Library Reference Number: 225
Jerry Parker - Hurricane Pilot and POW
Webmaster's Note: The following text is a massively reduced and edited version from the original one hundred and two page account submitted for publication to the web site. In places then, it may appear disjointed on account of reducing this long text to about one tenth of the original size and IS NOT the fault of the author. In the early part of this text, numerous references are made to 'Harts' and 'Masters' which younger readers may never have heard of. They refer to the Hawker Hart and Miles Master aircraft, both of which were biplanes in use before World War 2.
At the request of his family, former World War Two fighter pilot Jerry Parker wrote a comprehensive, detailed account of his flying career which culminated in being made a prisoner of the Japanese for three and half years. Jerry stipulated that his account should not be made public or published until after his death. Bill Smart had been asked by Jerry do undertake the proof reading of his RAF career and when Jerry Parker died in June 2008, Bill Smart considered it was now time for this fighter pilot’s story to be told.
Jerry Parker joined the RAF shortly after the declaration of World War Two, and in a very short time was flying Hurricanes. He wrote “Firstly, I was somewhat awe-stricken to find myself flying this fabulous and expensive machine at the age of 19 when I couldn't then drive a car or ride a bicycle.” The in-depth account of his service extended to nine chapters and over one hundred pages. What follows here, on this website, is a more condensed version of that text. Jerry Parker’s story begins in October 1940 at RAF Station Hullavington.
Hullavington is a big permanent RAF station about halfway between Chippenham and Malmesbury in Wiltshire. It had beautiful barracks, parade grounds and hangars, but the airfield was flat grass with no runways. This was fortunate because the Harts had narrow undercarriages and poor brakes so they were very vulnerable to cross-winds at low speeds and it was often beyond the power of the pilot to prevent them turning in circles on the ground while the engine was still running. As usual, they were parked well away from the hangars in the surrounding fields overnight and it was the duty of the pupils to go and collect them and bring them to the Flight Offices first thing in the morning. They had 550 horsepower Rolls Royce Kestrel engines and representing an enormous increase in power over the Gypsy Majors in the Moths, but of course, they were only about twice as fast and landed at speeds very little higher than the Moths. To start them, we had to insert crank handles into sockets in the engine between the leading edges of the wings and the airscrew.
When the engines were warm, one man could wind fast enough to start them but I was at Hullavington from late October 1940 until the February of 1941 and would often spend 30 minutes or so on a frosty morning with another pupil and couple of fitters; all four of us straining to the point of sickness to wind the engine fast enough for it to catch. I would then taxi back in the freezing open cockpit only to have my instructor cursing at the delay.
We were actually the last course to be trained on the Harts and ‘A' Flight on the other side of the airfield already had Masters. Whilst we envied them, their more powerful and faster monoplanes with enclosed and heated cockpits and battery starting, we realised that the Harts were more fun to fly. In fact, I eventually mastered the slow roll in a Hart, far more of an achievement in a biplane than in a monoplane. The Hart climbed as fast as the Master at a far steeper angle and it was easy to loop.
My nineteenth birthday fell whilst I was at Hullavington but there didn't seem to be any particular reason for celebration. It was a cold, wet night with nothing much doing in the NAAFI or the mess hall so I went into Chippenham to have an egg and chip supper. There was no film on but I thought I’d have a memorable birthday by getting drunk on whisky which I’d never touched before, having been warned by Dad always to stick to beer. I leant against a bar in a dismal pub, feeling lonely and miserable in a group of people I didn't know and asked for a double whisky. I sipped this neat for a few minutes and quite enjoyed the warmth so ordered another, although I was feeling no happier, it remained an absolutely rotten birthday.
Christmas was quite unmemorable. I don't remember leaving Hullavington nor of enjoying it anywhere else but early in the New Year of 1941 several other pupils and I were summoned to the Orderly Room. There I found a little man, the manager of Moss Bros at Swindon, brandishing a pencilled list and announcing that I was one of the first to arrive and he started taking my measurements for a uniform much to my surprise. He said, "Can't you see? You're on the list!" and the Orderly Sergeant then confirmed that I had passed my exams to date and would very probably be recommended for a commission.
Finally, on 12th February 1941, the Officer Cadets were called to the Chief Ground Instructor's office and told we were commissioned as Pilot Officers in the RAFVR (Voluntary Reserve) from that day and would be allowed to wear our pilot's wings. So much for the great ceremony I had expected! I was posted to an Operational Training Unit at Usworth, near Sunderland, and away I went by train feeling very self-conscious in my bright new uniform with the top button undone. At OTU, we were to be introduced to Hurricanes, a disappointment in that they weren't Spitfires, and taught the strategy and tactics of aerial combat.
