by David
‘How do we do that, then?’ asked Joe.
Various suggestions for how they might transfer the food from the officers to the hospital kitchen were then put forward. Max Wall made the point that what they were considering might well be regarded as stealing, and stealing from officers could land them all in a great deal of trouble. Digger quickly pointed out that the tinned goods they were going to ‘steal’ had already been stolen from elsewhere. And no matter what crime they might be accused of, it couldn’t be worse than eating well while those in the hospital were starving. Anyone keeping food for himself in this situation, officer or not, did not have a moral leg to stand on.
It was eventually decided that at the very first opportunity they would simply go through all the officers’ lockers or boxes in their sleeping quarters. Officers were a great lot for having planning meetings, which lasted for an hour at least, and Digger’s mates had already established that the food was not stored in their mess or kitchen. They resolved to take the food and deliver it to the hospital kitchen. An opportunity presented itself the very next day.
Digger organised for eight of the group to hold two blankets open under the windows of the officers’ quarters, which were on the first floor of Roberts Barracks. The rest went into the rooms, where they broke open and ransacked every box or cupboard that could possibly be holding tinned food. They threw the tins out of the open windows down into the blankets below. About twenty minutes later, all the food was in the small storeroom attached to the hospital kitchen, where it was guarded twenty-four hours a day from then on.
The group was now ready for some reaction from the officers, and perhaps a visit from the military police. Digger actually looked forward to this, but neither eventuated – at least, not immediately. Digger also thought he might hear from Lieutenant Colonel Summons, who by this time was the commanding officer at the hospital. But nothing happened.
Digger and his mates discussed this non-action, concluding that the officers were too embarrassed to take any action. About a week later, Digger noticed that wherever he went, a military policeman was always close by somewhere. Someone was keeping an eye on him, but that didn’t really bother Digger.
Despite Digger’s part in the food-recovery project, he was still able to maintain the friendship he had with Major Dr Roy Maynard, a pathologist from Melbourne. Digger had known him for many years, first as the Officer Commanding (OC) his company in the Light Horse and subsequently as the OC of Digger’s A Company in the 2/9th Field Ambulance. There were unique opportunities for a pathologist at Changi, and so – with the hospital’s blessing – Maynard continued his work. He knew that Digger had ambitions at this time to study to become a doctor, so he asked him to work as a technician in the mortuary.
Digger accepted the offer, rightly thinking that whatever he learned in this position would stand him in good stead for his future training. Little did he know how soon the skills he learned would be put to the test. For the rest of his time at Changi, Digger worked in the mortuary’s pathology laboratory.
One area in which Dr Maynard had an interest was the effect of vitamin deficiency on the body, and some of Digger’s work in the mortuary was connected with this. There were quite a few medical discoveries made at Changi around this time related to starvation and subsequent death. Studies such as Dr Maynard’s eventually led to links being discovered between vitamin deficiency and lack of central vision.3
Digger soon learned how to extract organs, preserve them using formalin, replace organs, and how to close the body cavity when the body was no longer required. On one occasion he had to extract a brain. Under Dr Maynard’s supervision, he removed the skin from the top half of the skull, sawed transversally around the head until the top half of the skull was almost ready to lift off, and tapped the last attachments through with a small hammer and chisel. The skull was then lifted off, and the brain was detached and removed from the skull cavity.
Most importantly, Digger learned to work quickly and neatly. He soon knew what it felt like to cut through bone and stitch muscle and skin together.
We had microscopes and everything in the pathology room. And there were also interns in Changi, younger doctors who were still learning. They would come to the morgue to watch me do the cutting up. Occasionally one fainted – perhaps because I tended to put it on a bit!
I worked in the morgue for months, and one time I discovered what Dr Maynard called a ‘horseshoe kidney’. Both the kidneys were joined at the top. I preserved it in formalin – it might still be in a jar in Melbourne somewhere.
We had to keep everything as clean as possible, of course, and this wasn’t always easy. I used to empty out the fluids that collected in the body cavity using an old jam tin, and I sewed up the cavity using a bag needle. Dr Maynard wanted me to join him in the morgue at Melbourne after the war, but by that time I’d had enough.
In April 1943, F Force was formed. ‘Forces’ were work party groups of POWs formed by the Japanese at Changi to work in Java, Japan, Manchuria, Indochina, Formosa and Korea, and on the Thai–Burma railway. Between May 1942 and August 1943, eleven such forces – A to L – were shipped off to work in various parts of South-East Asia.
Digger’s great mate Bobby Small was allocated to F Force, which was a mixed Allied force of 7000 men, of which 3666 were Australians and the rest British. The men were not all fit – many had been patients at the Roberts Barracks hospital – but, as the Japanese explained, the unfit men would have a better chance of recovery with good food and in a pleasant location that had good facilities for recreation. There would be no marching except for short distances, and transport would be provided for baggage and for those unfit to march.
Under these circumstances, Bobby was quite happy to go. Digger and his mates organised a small farewell party the night before he left. They all wished him luck as he departed on this adventure.
