All Men Work 'Til Die

By Dick Wilkins

The stories of this book are my experiences during World War 2, also events which took place previous to, but are nonetheless relevant to them. Taken from a day-to-day diary kept by me, hidden from my captors in my AP (water bottle). I was taken prisoner at Singapore by the Japanese and incarcerated for three and a half years.

This account has been enhanced and enlarged by extra memories triggered by reading my original diaries, which were sometimes written in a hurry due to illness or cut to a minimum at the time in case they were discovered by the Japanese. All sketches and poems are my own work unless otherwise stated most prisoners, others from memory since.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Apr 24, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467002868

Book preview

All Men Work ‘Till Die

by

Dick Wilkins

UPSO

Contents

In the Beginning

With the Suffolk’s

Muriel (Wife) in Land Army

Off into the Blue

Across the Atlantic

Back Across the Atlantic

Cape Town

India

Off into the Unknown Again

Singapore

Up to the Front

Prisoner of War

Ban Pong

Punishments & Atrocities

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NUMBERS IN SINGAPORE

To my wife Muriel

In the Beginning

I was born in the London village of Dulwich during a Zeppelin raid in the First World War. The Midwife, who had never seen these monstrous aircraft before, had fainted and my Father had rushed out to find a doctor, in the meantime, before they got back, my poor mother had produced me. This was October 31st 1917 (Halloween), so I was always cut out to be a Warlock.

Our family moved when I was nine years old to a country village called ‘Eastwood’ in Essex.

From there I went to school at ‘Rayleigh’, two miles away, where I eventually lived, after marrying, until I was called up for the Army. While at Eastwood I soon became well known by the local boys for my daredevil exploits. Once, my poor mother, being told by a Neighbour that ‘I saw your boy hanging by his legs fifty feet up an Elm tree’ and also taking on a dare to balance along a branch overhanging the moat around the local castle, during our school dinner hour, only to fall in, I little realized then that my being immune to height and cultivating my balance would be of great help during the War and subsequently afterwards when I rejoined the Fire Service.

I’d always wanted to be a Fireman since watching the Firemen rush out in their brass helmets to fires at Dulwich, so at the beginning of World War Two I had joined the Auxiliary Fire Service at Rayleigh, the small country village in Essex where I had previously gone to school. In 1939 the Prime Minister, Chamberlain, had thought he had come to terms with Hitler, so had convinced the Government there would be no war (except Winston Churchill) so, all non-armed services were cut down by 20%, including the A.F.S. and, as I was the youngest member, I was one of the first to be discharged. By then I had been courting Muriel for three years so we decided to get married.

We left the little Chapel beneath an archway of axes held aloft by my colleagues I had to leave the wedding reception to go to our local Labour Exchange to sign on for the armed forces covered with confetti. The counter Clerk said Hello, whose wedding have you been to? I replied Mine. He wished me luck and told me he had been in The last-lot, to which I said Well it looks as though you got back O.K. He grinned and replied, Well, my top half did, but I lost my legs.

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Our Wedding

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With the Suffolk’s

Anyway I was trained at the Essex Regiment barracks in ‘Warley’ where I passed out as a qualified ‘Bren’ gunner, then six of us; two Bren gunners, two Signallers and two Administrative Clerks were sent to the 4th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment to make the numbers up. We joined them while they were under canvas at Loddon in Norfolk, where we immediately caused a furore by refusing to change our Essex Cap Badges for the Suffolk ones until threatened by the Sergeant Major with dire punishment.

There were two characters in our Platoon named ‘Battershill’ and ‘Hawksbee’ who were a ‘little bit short of a full set’. One evening Battershill happened to be on Anti-Aircraft Bren gun duty and was told to pack up for night-we had been taught to remove the cartridge container, then press the trigger to make sure there were no rounds left in the gun. Of course, Battershill omitted to take the chamber from the gun, but still pressed the trigger, so about half a dozen bullets ploughed through the top of the Cookhouse tent.

Another time while on bathing parade, we were all shuffling along in a queue carrying our rifles, barrel downwards for safety, when there was a loud bang. Hawksbee had some how or other managed to get his rifle in firing mode, then pulled the trigger. The bullet narrowly missed his foot, but drilled a neat hole in the floor. By this time Muriel, my wife, had joined the ‘Land Army’.

