Digger’s Story: Surviving the Japanese POW camps was just the beginning

by David

  Digger told him that all that was required now was to ensure that they kept any infection at bay. This also went successfully and the patient healed in no time.

  About a month later, towards the end of June 1945, Digger faced a more serious problem. A patient had an ulcer on the top of his foot and well into his ankle, and no matter what treatment Digger tried it just got worse. Eventually, despite all Digger’s efforts, the wound turned gangrenous. The smell was terrible as Digger removed the latest dressing.

  ‘Am I going to die?’ the man asked Digger.

  ‘No, not if I can help it, mate,’ Digger replied. ‘But you know what we have to do, don’t you?’

  The patient nodded.

  Digger set about gathering all the materials he needed for his second operation. He dreaded it, and felt that he had just about had enough of doctoring. This was the last straw. Handing out quinine and temporarily curing bouts of malaria was all very well, but sawing through a bloke’s leg was another thing entirely. What if he died? Digger swore that when he got home he would do anything other than doctoring.

  In his earlier days in the army, Digger had hoped eventually to become a doctor, but he had seen so much pain, suffering and death that this ambition had dissipated. He was quite happy to do what he could for his fellow prisoners in the meantime, but studying medicine was no longer his long-term plan. Perhaps something with more immediate reward, he thought.

  Again Digger went to the supplier in Lop Buri, who this time refused point blank to take any money for the materials. He made sure that Digger had everything he could possibly need, including more novocaine than he thought would be required. Best be on the safe side, he advised, and Digger tended to agree. Digger got a suitable carpenter’s saw from the Japanese at the camp and had it sharpened.

  From his experiences in the mortuary at Changi, and in helping Dr Fagan in Kanchanaburi, Digger knew exactly what he had to do. He knew what peeling back skin actually felt like, what it felt like to cut through bone and sew up skin. He knew he had to keep enough skin to cover the stumps of the two leg bones. With Dr Fagan he had learned what to do with the blood vessels and nerves.

  Digger had watched two similar operations at Kanchanaburi. One bloke had lived and one had died from infection and shock. His patient was reasonably healthy and in relatively good shape, having lived at the Lop Buri camp for the past two months.

  This time, Digger needed to tie a tourniquet around the patient’s leg. He had a few more helpers for this operation, including one whom he trusted enough to hold the ends of the blood vessels as he tied them off, but apart from that and the massive doses of novocaine he injected into the patient’s leg, the procedure was very similar to the toe operation.

  And, like the previous operation, this one went according to plan. The patient was moaning a lot but Digger was able to shut the noise out and concentrate on what he was doing. He removed the lower part of the man’s leg, made sure the blood vessels and nerves were safe, and sewed the skin together to form a stump.

  Once the anaesthetic wore off, the patient was in a great deal of pain. Nevertheless, he seemed to be very pleased to be rid of his ‘stinking foot’, as he called it. Digger treated him very carefully with M&B 693, ensuring that no infection was allowed to take hold, and the man improved daily.

  As good as life was at Lop Buri, all the men really thought about was the end of the war and home. They all knew that peace was very close, but there was a great deal of uncertainty about how the war would end. Would the Americans invade Thailand and free them? Or would they continue to bomb the camps, as they had been doing, ever more frequently? Would the Japs give up? Everyone knew they were taking a beating in Burma and in the Pacific, and that bombing in Japan was also now very heavy.

  Late in the afternoon of 16 August 1945, Digger had occasion to visit the latrines. As he carefully lowered his skinny frame into a suitable position over the hole in the bamboo slats above the pit, his thoughts turned to home and the relative comfort of a real toilet seat. What would such a seat feel like? He suddenly realised that it had been so long since he had used one that he was unable to conjure up the memory of it.

  Would they ever escape this bloody existence? For a second Digger felt hopelessness well up within him, but he quickly brushed aside these desperate thoughts and his more natural analytical and optimistic response to adversity kicked in.

  A Japanese surrender must be possible, he knew. But even the more reasonable guards at Lop Buri would do exactly as the Emperor ordered, and so all in the camp lived with the knowledge that their captors were capable of anything. A Japanese surrender would bring escape, but many believed that it might not be in the form they were all hoping for.

  Most of the men had been POWs for more than three and a half years. Until their time at Lop Buri, they had all endured regular beatings and daily humiliation; many had experienced torture of a more specialised nature. Everyone knew of at least one summary execution. Those who had survived to this point also knew individual guards and camp officers in the railway camps guilty of carrying out, or of ordering, such treatment. Would they be allowed to live with this knowledge when the war ended?

  The men knew that jungle would soon reclaim the camp area once it was shut down. The earth of the bund would fill in the trench and cover their bodies. In time, a circle of bones would be the only evidence of the terrible crimes committed here. There would be no one to carry their story home, to tell of the bravery, the deprivation, the humiliation or the sacrifice, because they would all pay the highest price.1

  Well, not while I’m still alive and producing a turd, thought Digger. He smiled as he reminded himself of his mates’ survival humour at Kanchanaburi, and he started to use the handful of grass he had carefully chosen and carried into the latrine.

