Women Interned in World War Two Sumatra: Faith, Hope and Survival

By Barbara Coombes

Thousands of women and children were among those who struggled to leave Singapore just before capitulation on February 15 1942; their hope was to reach safety. For many that hope was never realised; countless numbers drowned as ships were bombed and sunk on their way to ‘safety’. The ‘lucky’ ones who survived the onslaught of the ships would become guests of the Japanese; many of these would not live to see the end of the war. Two very different women fleeing on those last ships and subsequently interned in camps throughout Sumatra were Margaret Dryburgh, a missionary and teacher, and Shelagh Brown, a secretary at the Singapore Naval Base. Their paths crossed briefly prior to the catastrophic events of 1942 and met again in internment. The ‘Captives Hymn’ composed by Margaret Dryburgh was initially sung by herself along with Shelagh Brown and friend Dorothy MacLeod on 5 July 1942. It has since been sung at services throughout internment and continues to be sung at services all over the world. Music and faith were fundamental to both their lives and Margaret’s creative talents lifted the spirits of everyone during those dark and difficult days. In a remarkable partnership, when the women were struggling to find something new that would lift their flagging spirits, Margaret and fellow internee Norah Chambers produced a ‘Vocal Orchestra’ using women’s voices in place of instruments. The first performance stunned the entire camp; they had never heard anything so beautiful and momentarily made them feel that they were free and floating away with the music. This true account, using personal diaries and family documents traces Margaret Dryburgh and Shelagh Brown’s journey from childhood through to adulthood and internment. Early life shapes adult life and perhaps contributed to their response to captivity which showed courage, tenacity, perseverance and surprisingly, given the appalling conditions, a good deal of humour. ‘May the Day of Freedom Dawn’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781526787767

Book preview

WOMEN

INTERNED

IN WORLD WAR TWO

SUMATRA

FAITH, HOPE AND SURVIVAL

Dedicated to the ‘Family’ of Garage Nine

Future peace in the world rests with the children of today who will become the leaders of tomorrow

To my young grandchildren: Isabella, Harrison, Austin and Josie, may you always remember the tenacity and spirit of these women in the face of adversity and become future peacemakers in the world.

WOMEN

INTERNED

IN WORLD WAR TWO

SUMATRA

FAITH, HOPE AND SURVIVAL

Barbara Coombes

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire – Philadelphia

Copyright © Barbara Coombes, 2022

ISBN 978 1 52678 775 0

ePUB ISBN 978 1 52678 776 7

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52678 776 7

The right of Barbara Coombes to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

The Captives Hymn

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1Escape from Singapore

Margaret Dryburgh

Chapter 2Swalwell to the Sado Maru

Chapter 3Journey to the Unknown

Chapter 4New Horizons – Singapore Calling

Shelagh Brown

Chapter 5‘I Haven’t Cried Today’

Chapter 6Ebb and Flow of Singapore Life

Chapter 7Quiet before the Storm

Internment

Chapter 8‘A Prison Camp! A Dwelling Bare!’

Chapter 9‘Alice in Internment Land’

Chapter 10‘As Blended Voices Filled the Air’

Chapter 11‘How Slowly Time Doth Pass’ – 1944

Chapter 12‘May the Day of Freedom Dawn’

EpilogueMargaret Dryburgh and Shelagh Brown

Appendix 1Birthday Poems for Women in Garage Nine

Appendix 2The Muntok Graves

List of Illustrations

Bibliography

Endnotes

The Captives Hymn

Father in captivity

We would lift our prayers to Thee,

Keep us ever in Thy Love.

Grant that daily we may prove

Those who place their trust in Thee

More than conquerors may be

Give us patience to endure,

Keep our hearts serene and pure,

Grant us courage, charity,

Greater faith, humility,

Readiness to own Thy Will,

Be we free or captive still.

For our country we would pray,

In this hour be Thou her stay.

Pride and selfishness forgive,

Teach her, by Thy Laws, to live,

By Thy Grace may all men see,

That true greatness comes from Thee.

For our loved ones we would pray,

Be their guardian, night and day,

From all dangers, keep them free,

Banish all anxiety.

May they trust us to Thy care,

Know that Thou our pains doth share.

May the day of freedom dawn

Peace and justice be reborn,

Grant that nations loving Thee

O’er the world may brothers be,

Cleansed by suffering, know rebirth,

See Thy Kingdom come on earth.¹

The hymn was composed by Margaret Dryburgh in the Palembang ‘Bungalows’ Camp’ in 1942. Margaret sang the hymn with Shelagh Brown and Dorothy MacLeod for the first time at a Sunday service on 5 July 1942. Thereafter the hymn was sung every Sunday, even throughout their later years in captivity.

