Descent into Hell

by Peter Brune

  It was hard ‘to make the most of it’. The men were destined to travel about 275 kilometres in about seventeen days (they had been told ten), marching by night and supposedly resting by day. The first few days were indeed tolerable, as there was a modest gravel road to march on and the men were still feeling the benefit of their purchases of food just days earlier. However, as the road gave way to a narrow, muddy, part corduroy track, potholes and a lack of lighting caused progress to be slow and dangerous. Boots wore out; beatings ‘encouraged’ the sick and the slow to keep up; water was scarce; and the planned day’s rest often didn’t eventuate. Men were forced to provide carrying parties for the Japanese and got very little sleep. No matter how tired any man became, to fall behind not only meant a possible beating from a guard, but the prospect of falling into the hands of the trailing Thais. Warrant Officer Bert Mettam, 2/29th Battalion:

  Oh yes! On the march? My bloody oath! Those Thais, they were murderous mongrels! . . . they were following us . . . they [the Australians] called, ‘Keep up! Keep up! Bandits back there!’ . . . if someone dropped out, or dragged the chain and got behind—it was all at night—there was no torches or anything like that . . . there were two or three cases of blokes getting robbed.26

  At some camps the medical officers were permitted to leave some of the sick behind, but at others no mercy was shown. The strong carried the weak, carried their equipment, and, despite the fact that a number of carts were rented by individuals and some officers, much of the essential stores were manhandled from camp to camp.

  ‘F’ Force’s march north was long and gruelling. The men had to contend with the arrival of the monsoon rains and a multitude of fouled and dilapidated staging camps. But then there was the ultimate horror: a new, silent and fatal travelling companion in the form of cholera, one that would only materialise in large numbers at their distant destinations, and which would induce a sense of utter terror and hopelessness amongst the force’s exhausted ranks. There would be no deaths in twos, threes or even sixes and sevens here, but a gruesome shredding of a large portion of the force, particularly amongst the far more vulnerable ‘unfit’ British. According to a report written by a senior medical officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Dillon, this ‘silent travelling companion’ joined ‘F’ Force at Konkoita: ‘. . . the marching parties were quartered in the same camp as a Thai Labour Corps who were suffering from Cholera. The infection was picked up by each of the thirteen parties of marching prisoners.’27 It was also acquired by drinking from streams on the way through, and the inability to always maintain decent camp hygiene standards when in occupation of a camp for only one or sometimes two nights was another contributor to the rate of infection.

  By the end of May 1943, ‘F’ Force was concentrated in five main camps along a 75-kilometre stretch of the Railway between Konkoita and Three Pagodas Pass at the Burmese border. Number 1 Camp was at Lower Songkurai and contained 1800 Australians; Number 2 Camp was at Songkurai (around 1600 British); Number 3 Camp was at Upper Songkurai (393 Australians); Number 4 Camp was at Konkoita (700 Australians); and 700 British POWs were camped at Number 5 Camp at Changaraya. The Force HQ and hospital were initially located at Lower Nieke but soon relocated to Nieke, and as those camps were being occupied, some 550 Australians and 800 British members of the force were still making their weary way forward.

  The historian is blessed with five major sources for our ‘F’ Force study of Lieutenant-Colonel Pond’s 2/29th Battalion. First, there is a detailed account written by Pond, a copy of which was given to the author by the 2/29th Battalion Association;28 second, there is a comprehensive diary written by the battalion’s adjutant, Captain Ben Barnett (8th Division Signals), which, at the time of writing, has not been used;29 third, there is the detailed diary of Captain Adrian Curlewis (HQ, 8th Division, and eventual second-in-command of Pond’s battalion). Although much of its content has been published in his daughter’s excellent book, additional material is used here not found in that work;30 fourth, there is the self-published diary of the Battalion’s RMO, Captain Roy Mills;31 and last, we have the oral history interviews with the ORs from the Battalion. It is fascinating, therefore, to observe how four officers and a number of men in the same unit viewed the same experience so differently.

