Descent into Hell

by Peter Brune

  We have noted that dysentery was the most prevalent disease in Changi—and would prove by far the biggest killer on the Railway. One of the most important drugs in its treatment was the anti-bacterial tablet M & B 693. Russell Braddon in his book, The Naked Island, claimed that it was rumoured that there was a ‘drug ring’ in Roberts Barracks and that ‘an MO [medical officer] was one of its members . . .’.43 Rumours do not constitute evidence, but in response to reports of drug trading from Roberts Barracks, Lieutenant-Colonel Galleghan issued the following routine order on 19 February 1943:

  No. 110—DRUGS AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES:

  Except by authority of HQ AIF or ADMS, no person (incl MO’s) [author’s italics] may be in possession of any form of sulphanilimide M & B 693, or morphia.44

  The order also stipulated that all drugs in possession of individuals were to be handed into that soldier’s unit and a receipt given, and that the unit in turn was to receive a receipt from the hospital upon its reception of the drug(s). In April 1943, two Australian patients at Roberts Barracks were court-martialled for attempting to sell M & B 693. Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 120 days’ detention.45 Warrant Officer 2 Bert Mettam, 2/29th Battalion:

  Just between Selarang Barracks and Changi Jail there was one place with a big tennis court and they were using that as a compound. And any of these blokes that they picked up, they just put them into the tennis court. And they were guarding the tennis court—and they were flat out getting a drink of water from all accounts.46

  In its yearly return (28 February 1942 to 1943), the 8th Division HQ revealed some interesting detention barracks statistics. Of the 47 units named, twelve had numbers of ten or more put in detention. The 2/29th Battalion had by far and away the highest number of detainees: 57 with a readmittancy count of seven, which amounted to 18 per cent of total detainees.47 It would seem likely that this high rate was caused by two factors: the extremely large number of untrained reinforcements that were posted to it just prior to the capitulation; and the obvious lack of respect held by many of the other ranks towards some officers who, they believed, had failed them at Bakri, in Pudu Prison and in Changi. Despite Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Black Jack’ Galleghan’s passion for discipline, the 2/30th Battalion had the second highest count of 30 with a readmittance of three, which represented nine per cent of all detainees.48 It is pertinent to record that the 2/30th had had nothing like the numbers of reinforcements that the 2/29th or 2/19th had received. Two other units are of interest. The AGH (Australian General Hospital)—a far less ‘populated’ unit than the infantry battalions—had thirteen detainees, no readmittances and constituted three per cent of the total.49 This might reflect three things: first, a possible degree of involvement in the drugs selling issue; second, that the pilfering of clothing was a notoriously easy task in a large hospital; and third, the fact that Roberts Barracks was an ideal venue to conduct black market activities because it was centrally located in Changi, and, above all, because it was a ‘meeting place’ and a ‘cover’ for a wide variety of units and nationalities attending, visiting and passing by it. Roberts Barracks was therefore an ideal trading point.

  It is in no way a contention of this work that any unit should be judged by these figures, because in many cases there were plausible reasons for them; furthermore, in any unit there will be a few soldiers of doubtful integrity, whose behaviour should not reflect upon the entire unit; and last, it must be emphasised that the POW experience is an entirely different one to that of a combat soldier. It should also be appreciated that many detention sentences were handed out for common disciplinary matters, unconnected with trading in rice and drugs. An example was an infantry soldier who received ten days’ detention for failing to perform his duty as a runner, for then saluting his NCO (a salute is not required to a non-commissioned officer) whilst in the act of bowing (obviously with a Japanese connotation), and later using insubordinate language (very insubordinate). Such transgressions were hardly new in any army.