Muriel (Wife) in Land Army

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Wife Muriel at her Landgirl work on her grandfather’s farm

After a period of training at places all round England, we found ourselves on a train going north. It was dark when the train finally stopped and we jumped out into snow which came up above our knees. We then had to march about two miles carrying our kit, the route included very steep hills, about, ‘one in four’ where we took two steps forward then slid one back. We finally arrived at ‘Stobbs’ camp, which was composed of corrugated iron, half round ‘Nissan’ huts which had been used as a Prisoner of War camp in the First World War. We had the usual straw filled mattresses on our beds and were issued with three blankets each, but even though we stoked the pot bellied stoves up ‘till they were red hot, we still slept in our long johns and heavy vests to keep warm, and put our great coats on top of the blankets.

At this time England was experiencing one of the worst winters for years and we were to be toughened up by means of crosscountry runs, up snow covered hills & through ice covered streams, I said to my current mate Dawkins, I’ve thought of a way to dodge a cross country run now and again. We lined up ready in our shorts and singlets shivering, then off we went, I told Dawk’ to hang back, letting the Tough guy Regulars and Training Instructors forge ahead and disappear in the distance. We found a nice warm hut near the Cookhouse to wait until we heard them all coming back then merged in with the stragglers at the end. Dawk’ and I pulled this dodge several times.

Eventually we found ourselves in Liverpool waiting for a troop ship to take us ‘God knew where’ overseas. I had by now been posted to Brigade H.Q., so I had lost touch with Dawk’. My mate now was a Norfolk chap called Woods.

While waiting we were billeted at an Anti-Aircraft barracks for a couple of nights. So my mate Woody and I decided to go out on the second evening, then proceeded to get lost, a silly thing to do, but Liverpool is a rather tricky place to find your way around in if you are not familiar with the lay out, especially if there is a ‘blackout’ in force. We had gone into a Chinese restaurant, and sat at a table, after a while a Chinaman poked his head round a screen with a menu. The only thing on it we could relate to was ‘Fish & Chips’, we didn’t, fancy ‘Birds Nest’ soup. When we left after a good blow out, we found it was dark and tried unsuccessfully to make our way back, finally arriving at a Railway station where there was a Railway Transport Officer. He told us in no uncertain terms what he thought of us, then told a Military Policeman to see us on to a tram, who told the Conductress to drop us at the Barracks, preferably on our heads.

Off into the Blue

On the morning of the third day ‘Reveille’ sounded at five o’clock, we ate our breakfast, piled our kit onto lorries, jumped in ourselves and were off. After a short while we arrived at the dockside where we stood cold and fed up, then cheered up when a NAAFI van arrived to issue hot tea. One of the officers handed out a cabin berth ticket to each man, then we started to embark across a rather wobbly gangway, in the process of which several of our mates lost their caps owing to the strong gusty wind blowing alongside.

My first impression of this ship ‘The Andes’ was that everything seemed so clean and luxurious, the reason being that she had only recently been transformed from a luxury liner into a troopship, so most of the original decoration was intact, the floors made of polished wood were now covered with rubber sheeting to protect them and the walls were panelled with different types of woods. Our cabin was a compact little place with three bunks in it, I chose a top one so I could look through the porthole. My companions were; Woody, Scruffles, Hughie and Kiddo the last being unlucky, having to sleep on a mattress on the floor. Still, being in the forces, he had slept rougher than that on previous occasions. He had one advantage though, he did not have far to fall when the weather got rough, as we found out later. We soon settled in and got used to pushing and getting pushed all over the place at meal times and when the canteen opened, we bought tinned pears and ‘Libbys’ milk for supper, something we had not been able to do for a long time, owing to rationing. Scruffles was not content with ‘Libbys’ on his pears, he used condensed milk instead!

What a sweet tooth!

(After being called to active service, I had compiled letters to my wife writing about my every day exploits, then sending her the results once a week. I therefore continued to do this after embarking to go abroad, these, accounts in letterform I kept by me, so they eventually became a scaled down version in diary form. This book is the result).

At meal times we ate in shifts, so as we were the second one, had to wait until the first had cleared away and washed up. Each table seated sixteen. Two of us would get into the food queue and it was sometimes twenty minutes before we brought it back to our table.

The Corporal in charge would then dish it out. He would slide a loaf down to our end of the table while he carried on dealing with the other food, some of the things he was called and our comments are unprintable. We used to take the mike out of Kiddo and his mate Bellamy, because they always seemed to be eating long after we had finished, we would tell them they had already had their share and refuse to give them any more until they got quite mad about it.