Foreword

It gives me much pleasure to know that it was Margaret Dryburgh and Shelagh Brown, the two heroines in this fascinating book, who were directly responsible for my first meeting and subsequent friendship with its author, Barbara Coombes! The year was 2013, and we had both been invited to join a committee to organize a special concert celebrating the 70th Anniversary of a unique women’s vocal orchestra, created in a Japanese internment camp. Barbara, I was quick to discover, had become as obsessed with this particular wartime story as I was then, and remain so to this day….

FLASH BACK to Wednesday 25 Jan 1978 and a defining moment in my own life when as a young TV researcher on THIS IS YOUR LIFE, I was responsible for finding and reuniting a group of women survivors of a WW2 Japanese prison camp. They had been incarcerated for three and a half years with Margot Turner, who post-war had become a Dame, and Matron in Chief of Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps: the programme was a celebration of her life.

The full story of the internment of women all over the Far East had not yet reached the history books. It was a largely forgotten aspect of the war and yet it had affected thousands of women, children, and subsequently their whole families for years later in a vastly different post-war world. The conclusion to the programme was the singing, for the first time in 33 years, of the Captives Hymn which was written by British missionary Margaret Dryburgh who had perished in camp just a few months before the Japanese surrendered. An affecting and dramatic transformation occurred as the group of women sang unaccompanied – it was immediately movingly apparent that an extraordinary bond existed between them, formed in those days when they had faced a common peril and gained courage by singing together. It suddenly became imperative for me to know more about them and the experience they had shared.

One of the survivors singing the hymn was Shelagh Brown, whose mother Mary Brown had also perished in the same camp. Shelagh subsequently allowed me to read the diary she had secretly written in camp and it became a significant way-station in what transpired for me. Many years later, when I had co-written with John Sandilands a book about the Sumatran camp, made a documentary about that same camp, and created the drama series TENKO for the BBC, there was still very little that we had uncovered about the background of Margaret Dryburgh, the woman who had helped in so many ways to make life bearable for 600 women. Barbara Coombes has now changed all that by uncovering Margaret’s story and in turn it shines new light on the experience of all those brave women civilians.

Following her Degree in Humanities, and a successful academic career as a Lecturer in Further Education and Course Leader, Barbara was determined to study again and particularly for an MA in Modern British Women’s History. Researching for a dissertation topic Barbara came across the women interned in Palembang, Sumatra and was fascinated by the subject but concerned it might be too distressing. That concern dissipated as soon as she visited the Imperial War Museum, I came out of the Museum on a high! she says, There was such surprising humour to the accounts and diaries, and it became obvious that this was what helped them all to keep going. Added to the particular hope and humanity of Margaret Dryburgh’s own archive, which was very special.

Barbara gained her MA in 2011 and the idea for her book followed soon after - she wanted to find the real Margaret Dryburgh. But she also wanted to compare and contrast her experience with that of the younger Shelagh Brown, who came to know her well. Coming together on the shores of newly-invaded Sumatra they first shared a floor with 13 others in ‘Garage 9’ in a suburb of Palembang, then moved on to three more camps, each more ghastly than the last. Their lives before internment were very different, one a missionary, the other a so-called privileged colonial. These background stories are the ones that have not been told before, and yet those earlier years had an impact on how they responded to the ordeal and rose to the challenge. This book details the lives of two very different women but also it throws more light on the other women’s’ experience from two differing points of view.

I have found Barbara’s information on the early 1900’s missionary training for women in NE England and early experiences overseas in China and Malaya to be enthralling. It’s not a subject many of us are familiar with. In fact, the young but ardent Margaret was not a ‘natural’ during those early days of training – she was shy and very different from the lady who was to emerge as a leading light in camp. Likewise, young Shelagh was a sort of colonial ‘orphan’ who had been kept safe in English boarding schools while her parents lived mostly in Singapore. This had been a difficult early life rather than a privileged one. The initially introverted Shelagh also came into her own in camp.

