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Clarrie Thorton's Story
A country lad from Berrigan, N.S.W., I was born and bred on my father's farm, working with Clydesdale horses. I had joined the 20th Light Horse Regiment a good four years before war broke out.
In June 1940 I enlisted for overseas service, and by the time I embarked I had gained experience as an N.C.O. Shortly after my arrival in Malaya was appointed sergeant of a gun crew in 13th Battery of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment.
The trip on the Queen Mary was full of excitement. When our convoy of huge troop carriers, including the Aquitania, the New Amsterdam and the Mauritania, manoeuvred in mid ocean to allow the Queen Mary to break away from them and proceed independently, the blasting of sirens, the rousing cheers from the troops, and the sight of our nurses lining the decks in their grey and red uniforms, sent a thrill through me that I shall never forget.
We were off on our way to Singapore, as we thought, to join the garrison troops there.
Disembarking in Singapore, we were surprised to hear our arrival announced over the loud speakers as "thousands of heavily armed Australian troops." In fact we had only one 303 rifle between every three men, and no ammunition. We were loaded on to army trucks and to our surprise, driven around the city in circles, presumably to deceive the locals into thinking that our numbers were endless.
We were barracked in Seremban High School where we trained on two English Mark I Anti-Tank guns. We then moved on to Tampin and then Malacca, where we received our full strength of anti-tank guns and immediately went into intensive training. The Japanese invasion of Singapore was now beginning to look dangerously close.
It had always been standard practice to tow our guns behind our 30-cwt Ford trucks. It became a simple matter for us to unhook them and move them into position ready for action. We could do this in a matter of seconds.
We had not been in Malaya long, before we learned, that in the desert warfare in the Middle East, it had been found much more effective to move anti-tank guns around by carrying them on the backs of the trucks, than by trying to tow them across the desert sands. In army jargon, this method of moving guns became known as `Porte'.
Our regimental top brass decided that what was good for the goose was good for the gander, and that we should follow suit in Malaya and so in future, guns would no longer be towed, but would be carried Porte.
Our guns weighed over half a ton and it was not an easy matter to load them on the trays of the trucks. When we did get the guns on the trucks, we then had to load on all the containers of anti-tank ammunition, our emergency petrol supplies, and finally cram on the four members of the gun crew with their rifles and personal gear. All this on the back of a small 30-cwt truck.
The weight of the gun and the load on the back of the truck, made it difficult to steer. With everybody jammed so tightly into the truck, driving along the tortuous potholed roads of Malaya would be downright dangerous. Furthermore, unloading the gun and getting it into action was going to be far more difficult and take us so much longer.
The troops complained that the Porte method was far too dangerous. Instead of taking us just seconds to get a gun into action, it was now going to take minutes of strenuous, dangerous hard work. They didn't like the idea at all and said so in no uncertain terms.
Orders came through that the three troops of 13th Battery `Ack,' `Beer'and `Charlie' were to have a live shoot in the presence of the C.O. and that guns were to be carried to the shoot Porte style.
We decided to take the bit in our teeth and let the C.O. know the difficulty and danger of moving guns Porte. After heated discussions the boys in `Beer' and `Charley' troops decided not to go to the shoot. We went on strike.
That night the C.O. stood down the two troop commanders of `Beer' and `Charley' troops, Lieutenants Bill McCure and Jack Ross, and put them under tent arrest. They were sacked.
The C.O. then called a meeting of the dissenting sergeants. Bill Cunneen, one of the objectors, was an acting gun sergeant at the time and came to the meeting wearing only his bombardier stripes. Without any questions the C.O. dismissed him from the meeting, as he was not yet a confirmed sergeant. Not a good way to start a meeting.
"What is the meaning of your non-attendance at the shoot?" he demanded sternly.
After a long silence, the C.O. looked along the line of us very ill-at-ease sergeants. His glare stopped at me. After a long uncomfortable silence I stammered, "Sir, I think someone has misunderstood the meaning of carrying guns Porte. We have been trained to get our guns into action in seconds, but it takes much longer to get them into action, carrying them Porte. If we carry them like that we are sitting ducks. We know that it's dangerous any time but, we're prepared to accept that. But Porte, it's suicide, sir."
The C.O.'s gaze burned right through me, "You can sit down, Thornton, any one else with anything to say?"
Dead silence followed, then, "There will be another shoot tomorrow, be there or else. Dismiss."
