Chaplains' Stories - A Story of Courage in World War II
This is a story told by Chaplain L. Marsden to the Catholic Weekly in November 15, 1945.
"UNDER THE HEEL OF A BRUTAL ENEMY OUR CATHOLIC BOYS KEPT THE FAITH" (cont)The Thailand camp was evacuated at the rate of 100 a day. Those who were able to walk had to carry the sick and dying on makeshift bamboo stretchers to the railway-line, a mile away over a muddy precipitous tract.
We got little satisfaction from knowing that our work had been completed to schedule and that the engineer-in-charge would not find it necessary to commit hari-kiri.
During the last stages an additional 400 prisoners of "Don" Force had been brought in to speed up the work and these were not so badly treated. The men of "H" Force, however, having had the heart worked out of them by slave conditions, were just discarded and left to die.
At the railway-line we were picked up and taken in open trucks to a point about a hundred miles away. During this journey, which took three days, 10 men died and were silently laid to rest beside the railway-line that will bring sad and bitter thoughts to families of the 8th Division men for generations to come.
A unique memorial stands there in the Thailand jungle, the work of C.O. Colonel Oakes. With an axe he fashioned a treat cross 20 feet high. Across the arm he printed an inscription in memory of our deceased Australian and British comrades, and on the upright piece was the Latin inscription, "Amantes Verum Deus aspiciat". What we wanted was to give expression in our heartfelt wish that God would look with pity upon the relatives of these dead men, particularly the mothers and fathers; then in Australia hoping and praying for their sons' return.
Majors Marsden and Fagan, with British and Dutch doctors and orderlies, had preceded us to Camburi, outside Bampong, and here they established a base hospital. Within a fortnight we had 3OOO hospital cases from "F" and "H" Forces. Many were seriously ill, and for two months after the hospital was opened - during the months of October and November - we lost from 5 to 15 men a day.
Conditions in this makeshift hospital were appalling. The atap huts were 50 metres long, and were set in two rows. Inside each hut a bench was built around the walls with bamboo rods, and on these hard, uncomfortable benches the sick were laid. Some had blankets, some had coats, but the majority were clad only in the clothes that had survived the terrible conditions on the railway. Each man had only two feet of space; some had even less. They were suffering from all manner of tropical diseases - beri-beri, cerebral malaria, tropical ulcers, dysentery and post-cholera inanition.
Our doctors had to make official reports to the Japanese, giving the causes of death; and they did not hesitate, when the facts warranted it, to write "died of starvation". The Japanese did not protest nor ask for another cause to be stated. They merely shrugged their shoulders.
Hygiene conditions at this hospital were every bit as bad as in the jungle. It seemed the deliberate policy of the Japanese to degrade the white man in front of the natives. The food in this camp, however, was much better, the intention apparently being to build up the men before they returned to Singapore.
I left this camp towards the end of October with a train load of 600 men on the journey back to Singapore. Our "F" and "H" Forces were completely evacuated from Camburi by the middle of January, 1944.
When "F" and "H" Forces went away there were 7000 men in the former, 3000 in the latter. During our absence of less than nine months, "F" Force lost 3000 men and "H" Force lost 992. For another 12 months many other deaths occurred from the after effects of this terrible experience.
On our return to Singapore we were established in a new camp known as Sime Road. In this camp we had a considerate Japanese commander, as Japanese commanders go. The food was very reasonable and quite good - the best we had as prisoners. It still had a basic foundation of rice, but this was supplemented each day by an issue to each man of five ounces of the almost miraculous soya bean.
We had not been in this camp for a week when the Catholic soldiers were clamouring for a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament could be reserved.
The man who came to our assistance was Lieutenant Hamish Cameron-Smith, a Scottish Catholic, and an architect in civilian life. He drew the plans for our little chapel, rounded up a band of voluntary labourers, and with the help of his fine persuasive, Highland personality, we managed to secure all the material we needed.
He then built the chapel, from the first nail to the last stroke of the Paint brush. His assistant carpenter and general factotum was a young English convert Lieutenant Hugh Simon Thwaites. This young officer endeared himself to our Catholic community by his enduring and ardent enthusiasm for things Catholic. He will have the good wishes and prayers of hundreds of his comrades when he commences his studies for the priesthood with the Society of Jesus after his discharge from the Army.
A beautiful garden was laid out around the chapel, and from the time it was finished until we left the camp in June, 1944, these two young officers spent hours each day keeping the church in repair, beautifying the garden and doing any odd job the chaplain required.
In front of the chapel a memorial plaque was erected, and on it was inscribed these words:
"This chapel is dedicated to Our Lady Help of Christians and in memory of our deceased comrades who died in Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, Thailand and Burma, over whose remains there was no Christian symbol."
These last words were added to remind the Japanese that we Christians respect the remains and last resting places of our comrades and to remind us - if that was necessary - to go back and gather up the remains of those we had left behind.
Within a week of our arrival at the Sime Road camp we began choir practice with a mixed group of Australian, British and Dutch soldiers. On Christmas night, 1944, we had the traditional Midnight Mass, at which the men rendered the work of a great Dutch composer. I was the only chaplain of any denomination at Sime Road, so it was not surprising that we had large numbers of non-Catholics at the Midnight Mass.
From November until January the treatment of the men at the camp was very reasonable. As they recovered in health, small parties were sent out for work in Singapore. Generally speaking, there was no brutality or cruelty, and the food was always reasonably good for P.O.W. conditions.
In January the Japanese decided to move all prisoners of war on Singapore Island into the great civilian gaol, which was not unlike Long Bay.