The men boarded steel railway boxcars for the five-day journey to Ban Pong, Thailand, at the southern end of the Thai–Burma railway. On their arrival, the great gap between what the prisoners had been led to expect and the conditions they were about to experience immediately became apparent. They were marched a mile to a transit camp of attap huts, which had been occupied by native labourers but were now a squalid mess. Here they were organised into different huts by a Lieutenant Fukuda and some Korean guards, accompanied by frequent blows and beatings.
The next morning the men learned they would have to march to their respective places of work on the railway. No one told them that the march would be 300 kilometres and would take twenty-five days.
The march was a nightmare for those who were not fit. They rested during the day and walked at night. Naturally enough, they started off with heavy loads of bulging packs, haversacks and rolls of bedding, but as the march continued they were forced to sell items to the locals or to the Japanese soldiers.
The monsoon rains had started and it became increasingly difficult for the sick to walk. Conditions underfoot were slippery and treacherous in the dark. Stretches of the road were flooded; some roads had been swept away altogether. Those who fell behind were liable to fall victim to local bandits, who would rob them and then disappear.
Very quickly the majority of the men became ill with dysentery, beriberi or malaria, but even in such conditions they were forced to keep marching. By the time they reached Konkoita, the end of the march for a portion of the group, cholera had broken out. Even before they started work on the railway, F Force had lost nearly 600 of its original members.4
In August 1943 Digger was still working in the pathology lab, becoming quite skilled in the tasks required of him. Then his name came up to join L Force. This was a medical group going up to the railway, and the word was that it was to work in the so-called ‘hospitals’ set up there for the native forced labourers, known in Japanese as ‘romusha’ or in English as ‘coolies’. Originating mainly from Java, Singapore, Malaya and Burma, the romusha made up the main labour force on the railway, n
umbering far more than the POWs. They too had been lied to about the conditions; some had even been kidnapped to work on the railway.
It is estimated that up to 250,000 romusha were pressed into service on the Thai–Burma railway. This labour force was in addition to the over 60,000 Allied POWs working there. Due to the depletion of the romusha numbers by death and disease, the Japanese made the decision to send medical teams to Thailand and Burma in an effort to maintain them as part of the slave labour force.5 L Force was the second such team, having been preceded by K Force, which had left Changi in June 1943.
In February 1942 there had been 15,000 Australians at Changi; now there were less than 2500. All those who had left were working for their Japanese captors from Japan to Formosa, with a great many on the Thai–Burma railway.
When Digger heard that he was on the list for L Force, he immediately thought that it might have something to do with his taking the food from the officers’ quarters, since some Australian officers were involved in the decision, although he wasn’t sure who they were. By now, everyone knew of the hardships that awaited those who were recruited for such groups.
Digger knew that there were a limited number of medical personnel at Changi, however, and that some people had to be chosen to go. He realised that perhaps it was as simple as the fact that he was a fit, trained medical orderly.
He was called up in front of Lieutenant Colonel Summons, who had been his commanding officer since he was sixteen years old, and who certainly knew about most of the exploits Digger had been involved in. Summons explained to Digger that going with L Force would not be any sort of holiday camp. He advised Digger to refuse the invitation and stay where he was, doing useful work in the pathology laboratory at Changi. Summons left him in no doubt that he could fix it so that he did not have to join L Force.
Digger thanked him and said that he was quite content to go. So many of his mates had gone on other forces before him, and anyhow, he was well aware that if he didn’t go then someone else would have to go in his place. Lieutenant Colonel Summons thanked him, and Digger saluted and left the office. Digger knew that for men like Summons, it was anything but easy to decide who should go to the railway. He was very grateful that he had at least been given the chance to stay if he wanted to.
Digger also had other reasons for wanting to leave Changi. As a result of his activities in the camp, he was now very well supervised by the Allied officers, which of course he disliked. The optimist in him reasoned that there would be more opportunities outside Changi.
So Digger packed up his gear, such as it was, making sure that he had as large a supply as possible of quinine, iodoform and M&B 693 – an antibacterial drug that was widely used before the discovery of antibiotics. He knew that these supplies could mean the difference between life and death, and he had no intention of dying.
He said goodbye to his mates and joined the march to the station in Singapore, which took about half a day. He didn’t know anyone in L Force well, although he recognised several faces. The commanding officer of this force was Lieutenant Colonel H. C. Benson, a British officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). With him were eleven other British medical officers and three Australian medical officers, Majors H. L. Andrews, P. J. Murphy and T. Crankshaw, as well as a hundred ORs, all medical orderlies and mostly Australian.6
But Digger knew little of this detail at the time, as he climbed aboard a small steel truck with about thirty-five others. As far as he was concerned, he was off on another chapter of this adventure. As he was shoved into a corner of the truck, the thought passed through his head that he would likely get to know those around him rather well before the journey ended. He was right.