We were none too happy, so we got together that night to talk it over. We decided to hell with it, we would sit it out and take the consequences.
Bill McCure, the banished commander of `Charley' troop, broke his tent arrest and stole into our tent to join in the discussion.
"What are you going to do?" he asked us.
"Stick it out sir," we said as one.
"Right," said Bill, "a fair decision, but think it over. If you don't go there will be mass demotions and a complete break up of `Beer' and `Charley' troops, I plead with you to go."
One of the boys asked Bill, "Sir, did you know before, that if we didn't go to the shoot you would be sacked?"
"Yes", said Bill, "but it was your decision. I think you are right and that one day they will sort it all out, but please go to tomorrow's shoot."
Feeling very uneasy and very unconfident, we accepted Bill's advice and decided to go.
The boys then decided to have a collection to buy a gift for Bill, to show him our appreciation for the part he had played. We collected as much as we could afford and one of the boys found a reason to go to Singapore and, using his sharpest wiles to bargain with the Indian jeweller, bought the best wristwatch he could and we presented it to Bill.
Later, Bill was ordered back to Base HQ, but as the fortunes of war would have it, he was to be sent back later as a troop commander, to play a crucial role in the Battle of Malaya, earning him a place in the annals of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment.
It was not long after our rebellion, that Major Schneider, who had a considerable experience with anti-tank activities in the desert warfare in the Middle East, joined our regiment.
He explained that Porte actually meant mounting the guns in a fixed position ready to fire from the truck. A larger vehicle was used and, with the gun mounted on the tray they could move more quickly through the desert sands. In this way, the gun was always in position ready for immediate action.
It certainly did not mean loading the gun on the back of a truck, moving it into position and then unloading it to get it into action.
Henceforth we towed our guns behind our trucks, as we had always done. We relaxed once more, but we still smouldered over the misunderstanding by our top brass and the irreversible effects it had on the men in our troop.
Later on, in the fighting on Singapore Island, some of the guns were mounted correctly in the Porte manner. The boys accepted them, but not without some reservations. These mostly came from the drivers of the trucks over whose heads the guns could be fired. If any one has any doubts about this, he should ask Andy Malcolm, one of our drivers. Fixed to the tray of his truck, Andy's gun was blown up with a direct hit, killing his gun sergeant outright.
Eventually our troop moved into action and we were deployed along the main road to Gemas.
As it so happened, General Bennetts had instructed Colonel Robertson of the 2/29th Infantry Battalion that he should have the support of a troop of anti-tank guns and that he would need an experienced anti-tank officer to lead them.
There were only two officers available for such an assignment; the two banished officers, Bill McCure and Jack Ross so they tossed for it. Bill won and rejoined the regiment and was placed in charge of a composite troop comprising, Sergeants Ken Harrison and Charlie Parsons from 16th Battery and Sergeant Fred Peake and me from 13th Battery.
My gun crew comprised Gunner Claude Brown from Eaglehawk as gunlayer, Gunner Ray Cooper from Nathalia as loader, Gunner Jim Flowers from Tumbarumba as ammunition number, driver Lance Gilbert from Ouyen and Keith Fletcher, Bren gun support.
Word came through that a small party of Jap troops had crossed the Muar river and were causing some trouble to our infantry there. We were ordered to provide anti-tank support for the 2/29th Battalion, which was now moving up to intercept them. Bill told us that the Commander of the 2/29th, Colonel Robertson was none too happy about having an anti-tank troop attached to his battalion, but as we had our orders, we would press on regardless.
On the way to Muar, Bill had another fall out with the colonel. It happened over a difference of regimental procedures. Attending his first briefing session with the colonel, and trying to adhere to anti-tank regimental procedures, he was dismissed from the meeting. As a consequence, he was not invited to any of the following briefings.
Bill learnt from other officers that the battalion was going to rendezvous between Bakri and Muar for the night and that half the battalion would take up defensive positions on one side of the road, and the other half on the other side. In the morning they would then move into Muar to mop up the few Jap troops supposed to be there.
He decided to place two of his guns along the side of the road running between the battalion positions, with my gun covering a bend in the road in front of the battalion and Charley Parson's gun down the road in a cutting to the rear. Bill decided that he would keep Ken Harrison's and Fred Peak's guns in reserve at his base.
We manhandled our gun behind a large mound looking down the road before it took a slight turn to the right, so we were able to see any tanks coming up the road toward us. We were well concealed about 400 yards from the bend, unlikely to be seen by approaching tanks. There we settled down for a rather restless night, our adrenalin running high, knowing the Japs were not far away from us.
