Burma Railway Man: Secret Letters From a Japanese Pow Page 9

  My Dearest Wife,

  This is a mess!!

  A few days after writing the above, I came out in blisters all over and especially under the armpits. These burst and formed into running sores. The pain is intense, because both my armpits are masses of congealed pus and hair, which gets stiff if my arms stop in any one position. I have to keep my arms over my head during the night to stop my arms sticking to my body. I’m flush all over. I am using a vest – a kind of all-over bandage. I’ve never known anything so painful. Sgt.Pleasaunce is in the same condition.

  Medical Orderly – a Pte-says that it is just a Deficiency Disease and there is nothing to be done except keep the sores antiseptic. The only bright spot is that the Nip captain in charge of the Camp is dead scared of us and won’t come near us!

  Oh my God!! What have we done to deserve this?

  With conditions reaching a new low, it was almost inevitable that cholera, that most virulent and dreaded of diseases, should break out along the string of slave camps.

  Sores drying up, I’m pleased to report. I have never felt so tired in my life. I am now doing CSM (Company Sergeant Major) of No. 2 Coy (OC Capt.Cooke of the Norfolks). It was about time someone was allowed to do administration.

  The dreaded cholera has broken out at Kinsaiyok. I pray to God it will not reach here. We are boiling a four gallon tin of water for each tent, so that men may wash in safety, although it gets thick after 20 men have been through it. Nevertheless, the Coy Cmdr and myself cannot boil bigger quantities as we have few cans and the water has to be carried up the cliff face from the river. The other companies are not washing.

  The ‘Mad Captain’ in charge of the Camp has allowed us to form a small group Administration – Maj.Roberts RA, is the CO, Lt.Primrose of the Argylls the Adjutant and CSM Knight the RSM.

  I am sleeping next to Lt.Primrose, who I’d like you to meet. He is a terrific fellow, at Least 6ft 6” and broad in proportion, with a perfect ‘baby’ face. He lives in London and was a sergeant in the London Scottish before becoming an officer. Like all Argyll officers, he is breezy and adopts the colonial type of discipline towards the OR’s. No one would guess he was an officer. He did extremely well in Malaya, twice having bullets pass through his helmet. He was finally captured up country while unconscious after hand to hand wrestling with a Nip patrol. He was tied to a lamp post at Taipong and urinated on by all the Nips who came along. He is a grand fellow, completely fearless, also absolutely irresponsible. He tells me some amusing stories of his girl friends. He is a grand fellow to have here in these circumstances.

  Despite the efforts of Charles and his fellow officers and NCO’s, cholera reached Camp 154. Charles’s new friend, Lieutenant Primrose, became involved in a dramatic moral dilemma which ended in tragedy.

  The worst has happened. Yesterday, the Nips were imbeciles enough to send us a new company of men from Kinsaiyok. Today, one man was dying of cholera. A Japanese officer, hearing about this, ordered the Koreans to shoot the man. Major Roberts and Lt.Primrose objected violently, but the Koreans took aim. Lt.Primrose then took the rifle from the Koreans and said he would rather shoot the fellow himself, because the Japs and Koreans would not go near the man because of their fear of infection. They were trembling with fear, although wearing face pads. Cholera is the fastest and most deadly disease in the world. Lt.Primrose shot him under protest.

  Many men are dying at Kinsaiyok. One gunner in my Bty was well at 9pm and dead at 3am. One cannot bury these men for fear of soil and water infection. All have to be burnt, difficult because the IJA won’t give enough petrol for the purpose.

  The outlook is not very bright, my dear. I wonder who will be next. I wonder who will come through these hazards.

  There then followed something that appeared at the time to be of little consequence, but would later evolve into one of the great money-making scams perpetrated against the Japanese. For Charles, it was a way of using his numeracy skills and a quiet way of waging war against his hated captors.

