being attap huts which had previously been cowsheds, and we all did duty manning the pill boxes around the Aerodrome. Sand flies and Mosquitoes were troublesome.

      8th DECEMBER 1941.

      About 2 am I was asleep on top of a Pill Box, when a runner arrived with the news that the Japanese had landed at Kota Bharu. It was no great surprise as we knew a large Jap convoy had been steaming south for Malaya. After breakfast our platoon (Europeans) returned to range camp. News came that the Japs had been smashed up on the Khota Bharu beaches, the first of many inaccurate reports which came through. Back in range camp we were trained as Mobile Troops. We had a column of five fast trucks, the idea being to deal with any Para troop landings. We were called out one or two times on false alarms. All this time we saw very little of the war except for Jap rescue planes very high up, the air raid sirens in Kuala Lumpur were being pretty continuous. At Khota Bharu the Japs were advancing, and on the West Coast their drive from Siam (Now Thailand) had broken through our positions at Jittra.

      12th DECEMBER 1941

      Fraser and myself with a Malay section took over the guarding of Kent Holt, an advance ordnance depot about 5 miles North of Kuala Lumpur. We were all issued with Tommy Guns as there was a paratrooper scare. During the four days that we were there, convoys of trucks and Bren carriers were moving up North. All that time I was unaware how Massive our transport system was and how few troops were being supplied by the trucks.

      16th DECEMBER 1941

      Returned to Range Camp, more mobile training and all of us becoming a bit bored about everything.

      20th DECEMBER 1941

      The platoon moves out again to Kuala Lumpur Aerodrome for AA defence. We all began to take a bit more interest; Ipoh had been well and truly bombed, so presumably Kuala Lumpur was next on the list.

      Two sections took over Pill Boxes and AA pits on the hill overlooking the airfield. Everyone was pleased about this; the pits were well sited and were also near to the bar. A squadron of Buffalo fighters had arrived the previous day and we watched them climbing and diving, not knowing any better, we were quite impressed. We were soon to see how slow and antiquated these planes were; some pilots had their wireless sets and guns removed to increase their speed.

      Spiers and I took over one of the AA pits, he becoming my loader, we had twin Lewis guns, well mounted and easily handled.

      21st DECEMBER 1941

      The air raid alarm went and we all stood to. At about 7000 feet coming straight over our position were twelve silver grey Jap bombers. I opened up with the twin Lewis guns, and an Indian Bofors blazed away about thirty yards from us, and a 3.7 inch opened up. It was our first air raid and owing to the noise of our Ack Ack we could not hear the bombs whistling down, and were hardly aware of the concussions as they landed around us, until one burst about twenty feet from our pit and shook us considerably.

      The planes then headed for Kuala Lumpur, but some good bursts from the heavy Ack Ack broke up their formation and they turned north again. Apart from some heavy cables and telephone wires down and one building half demolished, there was no damage and no casualties. Only the Buffalo’s, had taken off, but they failed to intercept the Japs.

      22nd DECEMBER 1941

      Another air raid warning came again at 11 am. The Buffalo’s were much quicker off the mark, taking off in pairs until all twelve were in the air. They intercepted the Jap planes at about 8000 feet. We watched our first dogfight, planes twisting and diving, continual bursts of machine gun fire, several planes coming down in flames. Two Buffalo’s crashed on the airfield. One which withdrew from the fight early looked unsteady as it circled around, landed fifty yards short of the runway in a horrible crash. The pilot who was shot in the chest died within a few minutes, the plane had been riddled with bullets. Another Buffalo with the undercarriage hanging loose made a crash landing, the pilot being unhurt. Two other pilots bailed out and were machine gunned as they parachuted down, but neither was injured

      23rd DECEMBER 1941

      A flight of Jap bombers avoided the aerodrome, flew over Kuala Lumpur and dropped several sticks of bombs. We stood to in the gun pits; the heat was terrific so we stripped to the waist. About noon two hedge hopping Jap fighters suddenly tore across our position machine gunning. I got

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