It was the 18 January 42, and as the day dawned, we heard a rumbling and clanking, and saw five Jap tanks moving slowly at about 15 mph, toward the bend. Quickly and quietly we manned our gun. As soon as the tanks were side on to us, I told Claude to take aim at the leading tank and gave him the order to fire. We hit it and moved quickly on to the second tank. We got direct hits on both tanks, but we were firing armour-piercing (A.P.) shells, and they seemed to go straight through them.
I was sure that their crews would have been concussed, but I
continued to fire on the tanks until they were badly damaged and were rolling slowly down toward Charley Parson's gun.
We then turned our gun on the fourth and fifth tanks. With a burst of A.P. shells. We stopped them in their tracks.
I yelled out to an infantryman standing just behind watching us, to race back to Bill McCure at our base and get him to send up high-explosive (H.E.) ammunition and to hurry up about it.
The third tank had not yet been hit, but in trying to escape, it had become jammed between the first and second tanks, which were now burning fiercely, having been hit with high-explosive shells from Charley Parson's gun. An infantry officer raced over to it and threw hand grenades down the turret, and it blew up.
Bill McCure and his batman Titch Morley raced up with the containers of H.E. shells and kept running back and forth, keeping up our supply as we continued to pump the two pounders into the tanks. Each time Bill arrived with a container of shells he kept egging us on "You're going great guns, Clarrie, keep it up." When all five tanks had been destroyed we stopped for a welcome breather.
Right throughout the action shells and mortars had been exploding all around us and bullets whizzed through the air from the battle raging between the 2/29 Battalion and the `small' mob of Japs they had been sent to Muar to mop up. It just so happened that the `few isolated troops' which had crossed the Muar river and were
causing a bit of trouble, turned out to be 12,000 guards from the crack Japanese troop, the Imperial Army Japanese Guards. The skirmish the 2/29 had expected, was to become one of the major battles in the defence of Malaya.
I had been hit in the hip by a piece of shrapnel from a mortar which exploded nearby. It didn't seem to impede my movements at all and as it didn't bleed or hurt much I carried on.
Then suddenly, over the din we could hear more rumbling and clanking. More tanks were on their way. This time, we could not see where they were coming from and we knew the Japs would now have our position pinpointed. The situation became tense and frightening and we expected to be fired on at any minute. I felt this was to be the real battle, and it was.
Then the first tank appeared coming slowly up to the bend, we waited tensely. It opened fire at us, its shells hitting the mound of earth in front of our gun. I had remembered Ken Harrison telling me, that when he lost his first gun at Gemas, the Japs aimed low so that the shells would explode underneath the guns. Fortunately, there happened to be this mound of earth nearby and I was able to man-handle our gun behind it. This had saved us.
We quickly opened up on the first tank, this time we gave him a burst of H.E.shells. The tank stopped dead in its tracks, burning furiously and billowing out a trail of smoke.
Then I could see two more tanks, one sheltering in the trail of smoke behind the burning tank, the other darting off the road to our left into the jungle about two hundred yards away. It opened fire at us. Turning quickly, we hit him with a burst of H.E.s and stopped him.
Then to our surprise Jap infantry leapt into the tank and opened fire on us again. We gave it another burst when, lo and behold, another bunch of Japs leapt in and again opened up on us. We were busy transferring from this tank to the tank sheltering in the smoke screen which had also kept up heavy fire at us. Several of its shells whizzed past, just missing us, but after a quick duel with him, we managed to set him on fire too, and put him out of action. We then turned quickly on the tank firing at us from the jungle and silenced it, this time for keeps.
All eight tanks had now been stopped and were burning along the road in front of us. In that short space of time we had pumped over 70 rounds into them.
Throughout the action the gun crew had been magnificent, cracking jokes as they loaded and fired the gun. Lance Gilbert whom I had asked to take on the job of loading the gun, would give each shell a kiss, call out, "Tally Ho", then load it into the breech.
As Claude depressed the pedal to fire the gun, he would call out, "There the bastard goes".
This ritual had its origins in the events relating to one of our more gentlemanly officers taking his morning ablutions. The officer (whom all anti-tankers would recognise immediately but for the purpose of this exercise, shall remain nameless), would walk across the parade ground to the officers' shower, meticulously clad in an immaculate white towel and his officer's hat, carrying his swagger stick under his arm.