We lived in Nissen huts and the whole day was taken up in flying and studying manuals on the Hurricane. This aircraft was so very different from the Hawker Hart in that we had first to undergo a few hours' tuition on the Miles Master and particularly to familiarise ourselves with the complexities of a retractable undercarriage, variable pitch airscrew, flaps and many other lesser advances in aircraft design such as cockpit covers and escape panels, oxygen supplies, radio telephony and pneumatic brakes.
All these constituted a considerable and sudden increase in our lore and I did not have long to accustom myself to the new and necessary procedures before going off in a Hurricane. The strip at Usworth was a narrow tarmac one, about 760 yards long and really very short. Some care was needed to set these much faster, heavier aircraft down on it and representing another change from that enormous green field at Hullavington. I was appalled at the speed at which the Masters approached the ground, particularly when the throttle was cut just before touchdown.
There were no two-seater Hurricanes available at that time, so there was no opportunity to go off with an instructor who would be able to correct one's mistakes and remind one of matters forgotten. The only safeguard against coming into land with wheels or flaps up was either a screech on the radio or a chap at the start of the runway prepared to fire a red Very light to send one around again. Additionally there was a device in the Hurricane which sounded a hooter in one's earphones if the throttle was fully closed as when coming in to land with the wheels still retracted!
The Hurricanes we had were Mark 1's, survivors of the Battle of France, perhaps, and the Battle of Britain. They were older than the Masters and had fixed wooden airscrews and the engines were both low-rated and clapped out. One normally flew them with the left hand on the throttle and the right on the stick and in common with all aircraft I flew. It had a spade grip with a gun-button set in it to be operated by the thumb and hand-operated brake lever for the pneumatically controlled brakes. A single lever, located on the right-hand side, controlled the hydraulically operated undercarriage and flaps. To raise the undercarriage after taking off, a pilot would have to take his left hand off the throttle and hold the stick with it, so releasing his right hand to pull up the wheels.
Firstly, I was somewhat awe-stricken to find myself flying this fabulous and expensive machine at the age of 19 when I couldn't then drive a car or ride a bicycle. I wheeled it around the sky and climbed, turned and dived it, absolutely exhilarated by the ease with which it manoeuvred. A perfect turn in a Hart had been an absolute masterpiece of co-ordination of control stick and rudder, but in the Hurricane, as with other monoplanes I flew, it needed very little or no rudder application and turned perfectly through adjustment of the ailerons and elevators by the stick then remembered that I'd have to get that particular machine down again on that small strip of tarmac and I grew somewhat nervous.
I reverted to landing as much as possible as I was used to when flying in a Hart, throttling back the engine and gliding in high. I jacked up my seat to get a good view out of the cockpit, slackened off the safety harness, and which could be locked right back to the armour-plated seat, and shoved back the cockpit canopy. Thus prepared, I came over the perimeter track round the airstrip at 85mph and she touched down like a bird.
The weather deteriorated during that February and March and even in April we had heavy snow at Usworth.
Although I was keen to fly as often as possible, I didn't manage many flying hours. We practised formation flying once only and only once did we practice attacks. The instructors were mostly resting after the Battle of Britain and, in bad weather, we used to sit around the stove in the Flight office listening to their stories of the fighting in the previous autumn. I enjoyed putting the Hurricanes through aerobatics, particularly slow rolls, which were easy, and rolls off the top of loops, but I got a bit nervous at the speeds they notched up in dives and I never intentionally put one in a spin as there was a false rumour that they did not easily recover. My worst experience at OTU was that I constantly taxied into obstacles. The nose of the Hurricane "sat up" on the ground and, once the tail was down, a pilot could not see the direction in which he was heading. He would have to taxi from one side to the other, like a yacht tacking against the wind.
OTU in no way provided an adequate training for battle. I had fired no guns except a rifle in Recruiting Centre nor had I taken my camera gun film. Our instructors had explained to us the workings of the reflector sights but I had no idea as to whether I could shoot well or badly. Luckily, I was posted at the end of April to 232 Squadron at Montrose. I was disappointed at not going off to 11 Group in the South but I soon realized that that could well have been literally fatal for me. I still had only about 20 or 30 flying hours on a Hurricane and had no idea at all of their limitations especially when placed in my own hands. I arrived at Montrose with another Pilot Officer, a few years older than I, and we found our way to the Squadron Officers' Mess, an old country house near the airfield. The field itself was hardly more than a sandy plain amongst the dunes not far from the sea and just outside the town to the north. Aircraft usually took off to the north or south.
After I had been there for three or four weeks at Montrose, we heard that the squadron was to become the spearhead of an invasion force in the Mediterranean. The ground crews were taken off to Western Scotland to undergo Commando training and we pilots were dispersed to various squadrons and Delivery Flights on secondment. The Delivery Flights were units solely engaged in transporting fighter planes to and from squadrons around the country. I was based at Hendon and also the base of a Photograph Reconnaissance Unit. As ferry pilots, we would report daily at Flight HQ and leave in a DH Rapide for either a factory or a fighter airfield, still carrying our parachutes and flying gear before flying aircraft to their intended destinations and typically returning home by train and stepping between slumbering families using the underground rail platforms as makeshift air raid shelters.