  We have noted that the first ‘F’ Force train to leave Changi was occupied by Major Parry and a mixed contingent of AASC, engineers and signals, and that the second train carried Lieutenant-Colonel Pond’s 2/29th Battalion. With Pond’s men travelled Lieutenant-Colonel Kappe and his HQ personnel. At 5.30 am on 8 May 1943, Major Parry’s advance party reached what Captain Ben Barnett called ‘halt number 12’, which was Tamarompat, after having dropped off cooks, some sick members and advance party soldiers along the way. At around 8.00 am the next day, Pond and his 2/29th number 2 party arrived. At 7.30 pm that night 253 men still with Parry’s party and 447 of Pond’s trainload were combined to form a unit under Pond’s command (700 strong).32 Pond’s party was destined to work from camps between Nieke and Takanun. It was at Tamarompat that the party first met their new master: Lieutenant Murayama. Private Paddy O’Toole, 2/29th Battalion:

  A big man, a big man, a very fit bastard too. But he was the biggest Jap I’ve seen . . . He was a domineering, aggressive type of bastard . . . he’d bash you across the bloody ear no trouble at all! He’d line you up. He gave me a couple the bastard! . . . he’d give you a smack in the jaw and say, ‘One more!’ He’d say, ‘One more!’ He flogged blokes, even flogged a bloke with a pick handle one day the bastard! It was in a bloody cutting. He reckoned we weren’t going quick enough . . . always pushing, pushing, pushing! The hours got longer, the work got harder, especially when we put in a bloody great cutting at Takanun . . . he pushed us and pushed us, sometimes twelve or fourteen hours a day.33

  Lance-Corporal John Roxburgh, 2/29th Battalion:

  . . . a huge man . . . who for the whole period in Thailand remained with us. He was the most brutal and inhumane devil I ever struck. He hated us just as bitterly as we hated him, and whenever he thought fit to beat some poor devil he beat him unmercifully.34

  The men of Pond’s party—and ‘F’ Force generally—were thus to experience the same arbitrary cruelty from their Japanese guards as others on the Railway. John Roxburgh:

  And we were detailed to go into this bloody Jap cookhouse and collect the food. [There were four of them to carry a watery rice meal in two 2.5 foot by 1.5 foot containers]. Two of you would carry one between you. These other bloody Japs were coming into the camp, no idea who they were. And they reckoned we were pinching the rice, so it didn’t matter what you bloody said . . . we were then tied up by the hands, hands behind the back, kneel down, and they just belted us, one Jap in particular just belted us with a big bamboo . . . across the back, across the head, the lower part of your spine . . . possibly six or eight times, full blast . . . undo your ropes and just walk out.35

  No rhyme nor reason.

  Pond’s party reached the river camp of Konkoita on 10 May 1943, after covering ‘176 miles from Bampong to Konkoita in 16 days carrying everything including medical gear, food containers and sick men on stretchers’.36 The scenes witnessed on arrival shocked them. The camp was occupied by a mixture of Malay, Burmese, Tamil and Chinese coolies. It was ravaged by cholera, the dead and dying and their blood and mucus fouled the ground. After working for five days cutting a track, the Japanese moved the Australians about six kilometres to Taimonta in an attempt to escape the native cholera outbreak. At Taimonta the party was engaged in cutting timber and pile driving on the construction of a twenty-metre bridge. On 20 May 1943, Ben Barnett recorded that: ‘Still on bridge . . . Mess still rice onion stew, [7.5 ounces of rice] but men gathering greens & doing a little private cooking.’37 On 26 May Barnett wrote: ‘0745 hrs. All party placed in quarantine owing to a suspected cholera case. 0845 hrs. man died. No working parties.’38 This quarantine period lasted for a further seven days and was marked by a Japanese reduction in the ration becaus
e the men were not working.39 It was also notable for a further deterioration in their health. Captain Adrian Curlewis, 6 June:

  Diarrhoea for third time—nothing can describe the discomfort of 100 yards in rain and mud to slimy fly-blown latrines in the dark, and then squatting on lifeless legs. Acted as Orderly Officer for complete cholera tests in isolation huts . . . a hideous night. Roy Mills Medical Officer ill.40

  On 8 June 1943, the fittest of Pond’s party were marched on to Nieke, to be followed two days later by the sick and carrying parties. The work at Nieke consisted of bridge building—cutting pieces of timber for the bridge and standing waist deep in the water and pile driving. Despite the scant ration of only a quarter to a half of a pannikin of rice, the month spent at Nieke was highlighted by the slaughter of five yaks, which added a few days’ priceless, if sparse, meat ration to the men’s diet. But when Pond’s party was ordered to march south, POWs had to pull a number of carts which had been previously hauled by the slaughtered yaks. Pond’s party reached Takanun in early July 1943. The party’s two-month occupation of that area provides us with an excellent case study of its fortunes on the Railway.