  Letter 96 154 Camp July’43

  My Dear,

  It’s an ill wind … From 1 July, the IJA required a new proforma for pay claims – as complicated as only Jap forms can be. CSM Knight simply couldn’t cope, so Lt.Primrose has offered me the job of RSM. I took it and was immediately involved in a terrible argument with Knight, who is of the old type of Regular, with about 30 years service. He accused Mr.Primrose and myself of being TA (true) and working him out of his job. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t carry on with the job. One of his own Regular Gordon Officers told him he was behaving like a ‘hysterical housemaid’, which didn’t please him much.

  However, I am now installed in a tent with Mr.Primrose and a runner, opposite the Nip tent. Loads of room – enough to put up a mosquito net – and now have over 600 men of every unit, colour and of 4 nationalities to look after, including one whole Company isolated with cholera cases.

  Latrines to arrange, cookhouse, MI room – lots to do … and all day the Koreans shouting for Jeuni (RSM) Sti (the nearest to Steel they can get). The chief Korean is Esourau – not a bad little fellow.

  In the morning, I get the pay claims from the Coys and consolidate them onto the big IJA Pay form. Then in the evening comes the battle with the Nips over the next days availability. An enormous number of men are really sick, but still on their feet. I am not getting specialist’s rates – 50c a day!!

  With ‘speedo’ increasingly being enforced with greater brutality, the railway line was approaching completion in Charles’s section.

  My Dear,

  Work outside is speeding up to a frenzy. The Japs are simply going crazy, as a rail gang approaches from the south-east and the track is not ready. Men are taking terrific beatings. The rail should be through tomorrow night – I have been told to have five meals ready in the next 24 hour but have received no extra rations. We had a bag of fish yesterday, which consisted entirely of fish bones. The pumpkins are crawling with worms.

  Charles then had a welcome break from the misery of the camp when he was sent upstream to collect the prisoners’ pay.

  I have just returned from a two-day journey on my own. The day before yesterday, Esou (the head Korean guard) told me I was to go to Kinsaiyok by launch to get the pay. With a blanket under my arm and mess tins in the other, I got with him and two Thais into a launch and then sat back and enjoyed a unique journey of about six hours, as the launch battled against strong currents up to Kinsaiyok.

  At places, the river was in flood and one could see masses of swirling water for miles: at others, great cliffs hemmed in the river and the launch made hardly any headward against the swirling current. I thought we should capsize – but didn’t. It was a most amazing experience. The only signs of life were at isolated kampongs at the water’s edge or on moored barges.

  I collected the pay at Kinsaiyok after an interview with Lt.Zauki – the Camp Cmdr and travelled down stream in a barge today. I was back in about two hours. At times the barge was swirled in front of the launch by the fierce current. Hardly the Serpentine!! PS ‘Did’ the Japs for 120 dollars!! Paid out 20 cents a man!!

  Charles’s robust health began to decline as Camp 154 was evacuated.

  Letter 99 154 Camp July’43

  My Dear,

  I am feeling decidedly on the downgrade. I have now had acute diarrhoea for three months and it is telling in increased weakness and thinness. We are to march to Kinsaiyok in a few days …

  Letter 100 Kinsaiyok July ’43

  We have arrived back at Kinsaiyok. I just about made it. We now find that all fit men are to be marched further up country still. The Adjutant here, Capt.Janis, has asked me to do RSM in place of a Cambs. Sjt.Major, who seems dead on his feet. I have done so, but feel more like curling up myself.

  These are bad times for us. There is a cholera ‘hospital’ here, but really it is a dying hut as there isn’t any real treatment. Jap, Thai, British, Dutch and Tamils (male and female) are lying next to each other and magni
ficent work is being done by RAMC orderlies under atrocious conditions. The Japs are inoculating everyone.

  The other day, four men were detailed to carry a sick man to this hospital. When they got there, the Jap there made them burn a dead Tamil woman. They themselves were dead by that night, which shows you how contagious it is …

  The IJA are sending a certain number of sick down country and, having been examined innumerable times by both our MOs and the Japs, I am one of those to go back. The ones called fit are to march further up-country. Already some parties have left here by barge for camps down country. I shall be on the last party.