Barbara’s meticulous research, painting a vivid picture of both women’s different lives before the war, means that their experience of camp and their reactions to it resonate more powerfully. In their own ways, they are helpful to others. Margaret immediately initiated church services in the Garage and became well-known for organizing morale-boosting events, in particular the momentous vocal orchestra which she created with Norah Chambers. Even later when the camp was decimated to 300 women from 600, Margaret was taking funerals for the dead, as well as still running a weekly service and the singing of the Captives Hymn for those who could manage it. Early on, Shelagh was a source of humorous and cheery information about other inmates, supplying Margaret with more morale-boosting material, and making her own music as a member of the choir and vocal orchestra: later she had to nurse her sick mother and be a source of comfort as she lay dying. Both women took part in the schooling of children, cooking, cleaning, hard labour, carrying coffins, grave-digging, guarding bodies at night… in common with the other internees. Many of the survivors talked of having to deal constantly with death, but all the time growing as people. A weird and wonderful mixture of gruesome incarceration and liberation of talents and freedom of expression. Most would acknowledge that at the centre Margaret was a vital source of spiritual and psychological sustenance.

So much has taken place since I happened upon the story. Muntok, the camp where Shelagh’s mother and many others died, has now become a site of hope and future collaborations. Shelagh worked tirelessly from the early 1960’s to find out what happened to the unmarked graves, and was faced with administrative deadlock. However, others including her daughter Margie and Judy Balcombe from Australia have carried on her work and overseen a transformation in the area with a Peace Museum, a yearly Memorial service to the dead attended by ministers of state, and memorial plaques in place of the jungle graves that were never found. Families of those who were in camps, meeting each other down the generations, now share their handed-down drawings of the camp by Margaret Dryburgh, still the only record of what it truly was like. Families fitting their own stories together, but also spreading the message of peace together with the Indonesian government and local people. Today, smiling schoolchildren make this a happy place.

This particular transformation is important as we live once more in a time of war in Europe, and conflict across the globe. The hugely shocking and depressing fact is that in Ukraine and elsewhere the victims are no different – innocent women civilians and children, who are also used as targets of violence themselves. Caught up in the savagery of conflict, having lost loved ones, homes, identities. It is shameful that we haven’t progressed and yet it means that comparisons with earlier wars are still viable and valid. The story of the women of the Sumatran camp bridges the gap between history and current reality and still has relevance for today. The spirit and courage of the Margarets and the Shelaghs and thousands of others, can continue to provide some hope for future change.

For that fact alone this is an important book at a timely moment.

LAVINIA WARNER

MAY 2022

Acknowledgements

The idea for this book was originally just a fleeting thought as I completed a MA by Research in Modern British Women’s History at London Metropolitan University in 2011; however, that thought grew rapidly when I become involved with a team creating a concert in 2013 commemorating the 70th anniversary in Palembang Internment Camp of the Women’s Vocal Orchestra.

Since that time research has taken me to Singapore, Birmingham, Sunderland, the Imperial War Museum, London and many hours in the archives at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University London. Therefore, there are a number of people along the way who have enabled me to complete this work.

Firstly I should like to pay tribute to Betty Pryce-Jones, Margaret Dryburgh’s niece, who was so delighted when I approached her about the idea of this book. It is to my ever-lasting sadness that she didn’t live to see this completed, however, I am grateful to her nieces: Susan Readman, Janet Kirkcup and the late Anne Maltby for supporting this venture and passing Betty’s archive material on to me.

Undoubtedly without Shelagh Brown’s daughter, Margie Caldicott, the family’s exhaustive archives and her undivided support, it would not have been possible to have exclusive use of her mother’s diary and the family papers and photographs.

My thanks must also go to my family for having to listen to me over the years and I am sure they wondered if I would ever finish. My close friend, Janet Johnston, has always been supportive throughout and read through many chapters looking for textual errors and inconsistencies, however, I take full responsibility for errors!

Many of the families whose members were interned have been kind enough to give their permission to use family diaries: Christine Buckley, daughter of Phyllis Briggs; Madelyn van Rijckevorsel, daughter of Helen Colijn; Andréa MacLeod, daughter of Dorothy MacLeod; Sally and Sean Conway, daughter and grandson of Norah Chambers; Hazel Watson, sister-in-law of Mamie Colley; Jim Neubronner, relative of Olga Neubronner; Sally Jennings, relative of Margery Jennings, John Waddell, relative of Ann Livingston, Vilma Howe, child internee, for her personal account aboard the Mata Hari and Phillip Hogge for the use of his father’s diary concerning the Mata Hari and the Samuels’ family for use of a family document. Also Jill Craig and Rose Ashton, relatives of Jean Ashton and Emily Malone, niece of Betty Jeffrey; Jean and Betty (Jeff) were members of the Australian Army Nursing Corps. My gratitude also to Isidore Warman, ‘Mischa’, for the inclusion of his story.

Judy Balcombe whose outstanding work on the graves of Muntok made a considerable contribution to the Appendix, Rosemary Fell, editor of Apa Khabar, the publication of the Malayan Volunteers Group, Michael Pether for his exhaustive research and Jane Booker Nielson for her meticulous map.