On November 11th 1941, Jock Landell and I met with Christian and Hardy, two other sergeant pilots, and where all travelled by train to Liverpool and boarded the "Monarch of Bermuda" outward bound that same day.
We found ourselves with masses of Army people and six pilots and the ground crews of each of three other fighter squadrons; the seventeenth, the one thirty-five and another. Unbeknown to us, the other 18 pilots of each squadron together with their aircraft were to be put aboard HMS Indomitable, one of our newest and biggest aircraft carriers. The convoy, which would be escorted by some frigates and destroyers and later reinforced later, carried an invasion force designed to effect landing and bridgehead on a beach in the Mediterranean. We had 51 Hurricanes in crates with us in the convoy and we would fly these after the ground forces had captured an airstrip under the cover of the fighters launched from the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable and which would already be flying prior to our arrival.
I thought it a pretty tight schedule but we really only had rumours to guide us.
The 'Monarch' was a luxury liner on the pre-war run between New York and Bermuda. It had been chartered by the Admiralty and laden with troops, perhaps 3,000 on each trip. Although we junior officers were berthed six to a double cabin, the catering, saloons and bars were unchanged and we had three weeks holiday from all cares quite out of touch of land. For the first few days, we pilots stood duty watching the skies for German Kurier bombers, but no aircraft, other than Coastal Whitleys and Sunderlands, nor submarines were sighted. We spent the rest of the time exercising around the decks, reading and drinking John Collinses and Whisky-soda.
At Durban, we had a riotous time for three days with the South Africans being so hospitable. It was a temporary paradise for young British officers, complete with beautiful scenery, masses of willing servants and hostesses and beer. There, we disembarked with some regret from the Monarch and were put aboard the Aorangi, a far less luxurious and more military war transport vessel. The accommodation was appalling in comparison with the Monarch but I suppose it was better than most available later in the war. Within a few days of sailing, we discovered that we were going to Singapore. It might have been an omen when a film we were watching, 'The Road To Singapore' starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby suddenly burst into flames.
We had no trouble crossing the Indian Ocean and passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java and with Krakotoa on our left. Here we were joined by several Dutch warships and HMS Exeter, escorting us for the next two days into Singapore. Whilst we were being manoeuvred into Keppel Harbour, there was an air raid alert and I saw for the first of many time, a formation of 27 Japanese bombers at about 15,000-20,000 feet. They kept very tight formation and successfully bombed the "Empress of Britain" within the harbour.
This was early on the morning of 12th January and the troops were first to disembark quickly followed by their military equipment. The six pilots from each of the four squadrons became aircrew of 232 Squadron as our ground crew was with us.
We moved into the Mess at Seletar and prepared for operational flying against the Japanese. This occurred immediately as Japanese fighters were everywhere even though I had never fired more than two machine-guns before and had little idea of what to expect would happen. I followed the drill I'd been taught, laid off sufficient deflection for the speeding bullets to meet the speeding aeroplane, pressed the button on the stick and followed the Jap round and up in his turn. The clatter was tremendous, even to my muffled ears and above the racket of the engine, I found it frightening that my pressing the tit should release so much malevolence.
I could see no bullets in the air and was surprised when a myriad of golden flashes appeared sparkling on the nose of the enemy aircraft between the cockpit and the airscrew. The machine turned more sharply to starboard and steeply beneath me and dived away whilst I was suddenly aware of my own pursuers still firing and continued my own swoop into the nearest cloud to starboard. Momentarily hidden, I started climbing, called Seletar at the same time for the height and direction I should be following. Nothing came through and I saw no other aircraft so I came down again below the cloud level to about 2,000 feet well up the east coast of Malaya and cruised back to Singapore, circling Seletar a few times before landing.
I reported to the Intelligence Officer, Burgess, in a state of high jubilation. The golden flashes I had seen on the Japanese aircraft were undoubtedly my de Wilde ammunition exploding and I was sure that very many rounds had hit it. This de Wilde ammunition exploded on contact and an incendiary core remained so that it was highly lethal to aircraft. What was surprising was that I had seen no smoke or fragments coming from the Jap. Within a few hours, a naval patrol boat reported the air battle which had taken place in the broken clouds above it and having seen a Japanese fighter type Navy 00 dive vertically into the sea and I was credited with this.
We had lost five Hurricanes of which two pilots survived, and we'd lost the Squadron Leader. We never did reach our expected operational establishment of three flights of six aircraft plus reserves, We flew very often in the next few days for about six hours a day.