  Charles and his comrades had been marched up the line to Kinsaiyok and separated into two groups. If being sick could be described as lucky, then the normally fit Charles Steel was fortunate that his health hit its lowest ebb at this moment. Instead of marching off to another primitive camp deeper in the highlands, he was to be evacuated with the many sick to larger and comparatively better-organized camps in the south. Although hard labour was at an end for Charles, the misery continued.

  Letter 102 Wang Yai Aug’43

  The last few days at Kinsaiyok were most unpleasant. The Japs took every fit man and left the sick to look after themselves. We were forced to get sick men out of bed to do the cooking and other jobs. Men who couldn’t walk had to sit peeling onions. Sick drifted back from the march up-country, too. Some of the bullocks, which were accompanying the party came back too. It is raining heavily.

  I finally left Kinsaiyok on 6 Aug, after we had completely burnt one hut on the cookhouse fire. One man died as we lifted him to put him on the barge. We made stretchers out of bed bamboos. We had to carry those too weak to walk.

  We arrived in two parties at Tha Soe (sic) and there was trouble because a Korean with us couldn’t find the rest of the party, which had been landed by the Thai boatman further away. That party were picked up by a Korean, who beat them mercilessly because he hadn’t been able to find them in the dark.

  We marched to Wang Yai, where we were given two tents for the hundreds of men. On the next day, we were put in and taken out of a train about a dozen times and have returned to the two tents and have apparently been completely forgotten. We have had no food issued for three days, but I am getting a half-pint rice and half-pint meat water three times a day from a friendly POW cookhouse nearby. There is a rumour that we may proceed down country tomorrow.

  Finally, Charles was carried on the railway he had helped to build and arrived at Chungkai, not far from his old camp at Tamarkan.

  We have arrived by railway. At last we are back in ‘civilisation’, as represented by a ‘hospital camp’ – even if the Nips don’t issue medicines.

  Here at Chungkai we are isolated outside the main camp. I have about 100 men of all units, Services and nationalities. Food is grand after the up-country stuff. I have bought a pair of boots. Being barefoot is the worst experience one can have.

  There is a strong police force here to deal with the thieving one gets in a camp, where people aren’t paid. There is a very good canteen, but the hospital is a charnel house and the average deaths are about 6–10 per day.

  Some parties evacuated from up-country arrive by barge with sick men drowned in the bilge water at the bottom. There are a lot of amputations owing to enormous tropical ulcers.

  Breakfast: Rice, porridge, sugar (plus 5c marmalade)

  Lunch: Tea, rice, good stew (plus 5c soya beans)

  Dinner: Tea, rice, good stew, ”meat cup” sweet gulo djapathy.

  This is good after the up-country starvation. I can eat two whole mess tins of rice, when I can get hold of it and am rapidly filling out again.

  It is Sunday again. Up-country, time was not marked by events with which we are accustomed to mark the passage of time. There were no Sundays at all. No rest days – nothing but work.

  Now, here at Chungkai, one is slipping back to a life where Sunday is observed, where one washes and shaves extra early, where one puts on one’s ‘best’ clothes. There is a stillness in the air that comes on Sundays in England. It is Sunday again.

  This brief interlude of tranquility was ended by a jolt of tragedy.

  RSM Coles – our RSM – was brought in from up country yesterday and died today 19/8/43. I was with him almost until the end, when he lapsed into unconsciousness. I was the senior NCO here, so had to arrange things. The funeral was one of several and as decent as we could make it. I found enough 135 sergeants as bearers. Just as the funeral was about to start, a new sick party came in. Included in it was the RSM’s stepson. An unpleasant shock for him.