  On 4 March 1942, Major Alan Thompson recorded that: ‘I.J.A. ordered that all shoulder badges to be removed. All officers to wear one star on left breast.’ Three days later he wrote: ‘Commenced wiring ourselves in under I.J.A. orders.’50 Driver Joe Nimbs, 4th Reserve Motor Transport Company:

  They will be a formidable barrier. Two rolls of barbed wire six foot in diameter alongside one another and a single roll on the top where the two rolls meet make it about twelve foot across and twelve foot high in the centre. It would take a bit of scrambling through in a hurry. One of our unit Sergeants, Peter Chitty, is in charge of a gang wiring an area which runs down a gully. They have manoeuvred a section so it will be easier to get through if the need arises.51

  It may have been a ‘formidable barrier’ but it was far from insurmountable. In Changi’s very early days, the Chinese traders discreetly approached the wire and threw items over it, and the money was then thrown back. But the Sikh guards, who had swapped sides after the capitulation, and had also demanded that all POWs salute them, immediately proved not only brutal to the Chinese, but also to the Australians. Bitter and ongoing resentment followed. As late as 5 September 1942, Captain Alf Menz wrote of the Sikhs: ‘I think a day of reckoning may one day come & if it does I want to be handy. They are building up a tidy score against themselves . . .’52 And eight days later:

  The Indians (Sikhs) are becoming very nasty now. I think they are getting a taste of power & being fed a lot of Jap propaganda and upon the slightest provocation are knocking the soldiers about, using rifle butts in the process, by golly I’m afraid that if ever the tide turns here they are going to suffer some casualties. They are certainly asking for it and saying please into the bargain.53

  We have examined the large amounts of money that had come into Changi. Gambling became an evening pastime and was not on a small scale. According to Joe Nimbs, the two-up game run by the engineers was ‘the biggest game’ and ‘one of the patrons . . . has a pillow-slip nearly full of Malayan dollars and will bet the tail for any amount’.54 Attempts were made by AIF HQ to shut down such pursuits but these were unsuccessful. According to Nimbs, provost and unit patrols either ignored the games or merely drove them to new venues. As early as 20 March, the Japanese made an attempt to limit the movement of troops both within their own wired perimeter and into other areas. Major Thompson recorded: ‘A.I.F. allotted three passes and five flags for movement outside area.’55 Such ‘passes and flags’ were of little use. The troops merely ‘joined’ water parties or work parties moving through an area and went about their trading. This practice must surely have occurred with officer compliance. And there were other ways and means of movement and therefore trading. Driver Joe Nimbs:

  On parade each group was given an imaginary area and we were told that if you went outside of our allotted boundary you were to be punished. There was little hope of this being obeyed. You couldn’t keep troops in an imaginary area . . . If they wanted to buy food elsewhere they automatically became members of the Unit that was in the area that they were in at the time, should they be challenged by an Officer or Provo. When out of our own areas we did not wear hats or shirts so we would not be picked out by our colour patches. Every evening Officers and Provos are on picquet duty.56

  The pilfering of clothing, limited drug and rice trading, the theft of personal belongings from kits and gambling, therefore, provided the means for some POWs to participate in the black market.

  It would seem that Singapore and Changi’s black market had a number of levels. We have recorded Colonel Wilfred Kent Hughes’s diary entry for 21 April 1942, when he ‘put the Black Market cigarette king under arrest this evening’. The reference to a ‘cigarette king’ clearly implies that there was a large and sophisticated operation involved in cigarette dealing. In other words, we are not discussing the odd packet of cigarettes here, but a considerable and consistent supply. Another interesting point that arises from Kent Hughes’s statement is the fact that just as there were a number of
‘kings’ in Changi, so there must have been a number of Chinese ‘kings’ in Singapore. The regular supply of goods into Changi and, we shall discover, to work parties outside Changi implies a very complicated, multi-tiered and efficient black market. Further, the nature of those going ‘under the wire’ would seem just as interesting. On 4 June 1942, Kent Hughes wrote: ‘The Black Market in its hey day used to pay its “carriers” $5 a night, but now it is gradually being squeezed out by the Canteens.’57 His statement raises two interesting points. First, he very mistakenly believed at that time that the black market was being gradually ‘squeezed out’ by the canteen(s) run by the 8th Division. That was not to be the case. Although, as time went on, the supply of goods would diminish, we shall see that the black market was still thriving after the return of some Thai–Burma Railway POWs to Changi. The second point is that it would seem that there were three types of traders. The term ‘carriers’ tells us that some POWs going under the wire were acting for a ‘boss’ or a ‘king’ and, according to Kent Hughes, were being paid about ‘$5 a night’, which would have made them quite affluent by Changi standards. In addition, others were operating in small groups and selling on an individual ‘small time’ basis. And there was a third category: those acting for both themselves and a small circle of mates and/or trading to assist their units.

