SINGAPORE AND THE THAI RAILWAY EXPERIENCES OF ...

to this store and pleaded with us from outside, Please to let him have his rifle! We slowly
woke up and passed it out of the back. They then went charging around in
30.
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the dark pretending to be beating off an attack. They were useless soldiers and the Tiger, who
was a regular, was disgusted. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for us to have
killed all the guards in this camp and get free, but there was nowhere to go, and there were
100s of miles of jungle all around. There were some plans laid in Kanchanaburi to kill the
guards and escape. These plans were discovered by the Nips. The stupid officer who put
them on paper was severely dealt with. Another stupid officer was L.T. Col. McKellar, who
typed out the news we got from F's secret wireless set and left it under his bed, where it was
found by the Nips. He never disclosed where it came from, but from that time on the Nips
started searching us - till then, August '43, we had only been searched cursorily once or twice
in Singapore for stolen property, particularly the glass-cutting tools. They very nearly
discovered the wireless set at Kinsyo. We were separated from our kit and they started
rummaging. Two officers
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walked straight to the hamper the wireless set was in, and walked off with it right under the
Nips' noses. At various times I had taken from my kit - 25 yards of telephone wire, 2 pencils,
and 1 brass cigarette lighter (broken). I always hid my jack knife and have it today as a
souvenir. Sometimes I buried it, sometimes put it inside a hollow bamboo, sometimes in the
rice we had as haversack rations. The Nips used to take: -
Torches
Tools
Wire
Paper and pencils (any writing materials)
Knives
Money over $10
Uncensored books
and anything that took their fancy, such as my cigarette lighter. At River Valley Road some
of the POWs had hand grenades and pistols. Most of these were sold to the Chinese, also one
machine gun in parts. At Non Pladuk the Nips found 2 revolvers. The owners claimed they
were family heirlooms and got away with it. Just like their own swords.
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At Tonchan they found a wireless set, the owner said it was being used for instructional
purposes - luckily they did not find the batteries. Again they got away with it. Jerry Hawley
of our unit was caught, with 2 others, with a wireless set complete with batteries at
Kanchanaburi. They were beaten and questioned, Jerry died of his beating and one of the
others went mad.
At Kinsyo our bombers used to go overhead at night on their way to Bangkok, and sometimes
on fine moonlight nights we could see them. There were no Nip planes.