Many institutions and archives have given their support and permission to use material: I am particularly grateful to Louise Ault and The United Reformed Church, (an amalgamation of the Presbyterian Church and the Congregational Church) for extensive use of their archives at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London; Joanne Ichimura, archivist at SOAS, whose assistance has been much appreciated; the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library in Singapore; Anthony Richards at the Imperial War Museum and the assistance of Vicki Hawkins. In remembrance also of the late Rod Suddaby at the IWM to whom I first suggested the idea of this double biography; he immediately knew of similar works for me to review; what a loss he was. My gratitude also to the Cadbury Research Library at Birmingham University for access to wonderful photograph albums from Carey Hall Missionary Training College.

During my visit to Singapore, a number of people gave invaluable assistance: the Kuo Chuan Presbyterian School for their hospitality; the Singapore Ministry of Education for organising the visit and the welcome from the Presbyterian Churches in Orchard Road and Prinsep Street.

My thanks are extended to the Reverend John Durrell in Sunderland for sharing his invaluable material and members of St George’s Church, Sunderland, for meeting and greeting me with keen interest. My appreciation also to the team at Pen & Sword for their help and guidance. Last but by no means least, Lavinia Warner, whose original, work brought this story to the public and who has been kind enough to write the Foreword to this book.

There are, of course, as always, so many others along the way who have responded to emails with interest and endeavoured to help where they could but are too numerous to mention individually, nevertheless my gratitude is sincere.

Introduction

The Lives of Margaret Dryburgh and Shelagh Brown

In Singapore on 1 July 1938, Margaret Dryburgh, Presbyterian missionary, teacher and musician played for the contralto performance of the ‘The Lord is Mindful of his Own’ at the wedding of Louisa Margaret Band, daughter of the Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Stephen Band. Her name understandably was also on the guest list for the reception held in the substantial grounds of the Colonial Secretary’s home. On the same reception list printed in the Singapore Free Press were Shelagh Brown and her sister Barbara, daughters of E.A. Brown, choirmaster of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore for over thirty years.¹ Due to the very large reception, it was unlikely that they even caught a glimpse of each other, however, their paths were to cross more explicitly following the fateful attempt at fleeing from Singapore in February 1942.

Margaret Dryburgh, Daisy to her family, was a Presbyterian missionary who as a young woman in 1919, when women over thirty had only just been given the vote, took the remarkable decision to follow her calling to a culture and country so very different to anything she had known – China. Nevertheless, as turmoil erupted in China during the 1920s, Margaret was eventually sent to Singapore in 1927.

Shelagh Brown was a child of colonial days; however, despite some of the privileges this entailed it also meant, as was the custom in the Far East, a background of boarding school in England. It would be months, or in some cases years, before seeing her parents again and her brother Alec often joked about being a colonial orphan. Shelagh’s path was to cross with Margaret Dryburgh in circumstances beyond their control and in a very different environment to that which both had enjoyed at the wedding. These two women were to share in a world that was far removed from their lives in Singapore and yet would demonstrate determination, tenacity, and fortitude under the most appalling circumstances. They drew strength and courage from their faith which in turn brought endurance and hope.

Fleeing from the path of invasion, both were working women whose backgrounds were diverse but also had similarities; residing in an age where letters were written, it is fortunate to be able to see some of that life through their own eyes. Letters were a lifeline for both parents and children when separated by the colonial culture of the day when children were sent to school in England. For Margaret Dryburgh and her fellow missionaries, letters and written reports were the only way of keeping in touch with the Women’s Missionary Association (WMA) whose large organisation was responsible for missionary work around the world. In the culture of today where communication is instantly relayed via a touch of a button, will we be as fortunate in the future to have such a rich store of the written word? I believe the answer to that question will, sadly, be no.

War had rudely interrupted the lives of so many in the West, however, for the people of Singapore the thought that the Second World War would directly affect them, in particular women and children, was not only unthinkable but quite frankly preposterous. Despite the attack on Singapore at the same time as Pearl Harbour and Hong Kong on 8 December 1941, the view that Singapore was impregnable still prevailed. At the same time, Japanese forces landed at Singora in Thailand just to the north of Malaya (Malayasia) and at Kota Bharu in the northern corner of Malaya itself. The landing of Japanese troops in northern Malaya had shocked and horrified the population of Singapore and yet the view that Singapore would not fall was still the widespread dominant view.