Across the Atlantic

Reveille was at six a.m., we had to straighten our bunks, wash, shave, then tidy up and clean the floor. After breakfast we had an hour to play with, I generally did my writing during this period. The warning would go for boat drill, so we grabbed our lifejackets and make a beeline for our boat station. While there we had revision on various subjects such as Bren gun, Rifle, Hand grenade and map reading. We awoke the morning after embarking to find ourselves heading for the open sea, but could still see land on either side in the distance. The weather was dull with a gusty wind and now and again a squall, so we stayed below as much as possible.

The next day it started to turn very cold and after enquiring, were told that the ship was travelling north, in order to dodge the U-boats apparently. A thick fog came up one morning which lasted all day and night, the way these ships could follow each other closely yet not collide I will tell you when I get back, also about our Escort. (Now I am back recording these events I am at liberty to tell readers that it was R.A.D.A.R. of a primitive sort that assisted the ships in the fog and also that one of our Escort’s was the ‘Dorsetshire’ of River Plate fame and ‘Graf Spee’ episode.)

After going nearly to Iceland we eventually had to dodge a few Sub’s, The alarm would go, we’d standby in our lifejackets, and could see our Navy ships dodging all over the place dropping depth charges.

One morning we found that we had docked at ‘Halifax, Nova Scotia’ where we disembarked from our British Ship and got aboard an American Ship, ‘U. S. S. Wakefield’, this was manned by a mixture of men. Some were ex-Coastguards both black and white, we had never seen so many black men before. They were all very friendly so we got on well together.

Our accommodation was not as comfortable as on the other Ship, as we were crammed in like sardines, ten of us to one small compartment because there were about five times the number aboard.

The food however more than made up for it. For meals we lined up and as our turn came took a metal tray with various compartments in it from a pile on a table, then passed along a counter where men ladled the food into our trays. The food was lavish.

We then filed alongside high tables where we stood to eat.

Around the walls were taps at intervals above small sinks. We wondered where our drink was coming from, until one of the Yank’s told us that coffee was on tap all round the mess deck, the system was such that, the least room was taken up and each man was served in the least possible time.

We sailed off once more only to land at the Trinidad, a port of South America; to pick up stores.

Back Across the Atlantic

After loading up, we sailed away once more towards the southeast. There was P. T. every morning, so we thought we were keeping fit enough, our Brigadier thought otherwise; one morning we read on the notice board that he had decided we were getting too much food and drink so had ordered the Cooks to cut it down to Army size, much to our dismay.

(Rot his socks). But we needn’t have worried when he heard of this the Ships Captain refused to comply, saying "You are now the guest’s of the United States Navy and as such will be fed the same.

On our way from Trinidad we saw quite a few marvellous things we had never seen before, such as flying fish, porpoises and the spectacular phosphorescence in the sea at night time.

One morning during training, our Sergeant was showing us how a ‘Tommy Gun’ worked, and how to take it to pieces and reassemble it.

He had just told us that on no account were we to remove the ‘H’ piece as it was such a job to get it back the right way round, when along came a Yank Coastguard who immediately took over saying The old Tommy Gun, eh! He taught us more about it in ten minutes than we had previously learnt in an hour, including removing the complicated ‘H’ piece and putting it back the right way up.

The ‘Crossing the Equator’ ceremony took place about this time, so one Officer from each unit had to take part to represent all of us.

They were all duly smothered with soap applied by means of

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an enormous brush wielded by ‘King Neptune’, then pushed into the swimming pool.

We then all received a certificate to prove we had crossed the Equator. (Crossing the Line certificate reproduced opposite)

Sub’s were detected one day, so the alarm went off and excitement mounted our Naval escort ploughed through the waves circling the convoy making a smoke screen and we heard depth charges going off.

One of the Yanks made a degrading comment about the few little ‘Tin can’ ships we had as an escort, but our Sergeant soon put him in his place by saying That ‘Tin Can’ over there is the ‘Dorsetshire’, one of the ships who bottled up the German Battleship ‘Graf Spey’ at the ‘River Plate’, causing her to scuttle herself. That shut him up.

Messages were sent from ship to ship by ‘Aldiss Lamp’ in Morse code, but the Yanks could not read it fast enough so sent a message to our Sailors to slow down a bit.