  Gunner Richard Haynes, 2/10th Field Regiment, has left us with both a rare and vivid insight into some aspects of the black market:

  A man has returned from beyond the wire . . . he has a sick mate, and a friend with a sick mate. A greater portion of the night’s haul goes to them. Perhaps he has a few tins of milk left. To the man who approaches him and wishes to buy, he does not say with a trace of melodrama, ‘Take it friend, your need is greater than mine.’ No, the trader is no Philanthropist, he has come up through life the hard way, camped under a bridge in the Depression, seen life, bitter and mean. Laughed at that life as he now laughs at Japanese. He will stand by his mate to the end, but he says, to this man who perhaps in Australia is a ‘Has’ while he is a ‘Has Not.’ . . .

  ‘Four dollars a tin, sport.’

  ‘God Strewth! Four dollars is all I got.’

  A lean rangy man in his late twenties surveyed the last speaker. He had spent a sleepless night, and was hoping he would not cop the barbed wire fatigue. A trace of grime showed on his cheek. He spoke again, wearily.

  ‘That’s the price mate. I’m not going through the bloody fence for bugger all, except laying in the lalang half the night.’

  ‘You’re a robber. A man should put you in, to Black Jack. I told you four dollars is all I got in the world.’

  The trader looked the other over, from head to foot. Then, contempt in his voice he said, ‘All you got! Well what about your two good legs? What about them? Go out and get some stuff for yourself then. I’m a loner, but come out once with me, and I’ll show you the ropes . . . then you can have plenty, plenty of milk. He broke off, laughing mirthlessly, and added, ‘That’s if you have any guts.’

  The face of the buyer grew grey beneath its tan, he stared speechlessly at the Trader. We about them . . . moved restlessly, ashamed at what we saw there in that startled countenance.

  The Trader spat contemptuously . . . as if to turn away . . . Suddenly changing his mind, he dug amongst his bed roll, and produced a tin of Nestles Condensed. He tossed it to the other.

  ‘Here ya are . . . buck shee. Now go to buggery . . . ya give me the __________’58

  Others both knew and appreciated the work of traders going under the wire, and/or doing deals within the general Changi compound. Driver Joe Nimbs:

  I am still attached to the R.A.P. and supposed to be on duty at all sick parades. Most times I make it but if I want to get away the Medical Orderlies and the Doctor don’t bother to find out where I am. They know I would be out somewhere, if I did any good they would be in it so I had a free hand. The R.A.P. was over staffed so it didn’t really matter.59

  In the foreword to Nimbs’s manuscript his CO, Captain Newman, apart from endorsing the accuracy of the work, stated that: ‘Joe lightly refers to giving food and cigarettes to many who were in need, but his generosity went further as he constantly helped others in many ways during those years.’60 The point is that the black market had its positive qualities.

  It is also worthy of mention that despite a multitude of items coming into Changi’s black market, the demand for cigarettes, tinned fish or beef, and condensed milk was high. We have cited Thompson’s early mention of the Japanese allowance of 40 cigarettes per man per month. Given the obvious issue of addiction, and the fact that POWs also found that tobacco helped to quell the appetite, the trade in smokes was always going to be lucrative. And so was the paper to roll it in. According to the 2/19th Unit History, any Holy Bible printed on rice paper was worth around $1.50 to $2.00 per page.61 Paddy O’Toole would remember that Padre McNeil had a philosophical attitude to such sacrilege: ‘I don’t mind you boys using the Bible for cigarette paper, but please read it before you smoke it!’62 The desire for tinned fish and beef is self-explanatory given the lack of it in the Changi diet and the abundance of it in the traditional Australian diet, and condensed milk was widely used to flavour food, to put in tea or coffee, and in some cases, to eat by the spoonful as an ‘extravagance’.

