POW in Singapore in WW2

[Jan65]

My great uncle George, a private in the army, was posted missing on 15 February 1942, and sometime after 12 October 1942 it was confirmed that he was a prisoner of war in Singapore "in a camp unstated". He was in the Cambridgeshire Regiment.

He never spoke to me personally about his experiences as a POW, so all I have to go on is a few family documents (where I got the above dates from) and the information that my dad, his nephew, has told me over the years.

Dad reckons that George was involved in building the "death railway", which I confess to knowing very little about, so after a google search I've discovered that this was the Burma-Thailand Railway, and have read some harrowing tales.

What I would like to know is - from the information that have regarding dates, location and regiment, does anyone know whether it's feasible that my uncle WAS actually involved in this?

Any thoughts would be very welcome.

[spison]

He could very well have been. Background information could also be found from the Australian War Memorial. I have attached the link. They have a searchable database which may have something on the English regiments incarcerated.

https://www.awm.gov.au/

I can understand why he didn't discuss it. While it may not directly relate to the English regiments, they were POWs with the Australians. You could try googling 'Hell fire Pass' and 'Weary Dunlop' for more information on the the Railway and the camps. See if you can get the old movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai" for a very sanitized and fanciful version. There has been an Australian mini series recently made concerning (for Australians) the most notorious of the camps - Changi - which was made by the ABC and is likely to be accessed through the BBC. (You could view "Paradise Road" for a pretty accurate account of the treatment of the civilian women and nurses captured by the Japanese.)

I'm sure someone with more military knowledge will have more advice.

Jane

[keith9351]

Have a look at Carol Cooper's site at :- https://www.cofepow.org.uk/index.html

Keith

[Geoffers]

My great uncle George, a private in the army, was posted missing on 15 February 1942, and sometime after 12 October 1942 it was confirmed that he was a prisoner of war in Singapore "in a camp unstated". He was in the Cambridgeshire Regiment.

For some ideas on resarching this, have a browse of paragraphs 6 and 8 of this TNA research guide.

[Jan65]

Thank you everyone for your replies and especially the links to help me search. I didn't realise that records would have been kept on the pows so maybe something will turn up on my uncle George.

The only personal reference I have to uncle George being a pow is that I remember whenever he came to our house for a meal he would eat every scrap of food on his plate - if we were having chicken he would even eat the bones - and he absolutely refused to eat tinned meat of any kind. I was told that these habits were a legacy of his starvation treatment during his internment and the fact that he was given tinned meat to eat which was crawling with maggots.

No wonder he didn't want to talk about it, what horrors he must have seen and endured.

[Geoffers]

Thank you everyone for your replies and especially the links to help me search. I didn't realise that records would have been kept on the pows so maybe something will turn up on my uncle George.

The PoW interviews are in WO344 at TNA. you may be able to identify the file which holds his record. If you are really lucky his will be the first or last interview in the file so that you might be able to order a copy via digital express. Using TNA's catalogue, in the word or phrase field enter the first two letters of his surname followed by an asterisk. In the department or series code, enter WO344..

Records created by the Japanese may be harder to interpret as presumably they are not written completely in English.

WO367 appears to contain larger files and so more difficult to identify your chap.

WO345 looks to be easier to use if you can get to TNA, or hire a researcher.

[Jan65]

Thank you very much Geoffers.

I've done the search of W0344 and have come up with a file which if I understand it correctly, holds the interviews of prisoners with surnames between those of GORE - GQABI, so presumably my uncle George, surname of GOTT will be within this - IF he gave an interview. Presumably they weren't ALL interviewed? Are they audio records or written records?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by ordering "a copy via digital express". There doesn't seem to be a purchase button on the screen. As his name isn't the first or last, does that mean that I'd have to order the whole thing?

I've ordered wills before, through the TNA site, but this was straightforward and just involved clicking on a button, so I'm a bit flummoxed this time as to what I should do.

Do TNA have researchers that I could contact? I can't get there myself unfortunately.

Many thanks again for all your help.

[JAP1]

Hi Jan65,

I guess that the question is whether George was

a) held as a POW in Singapore (which would surely have been at Changi or close by) - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changi_Prison

or was

b) taken POW in Singapore and moved elsewhere (e.g. to the Burma Railway or to Sandakan).

I don't know how/whether you can determine this with certainty.
I hope that the records allow you to do so.

All the best,

JAP

[Jan65]

Hi Jap1

Yes, I think that's the crux of the matter really. Unfortunately the letter that came to the family simply states that he was "a prisoner of war in Japanese hands in a camp unstated".

The previous letter that had been sent to the family informed them that he had been "posted as missing on the 15 February 1942 at Singapore".

Thanks for the link to Changi camp, I'm just off to take a look at that now.

Jan65

[LittleMissP]

This book is written by a Changi POW, and which I very much recommend. It was a fascinating, horrific, informative and sad read, but without being sentimental in my opinion. However contains very few personal names, so don't expect to find your relative named here.

Darkness Before The Dawn - A Diary of a Changi P.O.W. 1941-1945
by Sgt. J N Farrow