We then heard that our next stop could be ‘Cape Town’, and that we would be getting shore leave there. We lay in our bunks that night looking forward to this good news, so settling down to sleep.

However, unknown to us, in order that Sub’s would not catch our ship’s wallowing about waiting to get into harbour, they kept going full speed carrying right past, then turning one hundred and eighty degrees to starboard then to port (An ‘S’ turn). This manoeuvre took place during the hours of darkness, early in the morning, while half a gale was blowing.

The wind coupled with the waves, not only caused the ship to roll but to pitch and toss as well, in a corkscrew fashion, so, as we were sleeping in tiered bunk’s three high, our contented sleep was rudely awakened.

We were situated right up in the bow compartment also, so the first thing we knew about the state of affairs was when we all landed in a big heap on the floor, along with our kit and rifles.

We had just about sorted everything out by the time reveille sounded over the loudspeaker. We finally docked with due ceremony and rigmarole. The gangways lowered and passes were distributed which would allow us from after midday meal until eleven-thirty p.m.

You can imagine our feelings, after being in cramped quarters all the way across the Atlantic, we soon made a dash for the shore.

Cape Town

Six of us started looking round, called into a small Cinema where a continuous performance went, on all day, just to see what went on in there more than to watch the film, we soon got fed up, so went off to buy some small presents for our Wives and Girlfriends, who we always had in mind. These were to be sent back home courtesy of the South African Government. Then we had a look round some interesting museums.

On the second day we split up and I went off with one of my pal’s, Ted Woods, because the others in our party wanted to frequent Pubs and also houses of ill repute, while Ted and I had other tastes. Seeing a Restaurant, we decided to try some refreshment, so ordered two ‘Knickerbocker Glory’ ice creams. We thoroughly enjoyed these especially as it was such a long time since we had tasted ice cream because of the war. When the time came to settle the bill, the Waitress, a woman about fifty years of age, told us to keep our money in our pockets. She said it was the least she could do, and hoped that someone somewhere would do the same for her Son who was also in the Forces.

We left the shop wondering what to do next, when a big limousine pulled up at the kerbside. A lady looked out, and asked us if we would like a ride round the mountain. Of course we didn’t say no, so in we got, the ladies name was Mrs Basham, her Daughter sat beside her while a black Chauffeur was driving. They took us all round ‘Table Mountain’ (so called because it has a flat top, so that when cloud rolls over the top and edges, it looks like a giant table with a cloth on). Then stopped at a roadhouse. Here they treated us to a smashing tea of Fruit and Cream, White scones, Jam and of course Tea. We both enjoyed ourselves immensely and were very sorry when the time came to get back I can tell you.

We arrived back on board loaded with oranges, bananas, peaches and pineapples etc, but a lot of the other lads came back with more than they could hold in the way of beer and spirits, they had to be carried aboard.

On our way back a small boy accosted us, his age was no more than ten or eleven and had his sister with him, a little girl about eight or nine. He said, Jig Jig? Very cheap pointing at his Sister. We cuffed him and sent him off with a flea in his ear, ‘as the saying goes’ but I expect he soon found other clients more willing to listen to him.

A lot of trouble had been caused by our Troops not knowing about the strict laws of segregation, which were then current in Cape Town. Some of them picked up coloured girls, then tried to take them into Picture Palaces and Pub’s, so Police were called who tried to make the Soldiers leave their black companions outside, also trying to separate them when they were walking along the pavements outside.

Our men, especially the Scotties, would have none of this, so fights started up between them and the Police. Needless to say the Police were no match for the Scots except when they were ‘half cut’, then they were carted off to the cell’s. Eventually the Red Cap’s (Army Police) were called to take them back to the Ship and of course these offenders were banned from having anymore shore leave.

Other incidents took place where black girls enticed the Squaddies back into the no go ‘Red Light’ district where they were set upon by the girls black friends, robbed, then left laying there in the street.

Both the Army and Civvy Police had quite a time trying to find them before the Ship sailed. In all probability the little black boy who had offered us his Sister was playing the same game!

We soon got under way and were wondering where we were off to next, we could not tell very well because the Ship was zig zagging all the time.

What with one thing and another we had forgotten how near Christmas was and were quite chuffed when told it was to be celebrated on the Ship. The Yank’s treated us as honoured guests, with a sumptuous meal of Chicken, Pork, Baked spud’s, Asparagus, Cakes, Biscuits, Nuts, Sweets, Apple and Orange, all washed down with a small container of Sherry. Quite a good turn out I reckoned, especially for five thousand men, we missed our Christmas pudding though.