  So far most of our evidence refers to enlisted men, but to what extent were officers involved? A. J. Sweeting in his POW section of Wigmore’s Official History, quoted the official Changi report:

  Check and detection of operators [on the black market] was undertaken by the ‘G’ Staff, particularly in those cases where trading in drugs was involved. Some convictions were obtained on the evidence thus gathered, but the activities had the effect of lessening considerably the black market operations. Right from the start of our PW life, the question of the black market was regarded as serious, involving as it did the creation of a market for stolen goods, the disposal of valuable drugs, the raising of prices of foodstuffs for canteen purchases, and the security angle of illegal contacts.63

  The ‘check and detection of operators’ by the 8th Division G staff would seem to have had at best a chequered career and at worst a possible sinister involvement. The reader will recall Menz’s suspicions that his rice investigation had been compromised, and the curious arrest of his four-man patrol whilst inside their Changi perimeter by Japanese who entered the camp from outside the wire to effect the arrest. On 15 July Captain Adrian Curlewis, an 8th Division staff officer, also noted that the ‘lack of organisation on G side staggered me. Selfishness of Staff Officers also.’64

  The truth is that far from attempting to stamp out the black market, a large number of Changi officers were most willing participants in it. Kent Hughes’s diary for 13 June 1942: ‘We tried hard to pick up some cigarettes from the canteen outside the wire with the sole result that our delegates were picked up.’65 ‘Official reports’ rarely cite such evidence. Further, people such as Nimbs, who were both going under the wire and using their large cash flow brought into Changi to trade widely across its unit areas—and in the outside world—usually have a fair insight into the nature of the market in which they trade. Nimbs:

  Some of the troops say they have met some of our young A.I.F. Officers scrounging for goods outside the wire. There would be trouble if the Senior Officers find out or do they know? . . .

  Most of them get their batmen to buy the goods they want. They could not buy from the Troops selling food, then shift them and arrest them . . .

  Deals are being negotiated between these troops and dealers in the A.I.F. area it being the centre of most dealing that went on. The troops on daily working parties to Singapore are selling a lot of watches and trinkets to the Japs in the City area. It’s a queer set up. Nearly all the Camp orders are about not being allowed to do this, that and the other. I am sure the A.I.F powers that be could stop the market if they were serious.66

  In an interview with the author, Private Paddy O’Toole, 2
/29th Battalion, who was regularly going under the wire at Changi ‘with four-to-five’ others of his unit, was more forthright: ‘They [the officers] were involved in it up to their eyeballs!’67 Further, without the author naming Nimbs, or his manuscript, O’Toole confirmed Nimbs’s accounts of the market and its procedures. And O’Toole was adamant that the majority of POWs in Changi were involved in the black market in some way.68

  We now come to the issue of money lending. The Official History has recorded that:

  No attempt was made by the camp administration to suppress lending of money at reasonable rates; indeed it would have been undesirable if not impossible to do so. Nevertheless a rate of exchange was fixed and money-lenders were forbidden to accept any negotiable security, promissory note or cheque at a rate of exchange less than 8 dollars local Japanese currency to £1 sterling.69

  It is well documented that money-lending occurred on a large scale in Changi. Very many of those early Changi loans were to be paid back after the war. Private Paddy O’Toole remembered his C Company ‘SP’ bookmaker making loans to ‘officers and men’.70 Warrant Officer 2 Bert Mettam concurred but added:

  But then the word went round [in Australia after the war] ‘Don’t repay that money that you’ve borrowed in Changi!’ I think I may have repaid one but I didn’t repay another. I didn’t know that many [lenders] but I knew two or three.’71

  Mettam also pointed out that he borrowed $25 in Changi.72

  Three points should be made with regards to money-lending. The first is that there was absolutely no way that the 8th Division HQ might have stopped it. Moreover, the above accounts refer to moneys being redeemed after the war. This tells us that the other rank borrowers—and possibly some officers—had no real way of paying the money back whilst in captivity. It is also commonly known that a very substantial number of such loans were never paid back. Another point is that evidence of loans made between officers is seemingly scarce for the period in Changi before and during the raising and despatch of the forces to the Thai–Burma Railway and Borneo during the period February 1942 to May 1943. However, strong evidence of widespread loans between officers on the Railway, and in Changi after its completion, will unfold. Colonel Wilfred Kent Hughes’s Changi diary: