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Health Problems

At one time in the camp, Cholera struck. The victims were isolated in a hut away from the rest. No matter what your state of health, if cholera struck anyone it was death in a day or two. The risk was very high for the dedicated medical orderlies who worked night and day to do whatever was possible to give them a fighting chance. It was a regular daily occurrence to see three funeral parties, with five each time going down to the cremation site. It was a grim thought to weigh up the time it would take for all of us to be wiped out. Everything now had to be disinfected, and all drinking and eating utensils dipped in boiling water before meals. There was little that could be done for the patients, but I think we did eventually get some vaccine. It was a relief when the number of victims of Cholera was reduced. However, it was a pitiful sight to see how other complaints had reduced once healthy British soldiers to just living skeletons.

Daily parties had to go on bamboo cutting for the cookhouse fuel. This meant long walks out of the camp with Nip guards. By this time many men were without boots, and mine were not very good. For a time I, like many others, went about barefoot, until I made myself a pair of wooden sandals. These were just pieces of wood cut to the shape of the foot, with a strap nailed on, to fit over the fore part of the foot. A lot of injuries to the feet were caused by the splinters of bamboo, which lay everywhere the bamboo was growing. These scratches and cuts soon became infected and ulcers formed. It was on one of these bamboo parties that I had a cut on the back of my left leg from the sharp splinters of bamboo. An ulcer formed and grew rapidly. When I saw the medical officer, he told me to move into the Ulcer Ward of the hospital area. This hut, like all other huts in the camp, was about one hundred feet long, with a continuous stretch of bamboo slats to form a platform to lie on. There was a platform on either side and a space to walk between, which was six feet wide. The platforms were two feet high. Each patient had about two and a half feet space.

It became quite depressing to see that everyone to the left and right and opposite had ulcers. To leave my friends and go to a place amongst strangers was not very pleasant, but the sight of men reduced to little more than skeletons was frightening. Some had ulcers on both legs, and to make it worse no-one had a bandage to cover them up. The smell, day after day, was terrible. A medical officer came around each day, but had very little to offer for treatment. The first thing for the orderly to do when he came round was to use a spoon to scoop off the puss. This could be very painful, but he understood and did the job with a joke and a laugh. He had no proper dressings so all we had was a piece of tissue paper dipped in Permanganate of Potash placed on the ulcer. The problem for me was to keep it on until the next day, because it was on the back of my leg on the calf. The smell in the hut attracted big flies which settled on the ulcers of anyone asleep, or were too sick to knock them off. It was common to see maggots crawling and feeding on the puss oozing from the large areas of bad flesh.

I was admitted to this Ulcer Ward on the Twenty Second of August 1943. Each day seemed a long depressing existence. Little wonder that many men passed away with very little hope of a quick recovery. The food hadn't much nourishment in it to sustain the fittest, let alone some of the weakest. It would have been nice to have received a letter from home or a Red Cross parcel, but even these were held by the Nips. Occasionally a little bit of cheerful news came to us, of the progress in some places of the Allied battles with the Germans and the Nips. Sometimes we heard the drone of Allied 'planes overhead, and the dull thud of bombs dropping somewhere. Home made draughts and cards helped to pass the time away, and jokes were passed around from one to another until they were stale.

The treatment on my leg ulcer had little effect and it had grown to a large pear shape. The M.O. changed the treatment to Binidine, which is only a mild antiseptic. Gradually the ulcer seemed to improve slightly.

Our second Christmas in captivity had passed almost without notice, apart from a little extra to the usual rice and vegetable water. We had survived another monsoon season, which brought very heavy rains and cold nights, with strong, gusty winds. Now, in early 1944, it was almost two years since the capitulation of Singapore. The news we received was more encouraging, and there was a slight improvement in the meals, though we still had rather disgusting stuff sometimes. The hygiene in the camp had improved by now, so the death rate had dropped. Before I knew it, it was my twenty fourth birthday. There was an Australian, twenty one years old, lying next to me who had leg ulcers. He was not very strong-willed and gradually lost all interest. It was depressing to find that he had died right beside me one day.

I had encouraging news from the M.O., who said that if my ulcer continued to improve the way it had, I would be able to have a skin graft. It was still large, but the colour had changed to a healthier looking pink except for one or two high spots. These high spots were treated with Bluestone to burn them off level. When all was ready, the time came for me to have the skin graft.

With great relief I was moved to the surgical unit from the depressing, smelly hut of the ulcer ward. The surgical hut, although the same construction as all the rest, was cleaner and more cheerful. The M.O., whose name was Captain Sykes, came to me to tell me what he was going to do. The operating table, like everything else, was made with bamboo. It was soon my turn to be on it. There was no anaesthetic to put me to sleep, first an injection to begin with, then to my horror a six inch long needle was put into my spine. I saw all the rest happen: The skin on my thigh was lifted with tweezers and cut round to take off pieces about as big as peas. These were transferred to the ulcer. This was repeated twenty five times. With dressings on thigh and leg, the operation was complete.