  We had been driving for some time along the highway, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, when Rod Beattie turned off the bitumen and drove along a rough, dirt track past two or three small huts, through an open gate and finally over a small bridge. We then crossed another flat-planked bridge across a small creek and then passed through a gate. After a short while Rod stopped the vehicle and informed us that we were standing on the Railway. A brief scraping of a small section of this raised ‘track’ revealed ballast consisting of washed river stones. And then Beattie pointed to an area of around 70 by 30 metres, and we realised that we were fairly and squarely in the middle of Lieutenant-Colonel Pond’s Takanun camp.

  When you stand in this pomelo grove, with its neat, orderly rows of trees and its neatly trimmed grass, it is as though it stands as a tranquil memorial to those who suffered here. The backdrop to this peaceful space is a tall wall of not-too-distant trees beyond which flows the River Kwai. During my interviews with 2/29th Battalion veterans, this is the place that evokes the most emotion and the greatest sense of despair for lost comrades.

  Beattie then took Frank Taylor and the author along the ‘Railway’ track over a bridge crossing a substantial stream, to what is now a plantation complex. The manager came out to meet us and generously gave us permission to walk over the area, which is much more extensive than Pond’s Takanun camp. It was here in mid-1943 that the British camp existed. This area is also a part of the plantation and has the same neat rows of trees and trimmed grass. When we walked down to a ledge close to the River Kwai, where Thai women were using their rice kwalis to cook the evening meal for the plantation workers, we noticed that while the far side of the river was fast-flowing with rocks and white water, the near side was calm and possessed no shortage of barge landing points, with an easy climb to this former English camp. And gazing back over the stream towards Pond’s camp, yet again Frank Taylor pointed out a quite wide area where the barges could have turned around or sheltered without running into any white water or rocks. The manager then told us that just to our left there sometimes can be seen the pylons of the bridge that used to go over the stream, linking the two camps.

  As at Tonchan, when comparing the location of Newton’s camp with the nearby British camp, we immediately wondered why one on one side of a stream could have done so well, and the other, so miserably.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Pond:

  The march back from Taimonta to Takanun caused dreadful exhaustion. We had ox carts, but they, the luggage, the sick, the tents—were all carried or pulled. The Takanun camp was very bad. 600 men were crowded . . . in an area 35 yards by 75 yards. There was no proper hygiene, 30 men to a leaking tent, so there were lean-to’s constructed. The kitchen was unroofed and there were no cookers for rice. The hospital was inadequate, dysentery, malaria, beri beri and then cholera were inevitable. The ground became fouled. (The trench latrines became overfull, and were flooded with water, and seething with maggots were an incredible sight. One’s boots were always fouled).41

  The standard of leadership and camp organisation in Pond’s party at Takanun during July–September 1943 deserves examination. As in other battalions or parties on the Railway, we shall identify examples of inspiring officers and ORs, examples of those who were clearly unable to cope, and examples of others who quite consciously avoided their responsibilities. We start with Lieutenant-Colonel Pond. Corporal Jim Kennedy, 2/29th Battalion:

  . . . it’s human nature, everyone’s different. Pondy, being a brigade major, an administrator . . . compassionate, but no where near having a go at a Nip on behalf of his troops. After the war you’d meet him . . . Pondy was a courteous, kind type of person, not one for front lines . . . and as a prisoner of war, I can’t recall seeing him . . . and on the railway I can’t recall seeing him . . .42

  Warrant Officer Bert Mettam, 2/29th Battalion: ‘He was a solicitor and I think that he’d led a very sheltered life . . . He was a very dour sort of a bloke, he wasn’t a humorous type, he didn’t have a command [presence] in front of a mob . . . he always seemed to me to be very earnest . . .’43

  All interviewees agreed with the above assessments. It will be seen that while Lieutenant-Colonel Pond was indeed honest, had a great feeling for his men and always had their best interests at heart, here was a commander bewildered, lost and virtually helpless on the Railway.