Since leaving Cape Town the weather had been kind to us and after same days crossed the Equator once more, only this time going north and finally arriving at Bombay (India).

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India

In all our wildest dreams we did not expect to be landing in India;

Before leaving home I had come to an arrangement with Muriel so that she would know where I was. We picked a dozen likely War zones, then matched them to the names of different songs we both knew, then when she got a letter from me I could ask her if she remembered our song, quoting the song that matched the zone I was fighting in; but none of the places included farther east than Africa, so much for our scheme.

The Ship docked with a bit of difficulty owing to sand banks round the harbour, then after the usual chaos we disembarked once more, led to Railway Station where we stacked our kit on the platform alongside a waiting Troop train, then marched a short distance away to a mess hall where a meal was waiting, it was quite decent and plenty of it.

After this we boarded the train, our kit had been loaded already.

The train drove through the night with various stops such as ‘Poona’ where Indian Char Wallah’s were dishing out mugs of tea. At this time we were surprised how cold the nights were because up to now us untravelled rookies we thought India was a hot Country, so the Char Wallahs were very welcome.

At the end of the journey we looked and felt very scruffy, sleepy and unshaven, so were immediately taken to a field where an emergency Cookhouse had been erected. Here we received boiled eggs, tea, bread and butter, then all men had to march four miles to their billet. My Guardian Angel must have been watching over me from the start! I was put on baggage detail so was one of the lucky ones for a change, we rode on lorries.

The billet was at a an Army Camp called ‘Stud Farm’, a very appropriate name in view of the number of randy squaddies (Soldiers) there were about, this was near a small village called ‘Ahmednager’.

This was all new to us, especially this business of each Indian worker only doing one specific job of work, also of the different castes and religions, it was trade unionism taken to its ultimate form. It got us confused at first, but we soon got used to it. There was the ‘Water Carrier’ (Bhisti), the ‘Dry sweeper’ (Mitsha), the ‘Cook’ (Bawagi) and of course the all important ‘Lavatory Cleaner’ (Khasi Wallah).

The latter was paid for every time he emptied a lavatory bucket, these were situated inside the individual, sentry box lavatories, which were made of wood and were reached by lifting a hinged flap at the back.

The Khasi Wallah’s were crafty, and in the course of time had replaced the large buckets with smaller and smaller metal containers which only held one lot of the smelly contents at a time, thereby they could claim a payment every time one of these small tins were emptied. It was quite a common thing to see a hand reaching through the back flap to remove the container while you were still pulling your shorts up.

We could also hire a small boy for ten anna’s (Monetary unit) a week to fetch our tea and clean our boots, the Troops took full advantage of this luxury very quickly and soon got used to speaking Hindustani. There were a few things we didn’t get used however such as Scorpions, Snakes, Mosquito’s and Bombay Duck, the latter being a dried fish Indian dish and not a bird as we had first thought.

Mosquito nets were another thing to contend with, we were told to make sure that all the edges were well tucked under our mattresses after we had climbed into our beds or we would be eaten alive; This we could well believe when we saw the great numbers that settled on the outside of the net, we also made sure that none were inside the net before we settled down to sleep.

One day we wanted some ice so I went looking for the ‘Ice Man’ (Baruf Wallah) who called round every day. I spotted him about a hundred yards away, just leaving another hut so shouted out ‘Tundra Baruf’, at this he nearly collapsed laughing, I found out subsequently that I had been calling out ‘Cold Ice’, no wonder he laughed, We could get to the village on two wheeled, horse drawn carts called ‘Tonga’s’ for six anna’s, the driver would try to diddle us by asking for a Rupee, a sum at least ten times the amount, because he knew we were green Troop’s.

Two or three of us were walking through the village when we came across a street where a number of women were working, weaving enormous stretches of hand woven material twenty or thirty feet in length. As soon as we appeared all the unmarried women ran indoors, leaving the married ones still working. We knew which were married because all the others would cover their faces, Perhaps they thought we would carry them off they seemed genuinely frightened.

We also found out that when buying anything in India you have to bargain for it. If you don’t you get diddled and also make it bad for other customers.