On another occasion, there was a violent thump on my armour-plate and clang in my ears like a gong. A quick incredulous glance in my rear view mirror revealed the following presence of a Buffalo. There was no mistaking the stubby wings extending through the midsection of the barrel-like fuselage and his guns were flashing directly behind me. I was scared silly! My radio had been shattered and I didn't know what else had been hit. The Hurricane went down into a vertical dive and the airspeed indicator passed 400 mph at 15,000 feet. I discovered after the war that the 'Buffaloes' were Zeros which I had not correctly identified. The successful establishment of the Japanese bridgehead and the loss of eleven Wildebeestes and a Hurricane were very depressing. The Station Commander at Seletar committed suicide that night by shooting himself in the head.
A day or two later, troops of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had been the last British troops to cross the causeway between Malaya and Singapore Island, laying explosive charges, and destroying the causeway. Panic seemed to have overtaken Singapore HQ and the half-dozen Hurricanes left to us were to be flown to Sumatra as it was felt that, with the Japanese just across the channel in Johore, we would not be able to operate. We were to fly to Palembang, located three hundred miles to the south, and the ground crew worked late that night to fit long-range fuel tanks underneath the wings. About dawn, we heard that English Prime Minister Winston Churchill had assured Parliament that Hurricanes were still flying over Singapore and the crews were forced to undo all their work of the night.
In this period, I had a chance to relax and recover my nerve. I decided that, although I had stilled my fears of death or injury in aerial combat, what had reduced my morale to a very low level was the suspense. I had observed so many of my comrades fail to return from sorties that as the survivor, with Murray Taylor, of the ten officer pilots I had lost my assurance that "it couldn't happen to me". The end of the war seemed a long way away and surely I should soon be clobbered if, in just three weeks, so many others had gone. So every night, exhausted from constant weariness and nervousness at Singapore, I would retire to bed thankful at having survived another day's operations. Immediately on waking in the morning, I would remember that more action and patrols lay ahead and I would wonder, "Will this be the day?" Breakfast would choke my dry mouth and throat and the cry of "The car's here!" would send me instantly to the toilet to empty my bowels. Upon arrival at the flight office, I would sit and wait, trying to read, and dashing to the latrine every time the telephone rang yet, in the air, I would regain my composure and fighting spirit, prepared to think and act in self-preservation and ready to have a go if the odds looked fair.
At Palembang I managed to rationalize my behaviour and realised that I need have no fear of losing my nerve whilst I was in the air but must take care to control myself between flights. Action took my mind off consequences which were, after all, not entirely avoidable and were likely to occur any day soon. The wing of fighter aircraft now assembled in Java, Sumatra and Singapore was commanded by Wing Commander Mac Maguire, another Battle of France veteran and regular RAF officer. His role was almost purely administrative in the circumstances and he had elements of 258 Squadron at P2 as well as 232 Squadron at Singapore and PI.
We now heard that most of the Jap landing force had disembarked, probably the day before or during the night, and fighting was now going on in the outskirts of the town. It had been decided that we should all withdraw to Java and I was greatly relieved by this. I thought Java would be well-protected with no enemy held airfields nearer than Palembang and we should have a good chance of holding out there. We took off in the afternoon, the ground crews destroyed and set fire to any stores they found as soon as we were off the field and before taking the road south. This time we landed at Tjililitan, an L-shaped satellite strip amongst the rubber and coconut plantations a few miles outside Batavia.
We found Java a most pleasant country although hot and humid near Batavia and thick with mosquitoes. From the 15th February until the end of the month the Japanese gradually increased their flights to and over Java, mainly by reconnaissance planes and later by bombers. We were short of Hurricanes for a while because, it was rumoured, a dozen had been delivered to some very experienced Dutch pilots who would probably be able to fly them more effectively. However, they were caught near Surabaya on take-off by the Zeros and lost so many that the balance were returned to us later.
The ground crew of 232 Squadron who had been with me through Singapore were replaced by the crew of 242 Squadron who were mostly Canadians and who'd been in Tangmere with Bader. 232's ground crew had lost their morale and were sent off to India to recuperate. The Dutch had a curious ambivalent attitude towards us. They had been sheltered from the war, except those who had arrived from Holland after the fall of continental Europe to the Nazis, and they wished to pursue their profitable and comfortable life. They had not been particularly alarmed about any threat from Japan prior to December 1941 and viewed our arrival after the fall of Singapore and Sumatra with dislike.
One day, we'd been out about an hour and I'd been hoping it was time to go home when Taffy peeled off. I checked hurriedly around the sky above and seeing nothing, assumed he'd found a target. I followed him more slowly so that I'd be about 400 yards behind him and would be able to shoot when he'd completed his attack. This was my second mistake for I hadn't seen any aircraft coming down out of the sun - nor did I ever see it or them. There was a tremendous thump in the middle of my back and the dreadful clatter in my earphones as heavy calibre bullets burst on the Hurricane from behind.
