Burma Railway Man: Secret Letters From a Japanese Pow
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Louise’s parents had died and their house had been left to her, which was a helpful start for the couple. Charles returned to the City and in May 1947 joined the stockbroking firm of L. Messel & Co., with whom he remained for the rest of his working life, eventually becoming a partner.
To their utter joy, Louise gave birth to a daughter, Margaret, in December 1948 and they felt their happiness to be complete. The family were living in Shirley, near Croydon, but later moved out to Tenterden in Kent, when Charles retired.
One of his objectives was to travel the world. In 1973, Charles and Louise visited Thailand. Charles wanted to travel the same route he had taken as a POW and to show his wife the places about which he had written so much. Learning of his visit, the Foreign Office arranged for the British Embassy in Bangkok to lay on a car and chauffeur. They were driven to Kanchanaburi, where they visited the large and beautifully maintained main POW Cemetery. They then went to Chungkai, Nong Pladuk, and, of course, Tamarkan.
Here they walked over the bridge, which had been repaired and strengthened after the war, ironically, by the Japanese. Sitting on the bank, with the bridge to their left, was the spot where the POWs were allowed their short yasme. The sun was just as fierce, the mountains just the same but a deep peace had replaced the noise and chaos of 1943.
Charles spoke of those terrible days without rancour but was deeply moved by his visit. He was also fascinated by one of the original locomotives used by the Japanese and the Road/Rail diesel lorries, with trucks, which were used during the railway’s construction and were now a permanent exhibit.
They hired a motor riverboat and set off down the river to Chungkai. Here they visited the cemetery and stood by the headstone of RSM Coles, whom Charles had helped bury. They later visited Nong Pladuk and found that the site of the camp was given over to a field of sugar cane.
They paid a second visit to Kanchanaburi, this time by train, which they caught at Nong Pladuk and travelled to the Bridge and, again, enjoyed the tranquility by the river. A final appointment in Bangkok saw Charles meeting Boon Pong and his daughter. In August 1945, Boon Pong’s activities were exposed and he was arrested by the Japanese, imprisoned and sentenced to death. Fortunately, he was saved by the cessation of the war. When the Queen visited Thailand in 1972, she invited Boon Pong to dinner aboard the Britannia. For many years until he died, Boon Pong exchanged Christmas cards with Charles and his family.
In December 1975, Charles’s former CO and hero, Philip Toosey, died in his sleep.
In 1979, the couple once again visited the Far East, this time Singapore and Malaysia. Charles showed Louise the places he had so graphically described in his letters. The YMCA Building, which had been the HQ of the Japanese Kempitai and the scene of much brutality. Another place to avoid in 1942 was Changi Post Office, which was used by the renegade Sikhs, who had lost no opportunity to impress upon the British POWs that there had been a change in status. At the rather neglected Singapore Railway Station, Charles stood on the very railway platform from where he and thousands of prisoners began their terrible three and a half-day journey to Ban Pong. Changi Prison still looked as grim and forbidding, while the nearby Roberts Barracks were peaceful in their quiet surroundings. They visited Bukit Timah and saw the reservoir, which is now within the exclusive Singapore Country Club. At the impressive Kranji War Cemetery, Charles paid his respects to those comrades of the 135th Field Regiment who were buried there. Leaving Singapore Island, they drove over the Causeway and into Malaysia and headed for Penang.
On the way, Charles stopped at the exact point where his battery had fired from the edge of a rubber plantation across a field of pineapples at the advancing Japanese.
Now retired, Charles’s interest in steam trains continued. In 1980, a journey on the Trans-Canada railway was something of a deciding moment for Charles for, on his return, he became a member and helper of the Kent and East Sussex Railway based at Tenterden. It was no surprise to the family when, at the age of seventy-three, he announced that he was taking an engine driver’s course and went off to the Bluebell Railway, Sussex for a four day course. He arrived back home tired and happy – he was a qualified steam train driver.