Whenever he saw him, Lance delighted in throwing a kiss and calling out, "Tally Ho," to which Claude would add, "There the bastard goes."
This got a bit too much for the officer, so summoning up his courage he called the troops together. "The use of loud and abusive language is becoming offensive, it has to stop at once." Of course it didn't.
He called a further meeting. This time he was as irate as he was able and issued as stern a reprimand as he was able. "This abusive language has to stop, and what's more, so does the use of that awful Australian `In and Out' word."
The tanks were all scattered over the road in front of us. In the lull after the action the boys were elated.
Claude Brown was ecstatic and said to me, "Thorney, I'm a very proud man. Not only did I do my job, along with you fellows, but we have upheld the great name of the first world blokes. "
The infantryman I had screamed at to race back to our base and get Bill McCure to rush up the high explosive shells, turned out to my great surprise to be Captain Bowring of the 2/29 Battalion. He came over to our gun and said, "Congratulations sergeant, you and your crew have done a remarkable job; it would not be possible to see better gunnery. The individual duels were terrific to watch and you won them all."
Then he added, "By the way, your boys are a pretty wild bunch, aren't they?"
His runner who was with him said, "Thank Christ they were on our side, sir. "
We all broke into laughter and I began to feel good, but now my leg began to hurt and I thought I had better soon go to the RAP and get it dressed.
A very proud and elated Bill McCure raced over to our gun and congratulated us, telling us how thrilled he had been with our action.
The gun crew had done what was required of them. It was a great feeling all round.
Every battle must have its heroes - sung and unsung.
Neither Bill nor Clarrie ever received any official recognition for their part in this action.
We will never know whether it was because both Bill and Clarrie had got on the wrong side of our regimental top brass, or whether it was because Bill was never taken prisoner by the Japs, but lived in obscurity with the Chinese communist guerrillas and Clarrie was captured by the Japs and taken back behind the lines to be imprisoned in Pudu in Kuala Lumpur.
Both were reported `Missing Believed Killed.'
We do know that neither Bill nor Clarrie was in Changi, when the regiment had regrouped and so were not there to tell the truth about their part in the action, at the time when heroes had to be found and awards made.
One would have expected them to receive some form of recognition for the devastation they had caused the Japanese Tank Division and for the favourable effect this must have had for us by restricting the use of Jap tanks in their battle for Singapore.
But war is war and the army is the army.
Charley Parsons, the sergeant of the gun which Bill had placed down the road, in the cutting, returned to Changi and was awarded the D.C.M. for his part in the action.
Much later, well after he had returned home, Clarrie was awarded a `Mention in Despatches', for services in Malaya. No mention was ever made of his action in the tank battle at Muar.
Bill never received the slightest recognition from Army Headquarters, not even verbal acknowledgement from any of the senior brass of our regiment.
This leaves us with the thought that bravery happens at any time and more often than not, it just happens in the course of a soldier's normal duty.
There is little difference between the acts of bravery a soldier carries out the normal course of his duties and those acts of courage and bravery that are singled out for reward.
Bill then told us that the Japs had by-passed us and had formed a road block behind us and that when Colonel Robertson had gone with his Don R to investigate it, he had been badly wounded.
I made my way to the RAP and though I didn't think the wound was too bad, the doctors thought otherwise that I should be evacuated and report to our C.O. on the results of the action.
I was put in a Red Cross ambulance headed for Singapore. We hadn't gone far when a Jap machine gun opened fire on the ambulance, killing the driver and the two wounded men in the front seat. The truck veered into the jungle and I crawled out the back and took cover.
Shortly after, another truck loaded with wounded came by, we hailed it and clambered aboard. Some of the men in the truck were in such bad shape they could hardly help themselves.
Further down the road we came to another road block and we pulled over on the side of the road. One of our Bren gun carriers travelling behind us moved up and silenced the machine guns and cleared the road block.
We continued on our way when suddenly a Jap plane patrolling the area came from behind and machine gunned us, killing many of the wounded men in the truck. It then turned in a wide circle and dived straight down the road in front of us. The driver quickly pulled the truck over to the side of the road and stopped. All of the wounded, who could, scrambled out into the jungle on that side of the road.
Being in the front passengers seat I jumped out across the narrow road and flattened myself in the scrub on the other side.
The plane dropped a bomb near the truck killing all the wounded men lying there. The blast of shrapnel from the explosion further wounded the men in the truck, who were now quite distraught and severely shaken up.