There are many questions asked on the disastrous events that became one of the worst defeats in modern warfare; however, many aspects of this defeat have been covered infinitum, therefore this will not be discussed in any detail. One question in the context of this event is, ‘why did women and children not get away sooner?’ In December the Colonial Office had issued a notice that evacuation on a limited scale might take place of all those not involved in war work. This, however, was only weeks after the first attack on Singapore and not compulsory; many women did not want to leave husbands, fathers, family and the life that they had built in this far-flung corner of the Empire. As difficult as this is to comprehend the population were led to believe Singapore was impregnable and the speed at which the Japanese troops fought their way south was to astound the authorities leading to confusion and panic when, by the end of January, they were across the causeway to Singapore.

Nevertheless, evacuation did begin but amid a complicated process which hindered the process rather than helping. A small number left at the end of December and many more during January 1942 but the logistics of evacuating thousands of people was a nightmare and ships often left with room to spare. In the early days, it was often not known where ships were going and women would have to visit many shipping offices to find out when a ship was leaving. Amid these difficulties and as bombing appeared to ease, many thought they would wait for a ship going to their homeland. Nurses, teachers and women on war work all would have felt it would be ‘desertion’ to leave before absolutely necessary. That necessity was to come upon the population with a devastating speed.

In the chaos that followed the inconceivable fact that the Japanese were now on the doorstep of the once impregnable city of Singapore, the docks became a fusion of desperate people. Shelagh Brown and her mother, Mary Brown, had joined thousands of others fleeing at the eleventh hour and managed to get aboard the Vyner Brooke, ‘their passage to freedom’. Mothers frantically hurried their bewildered children to embark with the vain hope that this ship would take them south to safety. The Vyner Brooke was a registered cargo vessel, named after the third Rajah of Sarawak – Sir Charles Vyner Brooke; at the outbreak of war with Japan, she was requisitioned by the British Royal Navy and was now one of the last ships available.

They set sail at dusk on Thursday 12 February; it did not escape them that the following day was Friday 13 February although the day passed without incident. Saturday 14 February would prove to be quite different as the Vyner Brooke, like so many ships fleeing Singapore, was attacked and sunk by Japanese planes. As the ship went down they, like hundreds of others, found themselves clinging to anything that was floating by and spent twenty-four hours in the water. Almost beyond belief, they were also attacked whilst in the water by machine-guns. Still in shock from this experience, Shelagh and her mother were finally picked up by a Japanese barge taking troops ashore as they invaded Sumatra; they were finally deposited on the island of Banka, just east of the mainland.

Aboard the Vyner Brooke were sixty-five women from the Australian Army Nursing Corps, twenty-two of them were washed up on what could have been described as an idyllic beach – Radji Beach, Banka Island; this stunning beach was to be forever remembered as the scene of an appalling atrocity.

As with other ships, there is no definitive list of passengers on the Vyner Brooke due to the urgency to leave. Michael Pether who has carried out exhaustive research on many of the ships has identified 170; however, working through reports from various sources he strongly believes that the number falls short and it is possible that approximately fifty people cannot be accounted for, including a number of children.²

In a similar way, this is replicated over and over again with numerous other ships and small vessels that were attacked and sunk; the number of women, men and children who lost their lives is, therefore, difficult to estimate but believed to be in the thousands.

Meanwhile, Margaret Dryburgh and her three fellow Presbyterian missionaries successfully boarded the Mata Hari which followed the Vyner Brooke out of Singapore harbour. Despite experiencing some bombing the Mata Hari finally reached the mouth of the Moesi River, Sumatra, where they anchored. At dawn, Japanese ships approached and the captain took the decision, with so many women and children on board, to surrender. They were instructed to follow the Japanese ships to Muntok Bay, Banka Island and later that day taken ashore to Muntok pier. Out of forty-four of ships that left Singapore between 12 and 14 February only four were not sunk. The captain of the Mata Hari undoubtedly saved his passengers from either a watery grave or hours in the sea. As the women sat shivering on the longest pier they had ever seen (600 metres³), they may have shivered even more had they known that the wretched pier was to rear its ugly head on some of their blackest days during the next three and a half years. Tired, hungry and thirsty, they sat on the pier as darkness fell upon them, fearful of what their fate would be as they endeavoured to huddle together as the cool night air descended. They were to remain there all night.

Eventually, merging from different areas in Muntok, Margaret and Shelagh’s paths were to converge again when they were taken to what were the old ‘Coolie’ accommodation blocks with stone, sloping, sleeping slabs. Shelagh reflected, after the war, that her first recollection of Miss Dryburgh (she was never known by her Christian name in camp) was that first awful night on those sloping concrete slabs: ‘We were opposite from her and she took out her Bible and read verses, two or three near her prayed – also in the morning and mother joined her from