Charles lived out the remainder of his life happily involved with the Railway and sharing Louise’s interests in gardening, photography and local societies. He died in 1999 at the age of eighty-three and, amongst papers he kept in a safe, were his letters, which had only ever been read by Louise. Now we have shared that privilege and can only marvel at man’s ability to rise above a seemingly vast ocean of despair and hopelessness and emerge with strength and dignity.
Bibliography
Goh Chor Boon, Living Hell, Asiapac Singapore 1999
John Coast, Railway of Death, Simpkin Marshall 1961
Peter N.Davies, The Man Behind the Bridge – Colonel Toosey and the River Kwai, Athlone Press 1991
Ernest Gordon, Miracle on the River Kwai, Collins 1963
Hardie, Dr Robert, The Burma-Siam Railway – Secret Diary of Dr.Robert Hardie 1942–45, Imperial War Museum 1983
Harries, Meiron and Susie, Soldiers of the Sun – The Rise and Tall of the Imperial Japanese Army 1865–1945, Heinemann 1991
Kinvig, Clifford, River Kwai Railway – The Story of the Burma-Siam Railroad, Brassey 1992
Lushington, Lieutenant Colonel Franklin, Yeoman Service – A Short History of the Kent Yeomanry 1939–45, The Medici Society 1947
Rivett, Rohan, Behind Bamboo, Angus & Robertson 1946
Stabolgi, Lord, RN, Singapore and After, Hutchinson 1942
Towle, Philip, Margaret Kosuge and Yoichi Kibata (eds.) Japanese Prisoners of War, Hambledon, 2000
Index
97 Field Regiment, Kent Yeomanry, 4, 6, 8–11, 157
135 Field Regiment, North Herts. Yeomanry, 15, 16, 20–3, 33, 101, 146, 147, 157, 174
18th Division, 17, 20, 33, 41, 70
Angells, Sergeant, 80
Aoki, Second Lieutenant, 51
Arrow Hill (Arohuil), 75–6
Ban Pong, 55–6, 70–1, 77, 134, 174
Bangkok, 116, 134, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 173
Banham, Major, 32
Beckwith-Smith, Major General, 32, 41
Bluebell Railway, 175
Boon Pong, 70, 134, 174
Boyle, Captain, 112
Bukit Timah, 53, 60, 79, 125, 174
Burma Star Association, 119
Butler, Gunner, 97
Camp 154, 82, 85
Cape Town, 18
Changi, 1, 23, 24, 26, 27, 33, 34, 45, 55, 131, 174
Chida, Major, 108, 133, 152, 155
Chungkai, 61, 87–8, 89, 173
Coles, Regimental Sergeant Major, 59, 88, 174
Colombo, 160
Consolidated Liberators, 145, 149
Cooke, Captain, 82
Cowie, Lieutenant, 94
Davidson, Major, 112
Dearden, Captain, 46–7
Douglas Dakota, 136–7, 150, 156
Duke, Brigadier C.L.B., 41
Dunkirk, 10, 12, 13, 22, 166
Escourt, 8
Esteville, 9
Fallerton, Lieutenant, 112
Fane, Peter, 133–4
Featherstone, Major, 94
Follies de Noel, 62
Force 136, 135
Frills and Follies, 62
Fukuei, Major General, 45–6
Fullerton, Captain, 94, 110, 112, 140
Gill, Lieutenant Colonel W.E., 89, 92, 95
Gordon-Bennett, Major General H., 20
Griswold, Major, (OSS/USAF), 136
Guadalcanal, Battle of, 63
Hashimoto, Captain, 51
