VJ Day – Part 2

The second of our VJ Day blogs from our researcher, Paul. He has been looking through local newspapers for stories of Japanese prisoners of war and this blog does contain descriptions of brutality and torture.

An article in the Japan Times states that there were 140,000 allied prisoners of war held by the Japanese forces. The death rate was horrendous; 27% (possibly even as high as 38%), compared with only 4% of those held by the German Army. Death could have been by a multitude of causes not only brutality, mistreatment or summary execution, but also succumbing to tropical diseases, malnutrition and breakdowns to their immune system. Poor food and lack of medicines only made the situation worse. Plus you must also factor in friendly fire. It is thought that one in four deaths was a result of this. US forces attacked many Japanese convoys, most were transporting POWs for work in Japan.

According to the British Legion webpages:  

Even after VJ Day the distances many of these men and women had to travel from Asia and the Pacific back to Britain meant that there were servicemen and women, along with now released POWs, that would not return to Britain until 1946, to a nation trying to move on from the war.

Therefore, when British members of the Fourteenth Army returned to the UK after the war, many were explicitly told not to talk about ‘their’ war. They were told that the war was over, that people wanted to look forward, and in any case the families to which they were returning had wartime experiences of their own. For many, the war became their own personal history, not to be spoken about publicly. For thousands of Far East POWs this was a particularly difficult experience.  

In terms of numbers, resources and sacrifice, the war in North Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe was far greater than Asia and Pacific for the British. As one writer has suggested, ‘only 30,000 British servicemen died in the war against Japan, as compared to 235,000 in the war against Germany.’ The big events in the Far East in 1944, overlapped with great events in Europe, with large numbers of war correspondents and radio journalists in Europe, but not the Far East. There was only one radio journalist at the Battle of Kohima – Richard Sharpe – and he got there by accident, and only stayed a few days [Source British Legion webpages].

I found many stories in the local county newspapers and I apologises for not recording all of them for you to read, but there were simply too many. I have selected a few stories of forgotten, and now long dead, men and women of the North East caught up in this theatre of war:

Mr and Mrs J H White of 20 Ladbroke Street, Amble grieved the death of their son, George White. George served with the 9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. He died whilst in a Japanese POW camp, back in September 1943. They only received notification of his death in December 1945. He was one of three brothers who were all POWs. William had been caught in 1940 and was in Germany, whilst the third son, John, served with George in the same battalion and had been taken prisoner with the fall of Singapore in 1942.

I had heard or read somewhere that many Japanese POWs were shipped home, but not on the usual shipping route via India and South Africa, but via the USA and Canada. This was the longer of the routes and was to make sure that when they arrived home in the UK they had put some weight on. This could be correct as Fusilier Richard Nairn of Warren Mill, Belford, arrived home in December 1945. He was the last of the Belford boys to come home from Japanese captivity. He came home via Canada. He had suffered jaundice on the trip so was hospitalised in Ottawa for three weeks before he could continue his journey.

Mr and Mrs J Wakenshaw of 15 Falloden Terrace, Spittal, received notification from the War Office in December 1945 that their son, Private Thomas Edward Wakenshaw of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, had died on 1 August 1942. Thomas was aged 27 and had been held in a Japanese POW camp in Kuala Lumpur. He had been called up in 1940 and went missing in Malaya in February 1942. 

As a child in the 1970s, I remember calling many times with my grandad to see one of his friends, Allan Hinson, who lived at the lodge house at Ewart Park, Wooler. I remember he was very thin and had a funny colour and all I was told was that he had been a Japanese POW. 

Last year whilst at an antique fair I came across a Second World War medal box. These were sent to soldiers with their entitlement, if claimed after the war. To my surprise it was Allan’s box so I didn’t haggle; I had to have it. It is now in my private collection to be kept for prosperity. I wondered if I would find out anything more about Alan during this research and, low and behold, I did. In the Berwick Advertiser I found two articles:

In the September 1945 Allan’s parents had received two cables and a letter from him saying that he was safe and well in India. He wrote “It’s good to be free again after 3 years and 7 months under the Japs.” He expected to be home before Christmas and regretted having lost some good pals. 