The stick was already well forward and, with the breath knocked out of me, I was unable to pull it back for several seconds whilst kicking on the rudder and twisting in the dive. I passed between the clouds and only narrowly managed to pull out of the dive just above the trees. I was quite panic-stricken, expecting at any moment to collect some more trouble and I pulled around in a skidding turn to the South. I went into my routine of sliding and slipping and crazy flying, searching the air behind me, twisting my head frantically to see the enemy aircraft but there were none in sight so I tried to maintain the speed of well over 400 mph which had built up in the dive.
I was some miles to the East of Bandoeng and Andir and I passed them on my southerly flight in moments. I could see that one cannon or heavy machine gun shell had exploded in my starboard petrol tank, making an awful mess of the wing root but there was no fire and the engine was running quite regularly. There was no pain in my back but there was a trickle down the lower part of my spine. I kept checking the sky and the instruments and decided that, in the circumstances, I should go to Pamenpeuk rather than try to sneak into Andir.
Pamenpeuk, on the South coast, was best located by flying roughly south west from Bandoeng until one reached the coast and then turned east. I flew as near to South as I dared without risking hitting the coast too far to the East. I had never visited Pamenpeuk before and I was worried about how much fuel I had left. My back started to ache and stiffen up, and having felt the tom metal on the back of the seat with my gloved fingers, I feared I was bleeding to death. Looking in the mirror as I flew over the hills, I could see the tail unit was scored and tattered but the rudder and elevators seemed to be working in good order.
Looking down at Pamenpeuk, there were no aircraft to be seen but about half a dozen Dutch air force people came out of a hut near the perimeter. It was hardly more than a clearing surrounded by barbed wire with straw huts for sentries around the perimeter near their sandbagged machine gun posts. I was heartily relieved and took a close look at the ground before coming in to land.
On my final approach to the field, it seemed to me that the aircraft was unusually sloppy in its handling but I landed perfectly on a surface which had been graded and rolled very smooth; I taxied up to the building from which the Dutch officers had emerged and stopped in front without turning around then hoisted myself out of the cockpit, leaving my helmet and parachute in the plane. A mechanic came up with a bowser out of the ulu and climbed up on the port wing to fill the tank as soon as I jumped down. I was explaining that I'd been shot up when the mechanic looked into the cockpit and shouted, "Hot Verdomme!". He'd seen the big hole in the back of the seat and soon found another about the size of a large egg in the armour plate. The shell that had hit me in the back had pierced both but mercifully, I had been wearing a parachute borrowed from the Dutch. RAF parachutes were more comfortable in the cockpits because Dutch and American parachutes had webbing crossing in the middle of the back. It so happened that this shell plus metal of the armour plate and the back of the seat was mostly embedded in fragments into the thick webbing and only a comparatively small amount of molten metal had penetrated my flying suit, shirt and an inch or so into me just to the right of my spine. It had anaesthetised the wound and cauterised it so that I hadn't bled at all.
I sat there for a while watching the mechanics working on the aileron. The Dutch officers were talking dispiritedly because it seemed that Java was on the point of surrender. There was a Japanese task force off Tjilatjap to the East with carrier-based Zeros and which had clobbered Dutch air wings in the South.
The Dutch were very kind and took me to stay with a Danish tea planter and his wife who ran an estate in the foothills just a few miles away. I bathed very carefully for my back was most tender. The Danes were very depressed about the conflict in Java since their homeland had been over-run by Germans and had not declared war on Japan. They had no idea as to how the Japanese might treat them if they were victorious. In addition, they had industrial worries in that local labour on the plantation was pro-Japanese and quite disinclined to work during these exciting days. I was exhausted from my day and having to rise early the following morning, soon went off to bed to sleep very soundly on my stomach.
We visited the remains of my Hurricane and whilst impressing the other pilots, the Danish plantation manager whose anxiety had increased considerably, talked of a menacing future in which his workforce had become very unsettled since news of the Dutch capitulation had come through and he had to reconsider his whole work schedules. It was quite evident that Black Force would be no fighting unit whatsoever. RAF men, many of whom had very recently joined up, were unfit to fight, even with full supplies and ammunition laid on. As guerillas, they couldn't even think of how to live off the land and they seemed to have no notion of the most elementary rural hygiene. The most senior officers accepted that the force could do little but wait for the Japanese to intern us. The Javanese people, prompted no doubt by wireless broadcasts, welcomed the invaders as liberating them from the colonial Dutch and some amongst them would undoubtedly have betrayed Europeans to the Japanese they might have found in the jungle and plantations.