  His adjutant, Captain Ben Barnett, was a tower of strength. An officer with 8th Division Signals, the 35-year-old Barnett had been Bert Oldfield’s wicketkeeping understudy on the 1934 Ashes tour of England and the tour of South Africa in 1935–36. After Oldfield’s retirement in Australia during the 1936–37 series, Barnett became the Australian wicketkeeper on the Ashes tour to England in 1938. A number of veterans would recall Captain Ben Barnett’s morale-raising Ashes talks given around a fire after a day’s despair on the Railway—legendary stories of Bradman, Barnes, Hassett, Hutton, Edrich, Hammond and Compton. Signalman Jim Ling, Pond’s party:

  The one man who seemed to be able to handle him [Murayama] pretty well was Ben Barnett. He stood up to him . . . no matter what Murayama turned on to him, or to us, Barnett would agree, or partly agree, or disagree, and he’d take a belting across the head and face and a kick . . .44

  Barnett’s diary contains repeated references to the varying locations and mounting fatalities of his scattered 8th Division Signals comrades, who were caught in the situation of being unable to congregate as a unit, and therefore lacked unity of command, mutual support and amenities which were much more accessible to the infantry battalions in ‘F’ Force.

  In continually attempting to protect the sick and dying, Barnett was ably assisted by the RSM, Warrant Officer Bert Mettam. Corporal Bob Christie:

  He was responsible to the Japs, he’d take the party out, and he’d have to try and interpret what they wanted done, and we’d be told what we had to do, and if we didn’t do it properly, or he gave us the wrong instructions, he’d get belted. He was a tough bloke Bert Mettam.45

  The RMO of Pond’s party was Captain Roy Mills. First impressions can be misleading. Signalman Jim Ling well remembered Mills being introduced to the men when Parry’s group and Pond’s men were formed into a single party at Tamarompat. ‘He was over six feet, looked like a great big boy, exactly what he looked like. Rosy cheeked. And I can remember one of our fellows in the back row saying, “Jesus, we’re getting a school boy for a bloody doctor!”’46

  Corporal Bob Christie, 2/29th Battalion:

  He was a gentle man; a very quiet man; a very kind looking man . . . when we went to Thailand, he had virtually no equipment . . . and almost immediately cholera came on . . . the various diseases . . . he looked after those men . . . he walked up and down that line from Konkoita to Taimonta to Takanun, time and time again, to the different camps, because he was the only doctor . . . and Mills got b
elted up on more than one occasion.47

  Lance-Corporal John Roxburgh, 2/29th Battalion: ‘I can remember Roy Mills when the Japs came and grabbed these blokes out of the hospital, really bloody sick blokes, and he’d cry, he’d just bloody openly cry, about what these bastards were doing to our really sick blokes.’48

  As we have recorded with RMOs such as Captain Rowley Richards with ‘A’ Force and Captain Dave Hinder with Newton’s ‘U’ Battalion of ‘D’ Force, all of them had to work in total isolation from colleagues; they had next to no basic drugs and equipment with which to work; and they had to try and combat the appalling squalor and filth of the camps. And underpinning all of this, one is struck yet again by the extreme youth of many of these doctors who, virtually at the beginning of their careers (Mills was 26 on the Railway) were placed in an unimaginable environment of filth, pain and suffering—and compounded by Japanese cruelty and abuse. And yet, totally trusted by their hundreds of patients, they triumphed.

  While every POW on the Railway should have been classified as unfit for work, Captain Mills, in much the same fashion as Captains Richards and Hinder, employed an elaborate written classification system in an attempt to create a priceless day or days off. Mills used seven categories: ‘H’ for an in-patient in hospital; ‘No’ for no work at all; ‘L3’ for very light work; ‘L2’ for moderately light work; ‘L1’ for light work; ‘MD’ for medicine and duty; and where there was no entry, the POW was fit for duty.49 By the use of such a detailed system, Mills hoped that by moving a POW’s name between categories, he might gain some small recovery time. His records also contained a history of each man’s illnesses. However, no amount of detailed categories for the sick, or a manipulation of that register, could allow for the arrival of an angry and violent Murayama or one or more of his soldiers demanding additional numbers for the day’s slavery. Abuse, kicks, rifle butts and punches repeatedly forced men lying on a bamboo floor or in the mud to stagger to their feet and fill work quotas.