  Digger was interrupted by a Japanese voice coming from behind the latrine. In imperfect but clear English, it delivered a simple statement: ‘War finish.’

  This was not the first time Digger had heard such a message. Some guards had taken a sadistic pleasure in making such announcements, particularly six months previously, when they were all in the railway camps. Many guards revelled in the momentary delight on the faces of the prisoners who had not experienced such deception before, or who were so desperate and ground down from illness, torture, starvation and sheer hard work that their minds had suspended any notion of reason.

  This time, however, Digger knew that the timing was right. The plain message delivered by one guard at the latrine was very different from the same announcement made by a group engaged in brutal mockery.

  ‘Is that right?’ he asked from his side of the screen.

  ‘True,’ came the reply.

  Perhaps the attitudes of the guards had changed because they knew the war was coming to an end. They seemed less confident. Many now tended to ignore minor breaches of discipline, such as a failure to salute, whereas that would once have earned you a severe bashing. It therefore seemed most unlikely that this was a trick.

  But why had the guard told him this? It was either a sign of impending disaster or of imminent release. There was only one way to check for sure.

  Part 3

  Locating the Graves

  Chapter 11

  Freedom

  Five guards were on duty at the entrance to the Lop Buri camp. They were sitting on a three-tiered hardwood terrace-like structure, complete with an attap palm roof and open sides. They all held rifles, with the butts resting on the step below. The terrace was four or five metres long, with access steps up one side. Similar structures served as the guardhouses at the entrance of almost every Japanese camp on the railway.

  Digger walked from the latrine to the camp gate, all the time looking directly at the guards. He knew they had seen him before he drew level with them, and he expected to hear the usual Japanese command: ‘Kora!’ The word could mean ‘stop’ or ‘come here’, depending on the speaker’s body language. In the railway camps it was usually follow
ed up with a rifle butt in the gut. But now he heard nothing, and the guards didn’t move.

  Digger slowly walked to the gate, and then kept on walking. When he was ten yards outside the gate, he stopped and turned around. He looked directly at the guards, who were still lounging on the ‘terrace’ as though they were at a cricket match. All of them avoided his gaze.

  This could only mean one thing. Digger didn’t know if it was worry or relief that he felt, but he felt his heart flutter a little as he walked back into the camp.

  A small group of men was waiting for him outside the huts. They had seen what had happened and were now as excited as he was. There was no need to explain or analyse what had happened. Everyone knew instinctively that the war was over, although their fears of what might happen next weren’t yet allayed.

  For the past few months, as rumours of the end of the war had spread around the camp, the men had been busy preparing. A decision had been made that if the worst happened, they would not go quietly. If ordered to stand by the bund to be executed, they would fight. They would be armed with the weapons they had become so expert in handling: picks, shovels, hammers and crowbars. If it happened during the night, when the tools were locked away, then they’d take up the sharpened bamboo spears that they’d secreted around the camp. The POWs were much fitter now after six months at Lop Buri. They would be no pushover.

  There was an eerie calm about the camp. In deep but quiet conversations, the men theorised about what would happen next. The guards stayed in their quarters; it was as if they were avoiding the men. There had been no arrivals of vehicles or extra troops that might have heralded danger. But the homemade weapons were at the ready, just in case.

  Very gradually, and without letting ridiculous thoughts such as home or loved ones enter their heads, the men continued to talk late into the afternoon. A quiet but recognisable excitement spread among them. As darkness came, another thought surfaced. Rumours had circulated that when the war ended there would be opportunities for revenge. It was understood that for a period of twenty-four hours after the surrender, Australians would be immune from prosecution if they beat up a few guards. As much as many of them would have liked to take advantage of this opportunity, the Japanese were still armed. At this camp, everyone wanted simply to get home. The truly sadistic guards had all been left behind on the railway.

  Some Australians elsewhere did take advantage of this supposed gesture from the authorities, whether or not it was real. In Saigon, for example, the celebrations were great when the POWs heard about the two atom bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jack Noel Taylor of the Royal Norfolks 4th Battalion, 18th Division, wrote the following in his diary:

  When the realization came that the Japs had surrendered, a few tears were shed by us, but not the Australians, they went in search of our guards. The beatings and abuse were too fresh to be forgotten, and all the pent-up emotions of the last few years were let out, many guards lost their lives over the next few days.1

  At Lop Buri that night, the men did not head to bed as they normally would. Lights could be seen from the Jap quarters, and they knew all the guards were talking. Suddenly there was a burst of activity.

  ‘What the fuck are they up to now?’ said a voice in the darkness, echoing what they were all thinking.

  ‘Right, let’s get the bastards,’ said another.

  Hearts beat faster and hands all reached for the weaponry.

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Digger. ‘Just let’s see what they’re up to.’

  Suddenly, the guards emerged from their buildings. They were not carrying their rifles but boxes of papers. The Allies’ hearts returned to their normal rhythm. After some toing and froing, the guards started a large bonfire. They were obviously destroying the camp records. This proved beyond doubt that the war was over.