I badly needed to rest and at first, I was very relieved that the fighting was over. During the previous seven weeks, I'd flown more than anybody in the remnants of the two 232 Squadrons; as much as eight hours in a day sometimes and the strain right from our disastrous first day had been most severe. We'd lost over 40 pilots in that time and about 150 aircraft and we couldn't kid ourselves that we'd shot down more than fifty. Of the original ten officer pilots I was the only one left after the first two weeks and was astonished I had survived thus far.
In addition to aerial combat, there had been the several days of strafing troops and convoys on the roads and in barges. I'd been involved in four crashes! The welfare of 300 men became part of a collective responsibility and where we were lucky to have support from some older officers from the Stores, Accounts, Engineering and Administration divisions. Most were billeted in the main shed of the tea factory whilst the six of us, Taffy, Ernie, Mike, Reg and Bill and myself lived in the manager's office. I had very few clothes. I had a cotton blanket, a mosquito net, a light mattress and parts of my parachute, much the same as the others. We had to consider the material needs of our men and none of us were very good at it but we learned fast, only time being on our side.
We had little to do but wait for three weeks until word came through that we were to surrender. We accordingly moved to the nearest railhead leaving our weapons behind. Early one morning, with no guards, we boarded a train and arrived at Batavia in the early afternoon. Japanese guards took over and we marched dejectedly through crowds of Dutch people who cheered and sang "There'll always be an England" but were not allowed to offer us food or water. During the next three days we were marched to Buitenzorg and eventually to our first POW camp at Semplak. Our new way of life was determined entirely by the Japanese and the camp routines followed the arrangements as laid down throughout by their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".
In Java, and irrespective of whatever labour camp we were in, morning began at 6 am and where millions of other people held prisoner under their direct control of the Japanese Government had five minutes of broadcast PT to a standard rhythm, counting up to ten continuously in Japanese. We had roll call, then whatever breakfast was available, perhaps a slice of bread and tea from the cook house and then application of hard labour. Before Japanese intervention, Java had been rich in harvests and mineral resources and self sufficient. Under foreign control, the Japanese had been able to induce a food shortage. Despite food levels being reduced to 70 grams of rice over several and different occasions and with infinitesimal amounts of meat and vegetables, the latter often served as a very thin stew or vegetable sambal to accompany the rice permitting ability to barely maintain our strength. It compares quite well with the work-camps in Burma and Celebes where rations were very short.
Throughout the following three and a half years I and those who were with us owned apiece a mug, plate, knife, fork and spoon, working shorts and shirt and a pair of wooden clogs, parade shirt and shorts, stockings and marching boots, these last to be treasured for journeys between prison camps, a sheet and a thin blanket, pillow and case and mosquito net, towel, toilet gear and a watch. I also had an "autostrop" razor with three blades and permitting myself to remain shaved every other day until we were released. Nobody ever escaped from Java after capture because the nearest possible destinations were some hundreds of miles away.
In the these circumstances, our captors maintained control over us through our own internal discipline, from the senior officer in a camp right down through the officers and NCOs. As a result, accommodation was generally allocated separately amongst the ranks, and where room was short, it was distributed equitably. In some camps everybody would just about have room to roll over on the hard boards or mattresses and in others sleep comparatively spaciously.
In all of the camps, there were sentries on the gates and sometimes in watch-towers. Day or night, during times of 'brown out', there were roving patrols with Japanese or more likely Korean privates armed with rifle and fixed bayonet weapons ambling around. Whenever any sentry passed nearby or came close to a POW, the nearest person of whatever rank was required to shout 'Kyotski - Kiri - Nowri - Yasmi' (Attention - salute - finish salute - as you were)” The salute or bow, if one were hatless, had to be held until it had been acknowledged and one generally wore a cap in order to avoid the need to bow. Many of the patrolling guards seized these opportunities to be gratuitously sadistic towards some captives and they needed little excuse to prompt excessive violence towards anybody whose facial expression they might not like.
Japanese and Korean NCOs and senior privates were permitted to beat and kick their subordinates, as well as POWs as they wished, so that we were not treated any worse than their own men in general, except by those who had developed either hatred or contempt for us. It would happen that, after bad news of the progress of the war, some guards would react against the POWs. The camp commandants were normally Japanese junior officers with perhaps Japanese NCOs and always Korean guards. These were often bitter, having been promised farms to work in Java and then found themselves inducted into the Japanese army on arrival. We never knew how loyal they were to the Japanese. They never had any thought of disobeying authority unless they were sure of benefit to themselves and safe from punishment.
We had very little money when we were captured and, since we were 232 Squadron pilots newly supported by 242 Squadron's ground staff, we were not acquainted with the Accounts Officer and the Adjutant. A large number of the RAF officers were either recent enlistments into the Air Force from civilian life as engineers or planters in Malaya or were new recruits from England. One Pilot Officer under training as an Air Controller had been a bank official until three weeks before he'd been put aboard a ship for Singapore. Soon we were reduced to writing cheques and cashing them with those who preferred funds after their eventual anticipated release to money in their pockets in prison camp.