Another truck loaded with injured came by and stopped. We divided the wounded between the two trucks and once again took off down the road to Singapore.
The plane was still circling overhead and as we approached Indian Brigade Headquarters, an Indian guard stopped us, telling us to quickly get off the road and take cover. We pulled into the rubber plantation that served to conceal a small native hut the Indian Army was using for its Headquarter's staff. We could hear the plane getting nearer, when suddenly there was a `whoof' and the hut and the men inside were completely disintegrated. The blast hit our truck, nearly toppling it over.
The devastation was shocking. The brigadier had been blown to pieces and the brigade major was running around with one arm blown off. One Indian soldier lay in the wreckage weirdly distorted; his uniform, shorts, shirt, and boots were all intact on his bones - all his flesh had been blown off by the blast.
All around us lay a mass of parts of bodies blown to bits, some hanging overhead on the broken branches of the rubber trees. It was terrible.
We later heard that a Malay farmer had ploughed a ditch pointing to the hut being used by the Indian Brigade. He then filled it with water to highlight it for the enemy planes. This was typical of the Fifth Column activities we were up against from the Malays.
Ultimately we made it back to Colonel Anderson's 19th Battalion Headquarters. For his role in this battle, Colonel Anderson was later awarded the Victoria Cross. It was the only such honour awarded in the Malayan Campaign.
Although my hip wound was weeping, it was not giving me much trouble and as heavy firing was going on all around me, I got hold of a rifle and joined the fray. Hearing heavy shooting on our flank, I went over and found a group of Indian Infantry soldiers who having lost all their British officers, had panicked and were firing at anything and everything.
I called out "Cease fire" and to my astonishment they did so immediately. They needed someone to control them - anyone - and obviously I would do.
Colonel Anderson came over to me to see what was going on. "You seem to have them under control sergeant," he said and then went on to say, "I'm worried about an attack from tanks on our rear as we try to move out."
I had noticed an anti-tank gun manned by English gunners and mentioned to him that this gun could be used.
"Yes," he said, "but they have lost their sergeant and appear to be all at sea."
I said to him, "Give me two strong Aussies and she'll be right."
He thought for a moment and said, "We'll give them a chance, you're doing all right with the Indians and we need them too."
In the morning the anti-tank gun and its crew had disappeared. I wondered what could have happened to them.
The next two days were pretty horrific, more and more men were being wounded in the fierce battle that was raging around us and the number of able bodied men left to fight was getting smaller and smaller every hour.
We kept on the move, retreating toward Singapore and finally had to stop at Parat Sulong bridge. This was now controlled by the Japs with a road block, heavily armed with machine guns and mortars. We were stymied, "If only we had one of our two pounders," I thought.
Our numbers were now greatly reduced and we had over 150 wounded men in the trucks with us. Our chances of survival were beginning to look uncomfortably thin and our options few. Colonel Anderson gave the order to leave the badly wounded in the trucks under the protection of the Red Cross and to try to cross the river further down.
Later we learnt that the 5th Imperial Guards Division, ignoring the fact that the wounded were under Red Cross protection, massacred them all by tying their hands behind them, pouring petrol over them, setting them alight and driving their tanks over them.
I had by this time joined forces with a bunch of eleven 2/19th and 29th Battalion chaps, all of us walking wounded. We had taken to the road leading to the river, when a Jap tank came down on us from behind, firing its guns into both sides of the jungle. We quickly took cover and headed for the rest of the battalion only to find they had already crossed the river. We were now cut off from joining them by the tank. "What to do now?"
We lay low in the jungle for quite a while, not knowing where to go. As we were about to move on we noticed one of our group, Sergeant Lever of the 19th Battalion, lying motionless in a trench. Thinking he had been hit by the tank, we were about to leave him, when he gave a slight stir. He was sound asleep, completely exhausted from several sleepless days of action.
We decided to take to a swamp we could see ahead of us. It seemed safely out of the way of the Japs. It was waist deep, foul and stinking, but decided it was worth a try. After wading through the smelly murk for half a mile or so, we arrived at a Malay village. The natives made us welcome and gave us the first food we had in days, a coconut each. We drank the juice and cracked them open; never had a coconut tasted so good.
In the morning we headed south and had travelled about 20 miles when we were suddenly confronted by a group of Japanese soldiers, their machine guns trained straight at us. Wounded, hungry and exhausted through lack of sleep, we were in a mess, we had had it.