Chapter 7
Journey to the Railway
Mid-afternoon on 23 August 1943, the men of L Force felt the movement that signalled the start of their journey. It was relatively dark inside the steel rice truck, and ventilation was poor. Cracks around the door let in a few rays of sunlight but little precious air. Within a few minutes the temperature inside the truck soared, and it was little better even when the speed increased. The men had to stand or else sit with their knees pulled up to their chests. There was much jostling for a half an hour or so, until everyone realised that there was no comfortable position to be had and they would just have to put up with the situation.
No one knew how long the journey would take. They all knew they were heading north to some railway project; the estimates of how long they might be enclosed in these torturous conditions ranged from a day to three days. The men cursed and wished the worst on their captors.
As the day progressed and the sun began to set, the complaints gradually became fewer. The moaners had been told to shut up several times. As Digger and others had explained to them, since no one had the power to change anything they just had to accept what they were experiencing. Gradually, all resigned themselves to enduring the conditions. Finally the unbearable heat of the day gradually gave way, but the temperature at night in August in Malaya was not much lower.
And then suddenly the situation got worse. One man in the carriage was no longer able to control his bowels. He had given everyone fair warning for more than an hour, bemoaning the lack of a toilet stop. Now, with a cry of ‘Sorry, fellas,’ he finally let it all go.
While the men of L Force were all relatively fit and healthy, diarrhoea or even dysentery was never very far away. The man was sworn at, of course, but many soon realised that without anywhere to relieve themselves they had better not say too much. Who knew who would be next? Those in the corner with Digger became conscious of urine sloshing about the floor before it escaped through cracks at the side of the floor.
The first stop was early in the morning the next day. The men were allowed to step down onto the side of the track to relieve themselves. They were also fed a very meagre ration of cold rice. It was then back into the rice truck and on their way again.
Some days they had only one stop and some days two. Digger soon realised that where and when they stopped had more to do with the needs of the steam engine than the passengers. During one stop, the Japanese guards allowed the men to have showers under the engine water supply pipe at the side of the track. They were quick to strip off and avail themselves of this luxury. A group of about fifty villagers gathered to watch the spectacle. After showering, the men then did their best to wash down the inside of their carriage.
In the end, the journey from Singapore to Ban Pong took five days and four nights. Their destination was situated about fifty miles east of Bangkok. They arrived at midday on 28 August 1943 and were marched a short distance to a landing on the banks of the Mae Klong River. After the most minimal of meals, Japanese style, the men boarded two large barges.
‘Well, well, a river cruise,’ remarked Vic Kearns as they boarded. ‘Who would have thought the Japs could be so considerate? This is exactly what we need after that fucking train journey!’
Vic was one of the seven POWs including Digger, all medical orderlies, who had stuck together – almost literally – in the corner of that steel rail car for the past five days. In such a situation you heard every word that was spoken. There were no secrets, and all one-on-one conversations were shared. It was the kind of situation in which you either became friends very quickly or decided to opt out of the group as soon as possible. In this corner, the bonds that had been forged between these seven men lasted for years.
Along with Digger and Vic, there was Jim ‘Mick’ Burroughs, a stocky, muscular man, even if he was lighter than he should have been after his time in Changi. He had been a bit of a wrestler and a boxer. Bob Sims was known as ‘Yabba’ because he would never stop talking – mostly about women and sex. Jack Sansom said little but was always worth listening to when he did speak, while Reg ‘Pudding’ Young was the quietest of the men. At forty-two years old, Russ King was the daddy of the group, although the army thought he was much younger. Russ had reduced his age when he’d enlisted so that he would be accept
ed for overseas service.
Their first day of cruising ended at sundown. It had rained heavily in the late afternoon, as it always did during the wet season. The ‘Filthy Seven’, as the group of mates began calling themselves, were soaked but happy. They were disembarked into a large ‘go-down’, a sort of warehouse on the riverbank, where they spent the night. The next morning they boarded the barges again, and by the afternoon of 29 August they had arrived at Kanchanaburi, a small kampong or village at the confluence of the Kwai Noi and Mae Klong Rivers. This was where the Filthy Seven would spend the next year and eight months.
The streets of this small village and the surrounding area were packed with thousands of Japanese soldiers and their equipment. The village consisted of just a few streets but there was hardly a local to be seen. Thousands of small, wiry men in drab Japanese military uniform were everywhere, manhandling artillery pieces and carts packed with goods. It was an unexpected and disconcerting sight for the men of L Force.
What was this build-up for? The only possible explanation was that they must be headed for Burma, even though that would mean walking on jungle tracks for at least 400 kilometres, following the route of the planned railway. Sure enough, a day later, as the members of L Force were doing their best to settle in to their new camp, the Japanese soldiers, with their heavier equipment on ponies, began heading north.
While the last couple of days had been bearable enough, the Allies’ arrival at what they would call the No. 2 Coolie Hospital (or the Dai Ni hospital, as the Japanese referred to it) was anything but pleasant. The area that was to be home to Digger and his friends became the hospital area of a very large romusha camp.