After we'd been inside for a year or two, I paid a cheque for £20 for twenty sulfa pills which were smuggled in by the guards, probably having been looted from the Red Cross parcels which never reached us. I was able to clear all my debts on my return to England in 1945. Our first camp at Semplak near Buitenzorg (renamed Bogor) was in an enormous old single-storey farmhouse near the airfield and there were fifty RAF officers and 300 airmen. There were about thirty Japanese guards headed by a very smart NCO.
We were not at all keen to aid in the work to which we had been put, and even though there were frequent beatings for slacking, the repairs to the airfield did not go ahead very quickly. Added to which the officers felt they should not do any manual work and refused to do so in the absence of the Japanese CO. There were one or two nasty incidents of officers being beaten up, but faced with their absolutely vehement arguments in sign language that the Geneva Convention required that officers were not to be forced to work, the Japanese guards were unsure of their ground and feared the rage of the Commander. When he returned to the camp that night, he summoned Wing Commander Alexander and told him that Japan had not signed the convention and that, if the officers did not assist in the labour, they would be shot. Alexander returned and called a meeting, at which it was resolved that the officers would hold out. I felt quite strongly about this, believing it would be a terrible humiliation for a holder of the King's Commission. I was young enough not to be greatly concerned about being shot although a threat of being beaten or bayoneted to death would probably have brought about a considerable change of heart.
Again the following day we didn't work and again there were tense incidents, with the guards still refraining from inflicting serious injury. In the evening Alexander was called to the office and didn't return. An hour or so later Matthews was taken across and returned very quickly to summon another meeting. He said that Alexander had been shot and he himself was to return and confirm that we would work the next day or the same would happen to him. Violent arguments then broke out but naturally the Wing Commanders and Squadron Leaders, having family responsibilities and being evidently more likely to be shot than we junior and younger ones were rather more vulnerable than we. Eventually we were ordered to carry out the physical work and Matthews went back to the Japanese to advise them of our surrender. Several of the Japanese officers we saw afterwards would not have scrupled to have had the whole lot bayoneted.
In the early days at Semplak, Mike and I considered whether we could escape since walking out of the camp would be easy enough at night, and cycle down to the South coast to look for a boat. However, Sergeant Green came in one day with a story of a couple of sergeants who had light-heartedly walked out of another camp and were picked up within three hours. They were badly beaten with pick-handles when returned to camp and the following day roped to posts and used for bayonet practice. We stopped considering escape for a while.
We were later moved to another prison camp named Boei Glodok where Ben had found some old tobacco in his cell, contrived to roll a cigarette and lit it. The guard had either heard him striking a flint or seen the smoke after the workers had all passed and raised the alarm over this irregularity. They searched the cells and found that Ben had also a fresh banana that he was keeping for later. I didn't learn of this until later.
Yamamoto was called and he blew his top. He had the gate to my cell opened and yelled "Comeer" several times until I understood he meant "Come here". I took a couple of paces to the threshold and he kicked me in the stomach. I doubled up and clutched the sides of the gate and he yelled again "Comeer". When I straightened up again, he kicked me again and we repeated the exercise several times before he lashed my cap off with his cane and beat my head with it until it had broken and the jagged splinters had dealt me superficial but badly bleeding cuts about my temples. I was then taken to his office and asked who had given me the tobacco and banana. I denied I had any and then was clubbed several times until I lost consciousness.
I recovered my wits as I felt the skin being tom from my bare feet in the dirt and dust while two guards dragged me by my arms across to the punishment cell. It was a slight relief to be left lying on the concrete floor and the gate was banged shut and locked. The guard on duty threw my wooden clogs at me through the bars. I writhed feebly to ease the cuts and bruises against the hot concrete but the dust clung to my sweat and blood. My shirt had gone and my only garment was a pair of ragged shorts ragged shorts providing minimal protection against the heat of the day and the night to come. The flies were already stinging and time passed without my knowing.
The guard changed several times without their shouts and stamps disturbing me and the sun had gone when I opened my least damaged eye and saw the floodlight blazing above. I was conscious only of pain and thirst. The tap at the back of the cell was only a few yards away but I couldn't move towards it and I lay back on the floor. My thirst tormented me until I was forced to make an attempt to drag myself by my hands across to the back wall. My hips and ankles scraped on the dirty concrete but at last I reached the tap. I put my head under it and, when I twisted the faucet, there was a warm dribble for a few moments which brought me no relief. I lay there, exhausted, and squirmed across to the filthy bowl of the toilet. A weak dry stench told me there was nothing there, but a knotted string above was attached to the cistern. I managed to reach up to it, pulled it, heard a dry clank then fell back onto the concrete.