The Japs took our rifles and our watches, and then took us further on behind their lines where they handed us over to other Jap troops. The Japs who had captured us turned out to be Signallers. It had been a close shave. What might have happened to us if the Jap Infantry had been the first to see us, wasn't hard to imagine.
That night the Japs took us to a village about eight miles further north. In the morning they marched us to the middle of the local village padang and left us there, under guard, all day in the hot sun. To get some relief, we all took our smelly boots and socks off. It was only when a huge Jap came to look us over and, spotting Jack Knox, a well-built 6'2 Aussie, sized him up, picked up his boots and walked off with them, that we all hurriedly put ours back on. To hell with the heat and discomfort!
Toward nightfall a truck arrived loaded with bags of rice and cooking gear. Our hopes were raised, a feed at last. But it was not to be. The food was for some 200 or so Indian troops who had found their way to the village. We had to go hungry again.
A smartly uniformed Jap officer came over to us and in perfect English, ordered us to get onto a truck that was standing nearby. When we were all on board, he looked us over and seeing an Australian badge on one of the boy's shirts, asked,
"Are you Australian?"
"Yes."
"All Australians?"
"Yes."
"Then hop down off the truck."
We hesitated, wondering what he was up to, then he followed with, "We thought we were fighting the British and were taking you into the jungle to shoot you." For wounded men, we got down off the truck with quite some agility.
Then he asked, "What battalion do you belong to?"
"The 32nd," one of our spokesmen quickly replied.
He whipped out his sword and said threateningly, "Do you want your lollies' lopped? I am the Liaison Officer for the Imperial Japanese Army, I have lived in the United States for 16 years and I am a graduate of Washington University." Then he went on, "Australia has six battalions in Singapore, the 18th, 19th, and 20th and the 26th, 29th and 30th." He raised his sword, "Now which do you belong to?"
"The 29th, sir," we said in unison, with a sudden new-found respect for our interrogator.
He then turned to me and asked "What was your battalion?"
"I'm a reinforcement," I answered. "I'm attached to the 29th, because they are short of sergeants." A frightening thought went through my mind, what if they knew I had something to do with knocking out their tanks. I tried to conceal my feelings and was led away by the interpreter.
He took me to a tent and told me to kneel as I was to be interrogated by a Japanese general.
The general arrived, a big fellow with lots of campaign ribbons and an elegant sword. He sat down and asked, "What did you do in Australia?"
On my knees in front of him, I replied, "I was a farmer in New South Wales."
He came straight to the point, "What roads are there from Broome across Australia to the East?"
I said, "I'm a farmer and I don't really know. I've never been to Western Australia."
He seemed to expect that kind of answer from a farmer.
Throughout the interrogation there was a constant rumble outside, as a huge convoy of trucks kept pulling up, waiting to be ferried across the river. There must have been over two hundred of them and they were loaded to the hilt. I had seen them earlier as I came into the camp. The convoy seemed endless.
"See those trucks - we'll take Singapore, just like that," and he snapped his fingers loudly. Then he started to boast about taking Australia, "We will bomb Darwin in a few days' time - the largest military convoy ever to sail the seas is on its way right now to take Australia - and we will take Australia, just like that." This time he snapped his fingers even louder.
"Australia has no resistance. What have you to say about that?"
I couldn't think what to say, my answer just came out. "You may get to Australia, but you won't take it."
He didn't like it, he took his sheathed sword and belted me around the head and shoulders for quite a time. When he had enough, he ordered, "Take him away."
I wasn't feeling too happy and the sight of that huge convoy headed south, didn't give me much hope for Singapore holding out. I wasn't feeling too happy either about his boast to take Australia, what with the 6th and 7th Divisions in the Middle East, he was right. All that was left at home was mum and dad and the kids.
That night I was wired to two Dutch airmen, who had been shot down over Malaya. Left with our hands wired together behind us, we spent a damned uncomfortable night with an occasional kick in the shins from our Jap guards, to make sure we were still there.
In the morning the guard untied me then took me, alone, in a truck to Pudu Prison in Kuala Lumpur.
I was pushed through a small gate and left alone in a huge compound, surrounded by a high concrete wall that seemed to reach the sky. I hadn't had a wash for weeks, the filth from the swamp still clung to me and my clothes, my wound oozed a vile pus, I was hungry and smelt like a pole cat. My spirits began to sag. "If only Mum could see me now," I mused.