Until the time of our arrival, this gaol had been occupied by civilian internees, both men and women. With them were two Australian Redemptorists Fathers Cosgrave and Moran, as well as seven Dutch and Belgian priests. Here also were three Little Sisters of the Poor and two Canossian Sisters.
During their long imprisonment the priests had helped to care for the old and the sick, and the Sisters had worked in the hospital with the women.
The nuns had their own little, makeshift convent wherever they were camped, and when I visited them after the surrender of Singapore, I found them clad in almost immaculate white habits, cheerful, and impatiently waiting to go back to their work that had been interrupted by the war.
When we moved into the civilian gaol the civil internees took our place at the Sime Road camp. Here they were able to resume religious life in the chapel of Our Lady Help of Christians.
The movement of troops from the original Changi P.O.W. camp into the gaol was an unbelievable sight. All transport was effected with the chassis of old Army trucks, which were pulled by parties of 20 or 30 men. In this way all our camp materials including hospital beds, hospital equipment, cooking utensils, hygiene tools were transported.
The camp huts from the Changi barracks were pulled down by the prisioners and were graciously transported by the Japanese. Our engineers erected these huts outside the prison walls but even then, there was not sufficient accommodation and another eight huts, 100 metres long, were built also outside the walls of the goal.
When we were finally established in this camp we had 11,000 men in the whole area. Four thousand five hundred of these were crowded into cells and gaol workrooms. Within the gaol the overcrowding was shocking, but the men were consoled in their privation and comfort by the fact that civilian men, women and little children had cheerfully and courageously put up with these conditions for three years.
We had demolished our churches in the old Changi barracks, and now, with the aid of voluntary labour we transported the material to the new campsite. This included roofing-iron, timber, floor tiles and two statues, slightly less than life-size - one of 0ur Lady of Lourdes and the other of St. Joseph.
Almost before the first essential construction work had begun in the new camp; the senior chaplain, Father Dolan, was already looking out for likely sites for new chapels. These were soon selected, and under Father Dolans energetic leadership the chapels were quickly erected.
One within the camp walls was named in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and another was erected in the hospital area. Once again Lieutenant Cameron-Smith, Lieutenant Simon Thwaites, and Lieutenant Meyer (of the N.E.I. Forces) gave up all of their daylight hours in helping with this work. Meyer was a landscape gardener, and while Cameron-Smith and Simon Thwaites were getting on with the church construction, he was planning a most beautiful garden layout.
Fathers Dolan and Sexton were also on the job for hours every day, excavating earth for the foundations, sawing timber and hammering nails.
As usual, we had choirs practising in a matter of weeks, weekly instruction classes and Solemn High Mass once a month and on all the big feast days. At this time we had two British priests, five Australian priests and two Dutch priests.
From July, 1944, until March, 1945, Catholic life in the camp went along in the usual, smooth manner, with every facility for regular Communion. At the end of this period, however, due to shortage of altar breads, each priest was permitted to say only two Masses each week. Except on special occasions the soldiers were asked to receive Communion not more than once a month.
We had a suprising number of requests for exceptions to this rule. Men wanted to receive Communion on their wedding anniversaries or on the birthdays of their children. Nor did they forget the anniversaries of comrades who had been killed in the Malayan campaign.
By April , 1945 , thousands of men, who had been working on a new air-strip were taken away from the camp into different parts of the city to prepare battle stations for the Japanese final stand to retain the island fortress.
During this period, the men were forced to work very hard for long hours, making tank traps, underground food store-rooms, trenches and gun positions. At this period also the food was very bad, both in quantity and quality.
From April until August, when the surrender came, I saw men working from 10 to 12 hours a day on a few ounces of rice and a little dried whitebait. The issue of fish, which was our only source of protein was very irregular.
To supplement the camp rations a vegetable garden was started and a variety of Eastern spinach was grown. When this was added to the soup it was known by the men as jungle stew.
Although we realised that the war was fast coming to an end, we felt, and with good reason, that if there was a landing on Singapore Island, many of the men in the working parties would lose their lives in the fighting. Later, we were told by staff officers of the 9th Indian Corps, that the initial landing, with its prelude of bombing and shelling, was to have commenced in the very area we occupied at this time.
Meanwhile, I was able to offer Mass only once a week, because of the shortage of altar breads and wine, but on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady I celebrated Mass on the table of the operating theatre before the men went out to work.
At 2.30 that afternoon a crowd of Indians in a camp nearby became very excited. Shortly afterwards a Catholic Korean, who had kept us well posted with the news, told us that the war was over. Immediately there was a change of attitude among the Japanese. The food ration was increased and a quantity of new clothing issued. Nevertheless, they continued with their guard duties, displaying not the slightest emotion on their poker-faces.
On August 18 we moved back to Changi Gaol, where all prisoners were being assembled prior to the occupation of Singapore by the forces of Admiral Lord Louis Mounthattem.
All working parties could not be accommodated in the gaol, so a mixed force of British and Australians were kept at the Adam Park Camp, where they had been working. Those of us who were in the camp were fortunate because we were well within the city boundary and consequently witnessed all the British operational landings and the ceremonies of surrender. We were also able to contact Chinese and Eurasianian Catholic friends of pre-war days and to renew acquaintance with the local clergy and religious.
After what seemed an interminable time we were at last boarding the ship to bring us home.
On the way home Mass was celebrated every morning in the ship's recreation room and right until the last night when we were off Sydney Heads, where our last Mass was celebrated at one minute after twelve, the splendid attendance of Catholic soldiers was maintained.