The pain, the thirst and the mosquitoes were more than I could bear without some sort of relief and I tried to call for help from the guard but I could only raise a rattle in my throat. I'd have to get back to the gate and so started the interminable journey again. I blacked out time and again and didn't reach the gate. Warm water trickled over my cropped and bloody scalp and the sergeant of the guard was standing over me with a small tin can, soon empty.
Gasping, I lay on my back whilst he told the sentry to refill the can. It was placed just inside the gate and they stood back to watch me drinking. I muttered my thanks to them but no more water was forthcoming. I was helpless and my situation hopeless. There was nothing to be done about my physical problems; the cuts, the broken teeth, the bruises and the almost certain septicaemia and ulcers.
Following the example of Job, prayer was the Catholic remedy in such circumstances and I accepted it as the means to pass the painful hours. The formal prayers, "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys" were my first recourse and I muttered them to myself as fervently as when I had seen Zeros above me in the days of combat. Time still dragged and I set myself to recall the less familiar rhythms, eventually composing my own which I entitled "Prayers for Those in Hopeless Plights" and tried to commit to my memory. The shadow of the wall crept down and across the floor so that there was no respite from the solid beating of the sun. The guard had changed and, hoping for the best, I leant against the bars and rattled the empty can. I was then dragged off unable to stand and given four days solitary confinement without food and very little water.
In the early months of 1944, we were all moved to a prison camp at Tandjong Priok, the main port near Batavia.
By early 1945, we were returned to Cycle Camp in Batavia. We were only thankful to be spared. Nevertheless, rations were shorter, camp security tighter, and we were very worried about what the Japanese would do to us as the war neared its conclusion. British activity in Burma and American success in the Pacific had cut us off from mainland China and Japan and where it could be a long time before they were able to reach Singapore. Occasionally American and British bombers flew at low level over the camp dropping leaflets, which was greatly encouraging, but we heard of the burning in caves perpetrated upon surviving POWs in the Philippines by the Japanese to avoid their release to MacArthur's troops.
Rations had diminished to such an extent that even those who, like ourselves, had remained on Java through the years, were now lacking nourishment. Nearly all of the poor fellows who had survived the work-parties to the South-East and returned to Java found themselves without the additional nourishment they so badly needed to recover and despite the supplementary food and liver they drew, most succumbed to their malnutrition and ulcers.
Naturally, we became more excited and anxious as the Americans moved closer to Japan and the great fire raids on the cities developed. The end was certain but we were deathly afraid of what would happen to us and all other prisoners in the hands of the Japanese forces. We knew well enough that a command to execute the POWs from anybody more senior than a sergeant would be put into effect and that the vast majority of Japanese troops would see defeat as a disgrace in which they could allow neither themselves nor us to live.
Application of better quality food, medication using the most modern drugs, produced apparently miraculous cures and remedies and especially for those suffering from beri-beri and other forms of malnutrition. Sadly, many many men were past relief. Letters from home were also arriving and not all of these contained good news for husbands and fathers about events during their absence. Some prisoners had to be consoled by others.
The Australian and New Zealand governments had proportionately far better resources in the area than the British and a stronger will to get their men home. They laid on ships to take them away from Malaya and flying-boats to pick up the few hundred left in Java. Whilst there were still a few Aussies remaining, although not down at the jetty, we found some unoccupied seats one evening and so we quietly moved ourselves off Java, saving at least three weeks, while the British sea-borne relieving forces were still about a week away.
Arriving at Singapore, we were given accommodation in a transit camp and kitted out in jungle-green battle-dress and shoes and were able to draw some cash. Although we enjoyed a few cool beers, we had no inclination to visit whatever night clubs there may have been and we spent our days pestering the Movements Control people to get us away. There was a transport leaving in a few days for UK and we were allocated berths. Most of the ex-prisoners from Malaya had already left. When we boarded the troopship, we found there was no alcohol aboard and it would take about six weeks to reach England. We disembarked and returned to the RAF Movements Control people, and pointed out that we were members of the trade union of air crew and demanded priority. The Wing Commander in charge asked us if we were so ill that we should be repatriated by air immediately and, upon confirming this, gave us the same priority as the press gang. We had to wait about a week longer and then just as the prisoners from Java arrived by sea, we boarded a Sunderland bound for Ceylon.
When we got to Ratmalana in Ceylon, the aircraft crew who were familiar with the station routine there, vanished in their own transport and we, the only two passengers, found ourselves facing an ambulance and a sergeant who enquired about the two very ill ex-POWs he'd been advised to collect. He seemed happy to discover that we were they and offered plentiful advice as regards to making ourselves comfortable and arranging our onward passages. It took three days of very comfortable living, three mornings of chasing around offices and three afternoons on the beaches of Mount Lavinia and the Gaulle Face Hotel before we found ourselves aboard a York transport aircraft which landed four days later at RAF Lyneham. It had taken years but I was home at last!