I milked the pus from the wound every day and after about six weeks it healed over. Four years later, in Heidelberg Military Hospital Melbourne, this so-called bullet hole turned out to be a piece of shrapnel with a couple of square inches of cloth from my shorts wrapped around it. The cloth had made it smooth so that it caused a lot less pain than if it had been there with jagged edges.
That night I was put into the main compound with hundreds of other Scotch and English men who had been captured during the battle. To my great delight there was another anti-tanker there, Sergeant Ken Bell from 16th Battery.
I had known Ken from our training days, and together we made a pretty miserable pair, but how good it was to be able to swap stories and experiences with someone I knew.
A few weeks later, to my further delight, Keith Fletcher joined us in prison. Keith was my gun crew's machine gunner and I didn't think he had made it. He was filthy, he had been in the jungle for weeks and it took us hours to clean him up with cold water. After his scrub up, Keith said, "I'm a new man, now I know what it means when they say, cleanliness is next to godliness."
It was great to have a mate to talk to and we certainly had plenty to discuss. There was a lot of talk around the camp about escaping. A group of us decided we should give it a go too, so we started planning. First we had to get ourselves as fit as we could, which we tried to achieve by walking around and around the compound each day. The food we were given didn't help much - a scoop of mouldy rice and a spoonful of rock salt for each meal, but planning our escape gave our morale a great lift.
Our group consisted of a Dutch airman, who knew all about Java and spoke their language, a Malay Volunteer who had been an Australian rubber plantation owner and had an intimate knowledge of Malay and could speak Malay, Indian and Chinese fluently. He became the natural leader of our group. Then there was Ken Bell and myself.
We discussed our plans with another group of five British officers from an Indian Brigade who were planning their escape by going north, through Thailand, and on to Burma and India.
A few days before the day of our attempted escape, I was struck down with a severe attack of dysentery, and was ruled out of the escape attempt by the group.
The two groups took off as planned and we tried to cover for them at roll calls but the Japs soon found out that the men were missing. Gradually they were all caught and brought back to the prison. One of the British officers had gone down with an attack of dysentery and when seeking help from Malay villagers, all five of them were betrayed and handed over to the Jap authorities - for just a few dollars reward.
The same happened to two of our group, Ken Bell and the Dutch airman. They were captured by the Malays and bought back to the prison. The Malay Volunteer, didn't do much better; he evaded capture for about a month before being caught by the Japs. One night, shortly after all the escapees had been recaptured, we were all herded into our cells and locked in. Through the small window in my cell I could see the escapees loaded on to a truck with picks and shovels and then being driven off.
The Camp Commander went to great pains to convince our senior officer, Major Newton of 19th Battalion, that the escapees were being sent to Outram Road Gaol in Singapore. They were not. They all had to dig their own graves and were executed.
I couldn't help thinking how lucky I was when I happened to get this wretched attack of dysentery. I had lost six stone and was feeling lousy, but I happened to still be alive.
Six months later we were trucked down to Changi Prison Camp in Singapore. It was great to see my old mates again, and they were certainly amazed to see Keith and me as they had written us both off, thinking we had been killed in action.
My stay in Changi was short lived, for I was soon drafted into `Don' Force and sent on my way to work on the Burma-Thai Railway. I first started work on the Wampo embankment and moved quickly on to Hellfire Pass.
The purge was on and for the next 18 months we worked hard for long hours. If there was any consolation at all, it was being with one's mates and working through the ordeal together. As a sergeant I was in charge of 120 men. Our job was to drill one metre holes in solid rock for dynamiting, then after blasting, carry away the heavy pieces of rock. Because of the speedo purge, the hellish rate we were required to work, and the many lives that were lost working on this cutting, we dubbed it - Hellfire Pass.
It so happened that for no reason, I fell foul of the senior Jap guard `Goldie-tooth.' He took a morbid delight in belting me at the slightest provocation, if he thought someone wasn't working hard enough or even if the dynamite failed to explode.
It became such a mania with him that nothing could happen without him deciding to give me a belting. I certainly didn't enjoy it and it unsettled the boys as well. In the end, it got so bad that I went to the camp sergeant major and asked him if there was any possibility of transferring to another work party.
"There's `Ichi Nois' group - rock rolling. How about that?"
"Anything to get me out of the clutches of that bastard Goldie- tooth," I said.
"Right," he said, "Agreed, but you know that the last three sergeant majors we have had on Ichi Nois' party, have all had to be carried back from the cutting unconscious."