  For Charles, construction work on the railway had ended. In an incredibly short period, just one year, the two lines were joined. In a ceremony at Konkorta on 17 October 1943, a golden nail should have been hammered into the final tie by a Japanese general. His repeated attempts failed and it was left to a prisoner to, appropriately, finish the job.

  Very soon, Charles was on the move again and was surprised to find himself back at Nong Pladuk, on the junction of the Singapore-Bangkok main line, where the Burma-Siam railroad started.

  1. Charles with his father and stepbrother, Ken.

  2. Exercises with the Kent Yeomanry on the South Downs, 1938.

  3. …and after the action; clean, clean, clean.

  4. Charles and his BEF comrades in Northern France, 1939.

  5. Watching a dogfight over Perenchies, 1940.

  6. Charles has a hasty wash during retreat, Belgium, May 1940.

  7. Dunkirk, 31 May 1940. Belgian and British soldiers waiting on the front to be evacuated.

  8. A quiet moment on the beach. The rescuing ships are dimly seen.

  9 HMS Express, which carried Charles safely back to England.

  10. Charles and Louise reunited after Dunkirk.

  11. Louise Crane in uniform, 1941.

  12. 135th (Herts.Yeomanry) Field Regiment RA, 336th Battery.

  13. Exercises in Yorkshire during the summer of 1941. Charles is on the far right.

  14. The wedding photo which Charles carried throughout his captivity. Note Japanese censor’s stamp.

  15. MV Sobieski.

  16. USS Mount Vemon.

  17. Charles in Mombasa, Kenya, in December 1941.

  18. Attap huts, Malaya.

  19. Singapore river barges.

  20. Certificate of Initiation presented to Charles on crossing the equator.

  21. Singapore: the causeway across the Johore Strait.

  22. Official notification of Charles’ capture.

  23. Map of Singapore.

  24. Layout sketch of Tamarkan POW camp and location of the two railway bridges.

  POW graves near Tamarkan, Thailand ’43

  River near No.7 POW camp, Thailand ’43

  Tamarkan – hills and camp ’43

  G. room – Tamarkan ’43

  Cookhouse by night – rice ’43

  Cookhouse by night – stew ’43

  25. Scenes from Tamarkan.

  26. Sketches of two types of barges that Charles made in Letter 53. (See page 58.)

  27. ‘The Chunkle Swingers Union’ Christmas card, Nong Pladuk, 25 December 1943.

  28. Nong Pladuk Cycling Club membership certificate.

  29. Drawings showing bridge piling.

  30. Completed railway, near Kinsiok.

  31. One of the many trackside cemeteries.

  32. Leaflet dropped by RAF announcing that the war was over.

  33. Lord Louis Mountbatten in Singapore at the end of the war.

  34. On the way home. Left to right: Sergeants Parsons and Edwards, with Charles Steel in Suez, Egypt.

  35. WO2 Charles Steel, 1945.

  36. Captain Louise Steel, 1945.

  37. Prince’s landing stage, Liverpool.

  38. Charles visits the bridge, 1973.

  39. Louise by the bridge, 1973.

  Chapter 9

  Return to Nong Pladuk

  Letter 106 Nong Pladuk Aug’43

/>   My Dearest,

  We were moved here on the 20th. Apparently we shouldn’t have gone to Chungkai – the Nip army is like that.

  Nong Pladuk Camp was the first camp to be built in Thailand. It stands at the junction of the new Thailand – Burma line with the existing Bangkok – Singapore line. It is exactly 40 miles from Bangkok. It has as CO, Lt. Col. W.E. Gill, 137 Field Reg RA, and administration has been brought to a high level. Food is good, if monotonous, and there is a Chinese Canteen, a Dutch Canteen and a British Canteen, a Concert Party and a Church. At the moment I am officially sick but am anxious to start doing some work again as one must live and this needs money. Work here is at either Hashimoto’s or Sakimolo’s (Nip RAOC & RE units). At the moment I am in a mixed hut in charge of a section bat expect to be soon transferred to the Gunner’s Hut.