Hawley, Captain, 97
Heath, Peter, 134
Hedley, Sergeant John, 142–3
HMS Ajax, 18
Dorsetshire, 18
Exeter, 18
Express, 13
London, 160
Prince of Wales, 18
Repulse, 18
Win
chelsea, 12
Holmes, Lieutenant Colonel E.B., 45, 46
Hore-Belisha, Lionel, 5–6
Howard, Lieutenant, 62
Janis, Captain, 85
Kanchanaburi, 56, 97, 112, 115, 173, 174
Keane, Captain, 76
Kent and East Sussex Railway, 175
Kinsaiyok, 62, 66, 74, 76, 77–8, 80, 83–6
Knight, Company Sergeant Major, 82, 83
Konkorta, 88
Korat, 153
Kosakata, Lieutenant, 57, 62
Kranji War cemetery, 174
Liverpool, 171, 172
Lloyd, Gunner, 31
Lushington, Lieutenant Colonel F., 7, 8, 10, 12
MacRitchie Reservoir, 34, 36
MacTavish, Regimental Sergeant Major Sandy, 92, 112, 119, 135, 139
Marieux, 7
Marsh, Major, 112
Mayes, Sergeant, 110
Mengui, 138, 157
Midway, Battle of, 63
Moncheaux, 7
Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 137
Murakami, Regimental Quartermaster, 57
Murkin, Battery Sergeant Major, 31
MV Sobieski, 17, 170
Nakhon Nayok, 133
Nakhon Pathom, 115
Nakom Paton, 138
Neivede, Lieutenant, 112
Nong Pladuk Cycling Club, 91–2
Nong Pladuk, 73, 88ff, 173–4
Northcote, Captain, 39, 112
Obara, Sergeant Major, 51
Oda, Lieutenant, 113, 117, 121, 122, 134, 152
Okehampton Camp, 5, 7, 14–15
Pacific Steam Navigation Company, 158
Pearl Harbor, 18
Percival, Lieutenant General A.E., 20
Pleasaunce, Sergeant, 81
Pomeroy, Captain, 62
Poperinghe, 11
Port Said, 161
Primrose, Lieutenant, 82–3
Rangoon, 155, 156, 158
RCN Gatineau, 13
Revue de Monde, 62
River Kwai, 60, 67
River Mae Khlaung, 60, 67
River Menam, 116
River Mersey, 171
Roberts, Major, 82, 83
Saito, Sergeant Major, 57, 59
Sato, Lieutenant, 51
Seclin, 9
Selerang 45–6
Sensitai aerodrome, 118
Settitan aerodrome, 118
Shenning, Staff Sergeant, 112
Shonan Jinjya, 34
Singapore, 19–23, 24, 37–9
Sissons, 7
Slater, Major, 97
Slotboom, S.J., 135
Smiley, Lieutenant Colonel D., 136, 139, 143, 148
SS Bruges, 7
Orbita, 158, 160 ff
Stadden, Company Sergeant Major, 112
Steel, Ken, 4, 107, 145
Steel, Louise (neé Crane), 5, 7, 8, 15, 16, 21, 24, 35, 52, 66, 93, 98, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175
Steel, Margaret, 173
Suez Canal, 160
Suziki, Lieutenant, 155
Suzuki, Captain, 134
Sykes, Major, 110
Takasaki, Lieutenant, 62
Tamarkan, 56ff, 173
Tanbyuzayat, 57
Tarssao, 77, 86
Texel, 13
The Jilted Lovers’ Club, 166, 167
Tonchan Camp, 77
Toosey, Lieutenant Colonel Philip, 16–18, 20, 21, 39, 41, 45, 57, 62, 65, 70, 74, 89, 94–5, 97, 105, 112, 115, 120, 133–4, 138–9, 142–3, 146, 148–50, 155, 158, 163–4, 172, 174
Tournai, 9
Trans-Canada Railway, 175
Ubon Ratchatani, 116ff
USS Mount Vernon, 17–20, 159
Wakefield, 17
West Point, 17
Wampo Viaduct, 76, 79
Wang Yai, 86–7
Wilkinson, Lieutenant 71, 73
Zauki, Lieutenant, 85