Travelling North

Just as we were settling down again in Changi, it was announced that working parties were to be formed with the fittest of us, to work on a railway somewhere up north. A party of Cambridgeshires was formed, some recovering from malaria, some with skin complaints, but most were eager for a change, with a promise of better food and hospital care. With very little time to prepare, we were told to travel light and prepare to move. Each of us was given some rations for the day and we filled our water bottles. Then we were split into small parties to board a truck with a Jap guard, to take us to Singapore railway station. We were ordered into steel covered railway wagons, about thirty to a wagon, by Jap soldiers prodding and pushing angrily until the required number of prisoners were in each wagon. Everyone had to stand or squat in a cramped position. We were told that we would be travelling several days and nights like this, and no-one could leave the wagon at any of the stops without permission. The sliding doors were closed and so began our journey of unbearable suffering.

The first day, travelling north over the causeway into Malaya, we made the best of our ordeal. The conversation was humorous with some vulgarity, but good tempers remained. It was so hot and sticky in those wagons during the day and, as we found out later, it was cold at night. To urinate was easy for those by the sliding door, but a work of art for someone in a far corner to step round and over bodies to make it to the door and back. This happened frequently as the wagons jolted and shook along to the first stop at Kuala Lumpar. The difficult part was with other calls of nature when one had to be held in a position with your backside into the outside slipstream. We were allowed off the wagons at maybe two stops a day, but there were other stops, sometimes for fuel or water, or onto a loop line, while other trains passed. Anyone who got off at these stops for nature calls were hit with anything at hand by the Japs, but many took the risk. The local natives appeared with delicacies at most stops, but they were chased off.

With no more than two official stops each day for food, we continued to Ipoh and the Thailand border. Buckets of rice and buckets of water were placed by each wagon when we stopped for meals, but we were given just a few minutes to share it out and relieve ourselves, before everyone was ordered or prodded back into our uncomfortable cage ready to continue. The smell and the flies at these stops, caused by previous parties, made us eager to continue. The worst part of our train ride was after dusk when everyone wanted to get comfortable for the long night. With no light, except perhaps somebody's lighter flashing on now and again, elbows, knees and boots got in everyone's way. This was total humiliation, but each morning was greeted by someone cracking a joke or telling a yarn about another lad's sleeping habits. True sleep was not possible. This continued for four or five days until we reached our destination in the early hours of the morning.

With great relief and pleasure we breathed in the fresh air, glad to say goodbye to the cattle wagons we had left. Tired and very stiff, we lined up to be counted, before we were marched to the camp which was called Banpong. It was now about November 1942. The promise of a good camp, good food and medical supplies was soon dashed. The camp was a filthy muddy place, with huts constructed with bamboo, and atap roofs. The roofs were leaky and the huts very frail looking, they had also been left dirty by a previous party, with flies and mosquitoes well provided for. This turned out to be a transit camp, so in a day or two we were on the move again. We heard stories from others who were already at the camp, that we were to construct a section of the railway to run from Bangkok to Moulmein in Burma.

Early in the morning, after the usual rice and watery stew, we were lined up and counted and moved off to await trucks to take us to the next camp. After hours waiting in the Thailand monsoon weather, we boarded the trucks to Kanchanburi (or Kanburi for short). This was also a temporary stopping place with huts built along the same lines as in the last camp. The conditions in the camp seemed much the same as before, and as depressing as the weather.

Without much warning, we were soon on the move again. We formed up into small parties after a breakfast of rice and little else, to be marched down to the river. There we waited for small boats manned by native Thais to take us to the other side of the river. At this time of the year it was quite a fast running, wide river, with lots of activity. The Thai natives lived on, and sold, goods of all descriptions from their boats, but we were not allowed to go near. Crossing to the other side of the river didn't take long, but it was plain to us that we were leaving civilization behind. It was the beginning of the dense, wet and sticky jungle, with lots of bamboo growing, up to four or five inches in diameter and twenty feet or more high. Many different kinds of trees grew, with creepers entwined.

We were marched several miles through jungle tracks to the camp which was to be our base for some time to come. The camp was a muddy mess from the monsoon rains which were now in full swing. The huts followed the same crude pattern as before, each man being allotted little more than two feet wide bamboo bed space in a continuous line each side of a hundred feet long hut. We were allowed the rest of the day off; but were told to be ready to start work the following day. This camp was known as Chunkai; quite a large camp compared with others we were to be in later. There were at least a thousand prisoners, and Jap or Korean guards housed within. There were some large trees growing within the camp and a high wire fence perimeter. The camp grounds sloped down to the river bank and for once we were able to go down to wash or bathe when it was possible. There were a lot of fish in the river’s muddy waters, which was waist deep a few feet out from the bank. If you didn’t keep on the move, the fish bit toes and legs – especially if you had sores. The cookhouse huts were located near to the bank, as a lot of water was drawn for that purpose.

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