  ‘I thought we’d had it for sure,’ said one guy. His voice expressed the relief they were all feeling.

  Gunfire was heard in the distance. Initially, the Australians thought that the poor buggers at a nearby camp were copping it, but these were just single shots. There was no machine-gun fire. It took a further few seconds for the men to work out what they were hearing.

  ‘Jesus! They’re shooting themselves,’ someone said. ‘Fucking great! I hope the bastards burn in hell!’

  At Lop Buri, however, the guards were still preoccupied with burning their paperwork. Digger and a few mates headed towards the camp storehouse. The mood had very quickly turned from apprehension about the future to celebration of the present.

  The storehouse was on short stumps, about half a metre off the ground. It was a relatively easy matter to crawl under it, from where they could prise up the bamboo flooring. They climbed inside. The grog was in small demijohns, and the men manoeuvred a couple down under the floor and carried them back into the welcome arms of their excited mates. In the centre of their compound, they made up a bowl of ‘punch’ using the grog and some coconut water.

  To the sound of the intermittent distant gunfire, the men at Lop Buri camp got very drunk for the first time in three or four years. The pain from their ulcers, the cramps from their diarrhoea and the fever from their malaria were now more bearable than ever before. They would soon see home again.

  You have no idea the feeling of relief that we experienced, knowing that our term of imprisonment was over. It was like a whole load of worry had been lifted off our minds and been replaced by this feeling of great anticipation about the future. We weren’t very sure about what was going to happen but we just knew it was going to be great.

  These feelings got stronger over the next few days. There was no more work – it was the first holiday we had had in years! We no longer had to salute the bastards. In fact, some of the blokes would get some amusement by making the Japanese salute them. It was funny, but I – who had been so determined to get revenge – didn’t really feel like it. That may have been because, in relative terms, these particular guards had been good to us. It was the bastards at Kanchanaburi who I would have liked to put on the spit.

  It was amazing how the guards’ demeanour had changed. They became deferential and completely obedient. You could ask them to light your cigarette. In fact, I tried it out and was able to order one guard to hand his cigarettes around our group. I just knew in the back of my mind that this ability we victors now had would come in handy very soon. I was even able to order around Japanese officers.

  On the third day, the Japs received orders and provided transport for the 200 or so men who were at the Lop Buri camp. With their meagre possessions in hand, they clambered onto the trucks amid much jostling and joking. It was like a Sunday bus outing only hundreds of times better. They were taken two hours south to a large transit camp at Nakhon Nayok, about 120 kilometres north of Bangkok.

  At the Nakhon Nayok camp, chaos reigned. There were at least a thousand Allied men and very few officers; if there were any, they were certainly taking no responsibility for camp organisation or discipline. And anyway, the men were all so exhilarated to be free that any expectation that they would respond to an order was futile.

  Previously, at the Kanchanaburi camp, many of the officers had been doctors, and there had been few officers other than doctors on the railway too. The reason for this was probably that the Japs had generally observed the part of the Geneva Convention that said officers should not be required to do physical work. Digger’s view was that the Japs probably considered Allied officers more bother than they were worth; they had their own engineers and supervisors. Digger also suspected that the Allied officers had been transferred out of the camps so that it was easier to manipulate and kill the men, if it came to that.

  Then came another American air raid. For years prior to the end of the war, the Americans had been bombing the railway and the work camps in central Thailand. As soon as the men heard planes approaching, they ran for the ditch they had so carefully prepared around the camp. It was impossible to think that they might have survived life i
n hell for three and half years only to die from an attack by the American Air Force. Many men had died from similar attacks in the recent past; as much as they welcomed the strife the raids brought to the Japanese, they feared for the deaths they inevitably inflicted on the POWs.

  But this air raid was different. As the two four-engine planes came in low, their bomb bays opened. The crowd of men panicked, and everyone scattered or hit the ground where they were. Hands covered ears to protect against the expected deafening explosions. But there were no explosions.

  Heads were cautiously raised, and they realised that what had been dropped were ‘storepedoes’ – supply containers. Constructed from timber, these were cylinders about six feet long and fifteen inches or so in diameter. They were designed to slide along the ground when they landed, but more often they burst open on impact and all sorts of goodies were strewn across the ground.

  The men were soon gathering up these American gifts, which included food and drugs. Over the next couple of days there were more drops. One particularly intriguing piece of technology that came floating down from on high was the self-heating milk drink. This was a tin of milk that had two lids. When you took the first lid off, the whole can began to get warm, and after a minute or so you took off the second lid and could drink it. Closer inspection revealed that a clever chemical reaction powered the heating.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Digger. ‘I wonder if they’ll deliver these to the door every morning!’

  While scrambling for food, Digger bumped into Max Wall. Digger hadn’t seen Max since Changi. They shook hands and clapped each other on the back. They did not hug, nor did they cry, but neither could they find any words. It was a full two minutes before they could congratulate each other on their survival.