Day after day the doctor and orderlies worked tirelessly and cheerfully doing their jobs, with very few medical supplies issued from the Nips. Unlike real hospital comforts, with a spring mattress, the bamboo slat sleeping platforms caused sores, of which I was a victim. It took several more weeks for all the sores to heal, and on the twenty eighth of May '44, I was discharged to unite with the so-called fit of my unit in camp. It had been more than nine months since I was admitted to the ulcer ward, and camp life had seemed to improve in some ways.

The Nips were as worried about the flies in camp as we were, so they ordered everyone to catch a certain number of flies each day, and parade to hand them in. It was comical to see men visiting the latrines with a fly swatter, swatting and collecting their quota of big bluebottles.

The Nip Camp Officer one day told us we should keep fit, which of course was easy for them, eating all our Red Cross food. He instructed us to file through his hut to watch him do his exercises. This was a humiliating exercise, demonstrating how fit we should be when everyone passing by his bed was a living skeleton. Sometimes an inspection by a Nip officer was announced with very little warning. Everyone who could move outside the hut did so, while the Nips checked all the kits and took away pens or pencils, paper resembling a diary and anything which suited them. They looked especially for hidden radios or parts. On one occasion the Nip Medical Officer came round, but not to observe what help he could arrange for our health or hygiene. He was only interested in our private parts. Everyone sat on the bedspace with legs apart waiting for their turn for inspection. When he had gone, the lads' comments would not have pleased him much, for we saw it as a stupid humiliating visit.

The Nips tried to humiliate us, and treat us as if we had done something terrible to offend them. A few of them we found to be reasonable, but the majority were unpredictable and some had fiery tempers. Not many prisoners escaped being hit at some time. I was walking through the camp one day and saw a Nip approaching. I saluted him, as was the order, but he replied by just smacking me in the face. I turned round as he passed by but he just walked on as if nothing had happened. They had very little respect for sick men, as in their view it was a crime to be sick. One day in particular I remember: We were on a rice loading party in the railway station sidings a few months after the railway had been completed, connecting Bangkok in Thailand to Moulmein in Burma. The Nips by that time had suffered defeats in Burma, with many casualties. The wounded soldiers were transported from Burma by the railway that we had built. The job at the station was for us to carry the rice sacks from the train to motor trucks for distribution. This was a very hard job for fit men, so in our weak state it was heavy going to carry large sacks without a rest. On this particular day there were wounded Nip soldiers in the rail trucks or hobbling on crutches or sticks nearby. They looked a pitiful, dejected lot of sick troops. The guards in charge of us sought to humiliate them, their own fellow countrymen, by taking the rice sacks and running with them. They just laughed and jeered at them as they passed. If they had been our wounded, we would have given them cigarettes and chatted to them, but not our Nip guards, they never went near them. Their mentality never told them that the more rice sacks they carried, the less we would have left to carry.

There were parties coming and going at this time: Some going to Japan, many coming in from the camps in the north - extremely poor in health. There was a camp which we were told we would be going to, called Nak Kom Paton, between Chunkai and Bangkok. It was supposed to be a rest camp with better conditions. I was soon in a party to go there with a few of the lads I knew. It was a new camp, but the huts were very much the same, except that wooden boards replaced the bamboo slats. This was much more comfortable to lie on. However we soon found out, the bugs, lice and ants were still as plentiful. In the daytime we often watched the contest between ants and bugs: the ants chased the bugs and carried them off when we killed them. The smell from this was awful. The food there was slightly better and so were the medical resources. In this camp I clearly remember a fenced-off compound for the mentally sick and shell shocked men, who roamed about playing like children, with things made especially for them. Once, not long ago, they had been strong, fit fighting men, who had seen all the harsh realities of war, and prison camp life, in incredibly atrocious conditions, made worse by slaving long hours of work on a railway in all weathers, and without enough food in quality and quantity. There was one prisoner whom I recognised. He had been with me in our platoon up to being taken prisoner. I called him by his name to come to the fence, but he didn't even remember it. At least he had survived and maybe would return home.

The favourite pastime in this camp, where, for a change, we didn't have any work to do for the Nips, was playing chess, draughts, cards and chatting to anyone, especially old comrades who were worse off than yourself. There was one soldier in our hut, who had lost a leg, who was a good chess player. He regularly played six men at the same time, making a move at one board, then hopping on one leg up or down the hut to the next player. Following round in this manner he would move, hop and sit for long periods. This camp gave me an opportunity to carve my own chess set. With only a penknife, I painstakingly carved the complete set from wood picked up in camp. As I was carving the sixteen pawns, I showed my progress to a fellow platoon pal who still had big ulcers. He asked if he could help to carve one or two for me to pass the time. He was so pleased when I said "Yes." His gallant effort at matching mine were not quite what I expected, although I did praise him and thank him. One half of the set was darkened with Permanganate of Potash from the medical corporal. In due course I also made an octagonal chess table which was put to very good use. The table stayed with me from camp to camp after that, until it became too much of a burden. The chess set remained with me till the end of the war, when I was able to bring it home, including the few carved by my old pal Sid.

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