In November 1945 Fusilier A. W. A. Hinson, son of Mr and Mrs Hinson of West Lodge, Ewart Park, arrived home fairly well after long captivity. He was very reticent about his time and treatment by the Japanese. Fortunately he was a batman for the last nine months to a medical officer. He had been captured in Singapore in 1942 having previously served in France and had been evacuated from Dunkirk. 

Fusilier Robert Dawson of 10 Magdalene Drive, Berwick, arrived home on Friday [Berwick Advertiser 25 October 1945] after being held as a Japanese POW for three and half years. He was in 9^th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. Robert was captured in Singapore and spent eight months in a POW camp in Singapore before being moved to Thailand to work on the [infamous] Siam Railway. He was in the same camp as Captain McCreath and Captain Veitch. On liberation, he was flown from Bangkok to Rangoon and then had two weeks convalescing on board the SS Orduna. Robert was in the same camp as Berwick lads Gunner J McDonald, Corporal Foster, Fusiliers Johnson and Townsley. A number of other lads from Berwick died in this camp.    

William Angus Burn, a civilian who had been captured by the Japanese at the fall of the Philippines, returned home to Oaklea, Thorp Avenue, Morpeth. Mrs Burn received further good news that her youngest son, Major Henry B. Burn of 9^th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, who had been taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore, was on his way home. 

Fusilier Thompson of 72, 10^th Row, Ashington, who was an employee of the Co-op and escapee from Dunkirk, had been captured in Singapore. In April 1945 his family received a message from the War Office to say he was well and had arrived in the UK. But this was an error by the War Office. The family was later informed that he was still a POW in Thailand and that the War Office was sorry for the false hopes they had raised. 

Private Alan Howe of the Royal Army Medical Corps from 679 Plessey Road, Newsham, received a cordial welcome home after being a POW in China for six years. He had been in the army for nine years and was in Hong Kong at the outbreak of the war. He had been taken prisoner when the Japanese forces invaded. On his return, he was granted six weeks leave.

One story that really stuck a cord is that of the Hall family of Wooler. Mr J. H. Hall had been a rubber planter in Sumatra from 1919 and was interned along with his wife and daughter when the Japanese forces took the island. He was separated from his wife and daughter in March 1942 and didn’t see them again until September 1945. The newspaper was not able to report whether they were alive or not. 

The food supplies in camp were inadequate; there was no meat at all and only small quantities of sugar and salt. To get meat they had to catch it themselves. They often ate snake steaks and some prisoners resorted to eat rats or dogs. They had no cigarettes so rolled leaves so they had something to smoke. 

Their Japanese captors didn’t need an excuse to torture their captives. Once, the woman leader of the female camp was dragged around a room by her hair whilst another was tied up and hung for hours with just her toes barely touching the ground. Mr Hall had seen an old feeble man so badly beaten that he had to have an operation to keep him alive. Another woman was beaten so badly that she suffered severe concussion.

The inmates were only given a small amount of drinking water a day despite there being an adequate supply close by. Food was rationed to 200 grams of rice a day, but not every day. Therefore, the prisoners all lost a considerable amount of weight. Mr Hall was twelve stones before he was captured and was under nine on liberation, whereas his wife was half as heavy at the time of liberation.

By the end of the war the death rate in Mr Hall’s camp was at least five people per day. During all the time he was a prisoner he never saw a Red Cross parcel. The Officer who was in charge of the Civilian camp in Sumatra committed suicide when the English and Dutch Army began their investigations. Talk was heard that one camp had been totally destroyed by fire to try and hide the crimes committed. 

And in a final story from the newspapers, Sergeant G Easton gave a talk to a large audience at Presbyterian Church at Norham on the brighter side of life as a Japanese POW. He talked about conditions, hospitals and rations. He pointed out that there was high morale amongst the man, which mystified the Japanese guards.