The Indian women had one rotten job which consisted of collecting cow dung and mixing it with any other combustible rubbish they could find, before moulding it into pancakes in their hands and placing it in the sun to dry, to use as fuel later for cooking and heating. Most of them have the nasty habit of chewing ‘Betel Nut’ or ‘Tobacco’, this stains their teeth and guns either red or dark brown, which looks horrible, every now and again they would eject a stream of this noxious bright coloured liquid looking like blood, on the ground. Here it was very dry and dusty, being the dry season and all the small rivers and streams had dried up completely, leaving deep dust instead of mud so our Brigade Major thought it a good idea for us to get more acclimatised by going on perishing route marches along these. If you were lucky you would be placed at the head of the column (Where all the old Soldiers seemed to congregate) we soon found out why.

The men at the back received all the back lash of dust stirred up by the ones marching in front and I always seemed to be in the last few rows, my guardian angel must have been on strike at this time! The Brigade Major was known as the B. M. for short but we soon found another name for these initials, he would walk along top of the dry river bank, about ten feet above us, well above all the dirt and dust. As we had by now been issued with pale, straw coloured khaki drill uniform and topee’s we assumed that we were being toughened up for desert warfare, we usually came back from these marches with cracked and caked lip’s and eyes, caused by the sweat and dust, red hot feet and a raging thirst (Although we carried a full water bottle on these marches we were not allowed to have a drink before we got back). Before we left England I had finally ended up being the Brigade Majors’ Batman at Brigade H. Q. but how I obtained this exalted position is another story.

He belonged to the South Staffordshire Regiment and was ordered back to his regiment and, his replacement, a Major Bowman, belonged to the Guards and already had a Batman, this meant that I would also have go back to the lines which I did not fancy one bit so went to see one of my mates in the Company Office. He told me there was only one job vacant at the time so I was lumbered with being Assistant Cook. This Major Bowman was the one I mentioned previously putting us through our paces along the dry riverbeds.

The food here was nice enough but at times took a long time to reach us. I was billeted near to the Officers mess opposite some native huts. One morning about 4 a.m. we were awakened by a continuous high pitched howling. I got of my bed and crept outside and found the noise was coming from one of the native huts, so I picked up a large piece of broken brick and let fly at the door, the row immediately ceased, I reckon they thought the Devil was knocking. I found out subsequently there was some sort of continuous religious routine dogma carried out by the Indians at times and that we had to put up with it if we wanted things to run smoothly, still we had no more rude awakenings after that.

We stayed here for a month, then one morning were told to pack our kit, as we would be moving straight away. This entailed marching the four miles back to the Rail Station, and then entraining to Bombay. On the train there were more speculations as to where we were going and on which Ships. We had quite a surprise to find they were those we had arrived in.

Because of the sandbanks they were lying well out in the harbour so we had to be ferried out to them in smaller boats, our boat had just left the docks when there was a shout from nearby. We saw that an Indian dhow (Small sailing ship) loaded down to the water-line with hay had caught fire. One of the occupants had been cooking over a charcoal fire on the fore-deck, where the wind was blowing the sparks straight back into the great stack of hay amidships. The dhow was being blown directly into our path, so the Yank Sailors got hoses and boat hooks at the ready. The Indians began pushing the burning bales of hay overboard, but the flames driven by the wind were too quick for them and soon got out of control, so they started yelling for help. The Sailors quickly lowered a Lifeboat, the dhow was now burning fiercely. These dhows only had one big square sail, and this suddenly caught fire blazing upwards. As soon as this happened the Indians dived overboard and swam away amid all the burning debris.

In the mean time the hay was getting nearer to us, we could feel the heat when it was fifty yards away. The swimmers were all picked up, and as their burning dhow got close our sailors began playing hoses onto it, but all went well because it just missed us. The last we saw of it was as a great ball of fire and flame showering sparks over any other boats that happened to be near enough, causing more panic among the occupants. The dhows crew were transferred to other boats going back to the docks. We finally climbed aboard our larger vessel, where the Yanks were surprised to see us back so soon.

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Bunk’s in bow of Ship

Off into the Unknown Again

Once more we started towards an unknown destination, and of course the rumours started up again. We eventually found out we were bound for Singapore, which seemed odd at the time, because we had trained for the desert and still had the pale khaki uniform.

We naturally thought we would be bombed or attacked in some way, but all we saw was one Japanese plane, which was apparently out reconnoitring. He flew around us then flew off. Action could not be far off now that the Jap’s knew we were coming.

As I mentioned before, our party were in a compartment right up in the bow of the ship and one morning we were once again shocked awake by a great