"Thanks," I said. I'd made my bed, now I had to lie in it.
I soon learnt that Ichi Nois had a habit of counting the men around midday. It was almost impossible to count them as they moved around the cutting on their various chores. Some of them would be on a legitimate `banjo' trip (toilet run) while others would sneak into the jungle for an illegitimate `yasme' (rest break).
If the count was short and it always was, Ichi Nois would wallop the sergeant in charge over the head. I thought it would be in my best interests to avoid this unpleasantness and got the boys together and asked them to always let me know where they were going and if they were leaving the job, to keep me posted if they were going to do anything unusual or special.
When the time for a check up eventually came, Ichi Nois started to count the 115 men he was supposed to have on the job. The men were moving around the cutting, drilling holes, carrying rocks, getting ready for dynamiting, checking tools and doing all sorts of jobs. Of course he was short. He yelled at me and beckoned me to come over to him. There was just no way I wanted a clout across the head so I quickly called out to the men to "Fall in" which they promptly did. Ichi Nois was livid, he began to jump up and down and scream blue murder at me for calling the men off the job when they should be working.
When he calmed down, we counted the men. There were 116, one more than he started with. Then with a smile he said, "Joto, you number one soldier, all the men jasmi."
From then on things went as well as could be expected, until one day, when I was waiting outside the toolshed where Ichi Nois had gone to check the dynamite and to have a smoke. I heard a vaguely familiar yell and looked up to see my old adversary Goldie-tooth coming down the road toward me.
As he got nearer, his pace quickened and he began to brandish his bamboo metre rod in the air. I called out as loud as I could, "Ichi Nois!" He came racing out, sized up what was about to happen and being one star senior to Goldie-tooth, gave him the hiding of his life with his own metre rod.
Suddenly, life didn't seem that bad at all.
When the job was finished, I was sent down the river to a rest camp at Tamouan.
Being a farmer, it became my lot to be sent to supervise the pig farm. The Japs kept about 500 pigs penned closely together, which they used to supplement their rations. Before handing a pig over to their cooks the Japs always made sure that the pig they chose, was alive and kicking and not one that had suffered a kick in the head or become sick.
Aware of this, and with the help of a small hammer, it was surprising the number of pigs found dead or suffering from a severe kick in the head. With the approval of the Japs, sick pigs could be used by the Australian cookhouse, as long as we were prepared to put up with the consequences of eating pigs which died that way.
By now, most of the surviving POWs were concentrated in our area and the Japs decided to disperse them. So they selected a thousand of us to go out on a `Work Party'. It proved to be a forced march destined for nowhere.
For the next three months we must have marched over 600 miles, scrounging what food we could and surviving as best we could, in small groups. Our lives depended on our ability to pilfer and our ingenuity to make use of what we could find around us.
The march was very depressing, we never knew from one day to the next what was going to happen or what lay in store for us at the end. The only heartening feature was the huge flights of American planes flying in formation high above us on their way to bomb some place or other occupied by the Japs.
Then one day, as we trudged through a small Thai village, one of the villagers on the blind side of our Jap guards, held up a sign printed in English - "You are free."
Mingled with hopes, doubts and fears we had a sleepless night. Next morning, we thought the guards seemed just a little friendlier, As we plodded along, they relaxed their controls somewhat and we sensed that they were aware the war was over.
Our feelings were quickly dispelled as we arrived at a Jap camp beside a rail station. It bristled with machine guns and we were put under heavy armed guard.
Undaunted, some of our more optimistic boys decided that they just had to check this out so they crawled under the wire and went walkabout.
They came back loaded with tucker and full of excitement,
"It's all over," they said.
Those of us who stayed back were still not sure "The war may be over, but are we free or aren't we?" We put it to the test and taking up our courage, decided on a mass walk out. We had nearly reached the camp gates, when a quick burst of machine gun fire along the perimeter walls gave us the answer.
"If the war is over and we are free, the Jap guards don't know about it yet."
Then quite out of the blue, an English major parachuted into the camp. He disarmed the Camp Commandant, and we disarmed the rest of the Jap troops.
We were put on a train to Bangkok and then to Singapore. After a friendly chat with Lady Mountbatten, the first white woman I had seen in over three years, I boarded a Liberator and was off on my way home.
A very weary and world worn traveller, well seasoned by all that had happened to him, was met by his parents at Heidelberg Military Hospital for the most unforgettable family reunion in his life.
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