by Peter Brune
For officers such as Reg Newton, the Australian occupation of the wing opposite the Chinese brought with it both an immediate and stark lesson: the Japanese Kempeitai would stop at absolutely nothing to gain intelligence, and when that intelligence was acquired, retribution of the cruelest kind ensued. Private Charles Edwards:
Up the front . . . near the front door was the whipping tripod . . . it’s three poles. About half way down there was a big, wide belt. They lay the prisoner in it to be whipped and they’d put the belt over to cover his kidneys and they’d belt him around the shoulders. When we first went in there they’d have the Chinese dissidents in a wing, and they used to belt them to try to get out of them their confederates outside . . . I for one used to peek around and have a look . . . they brought in the woman with the cat of nine tails . . . she would walk down, and after a while we’d hear the screams. We used to call it, ‘They’re giving them a stripy shirt.’ Then the next day they’d carry them out—they’d just died. They were already half starved . . .27
It wasn’t always a ‘stripy shirt’. Sometimes a piece of rubber hose or a bar would induce broken bones, and, with the torment of time and acute discomfort and lack of water, punishment on the tripod became a virtual crucifixion. The body was taken down the next morning and buried, or perhaps another impaled Chinese head would testify to the barbaric behaviour of the Japanese. Newton would later also record: ‘skin torn off the torso, eyelids cut off and the rays of the sun reflected into the open eye with magnifying glasses’, and that the screams were ‘a hideous nightmare’.28 Water torture added further to the Kempeitei’s cruelty. The prisoner’s body was filled and then jumped on until the mouth, eyes and nose became painful and repugnant water exits. Others were hung upside down with a cloth placed over the mouth and eyes. Water or urine or iodine was then poured into the nose and mouth to induce a sense of drowning. And the ‘hideous nightmare’ could be as much psychologically as physically induced. A group of six Chinese prisoners might be informed that one of them was to die the following morning. The Australians were the captive witnesses to a night full of the wailing and grief of the despairing Chinese, and the morning brought death for one, and relief, silence and temporary hope for the other five.29
If the Japanese had shown themselves to be excellent soldiers in battle, and calculating and cruel masters, then in other ways they often displayed an almost child-like naivety when dealing with the European mind. Three examples demonstrate the point. At around the time of the occupation of the whole gaol, an almost comical figure descended upon the camp: a Japanese intelligence officer named Watanabe. His physical appearance hardly helped his cause. He wore a civilian shirt, coat, tie and hat, but army breeches, boots and leggings. While others bashed, tortured and deprived their prisoners of food and drugs, this quaint creature proceeded to hand out cigarettes and ask the Australians questions—in fluent English—about northern Australia. But when Watanabe’s questioning turned one day to whether or not the Australians possessed any survivors of the fighting at Parit Sulong, Newton knew that the slightest slip of the tongue would spell a death sentence for Hackney and Wharton. Further, upon capture, the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment’s Sergeant Clarrie Thornton had claimed that he was a reinforcement to the 2/29th. Anyone who had caused the Japanese severe casualties in battle was forever a target of retribution.
The second was the fact that their procedures for prison security were far inferior to their battle performance and their ‘creativity’ in cruelty. On 29 May 1942, a British prisoner returned early from a work party pleading ‘serious’ illness. He warned Newton that when the work party returned, to be ready to create a diversion to allow the passage of a box into the prison. To frustrate the Japanese search party, Newton organised a thronging mass of prisoners detailed to carry the incoming rations into the gaol, and, in the confusion, a box of ‘eggs’ was rushed away. The box contained an electric radio. Newton then offered the Japanese the chance to have electricity laid on throughout the prison in the hope that they had tired of ‘kerosene lamps, candles and oil lamps’. The offer was gratefully accepted. Within a matter of days the 2/29th’s Lieutenant McQueen and two British assistants had restored power to the prison. Whilst Newton’s new radio was only able to provide news—and biased at that—from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, it was at least in English and did cover some overseas news. The third example also came in April with the demand that all prisoners record their occupations for possible later deployment as ‘specialists’ in far-flung parts of the ‘Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’. The Japanese must have been totally non-plussed by the response: ‘beer tester’, ‘brothel inspector’ and ‘wrapper-uppers’ were but a few of the creative replies.
In early June 1942, the Japanese introduced pay for officers and ‘work pay’ for other ranks: NCOs received the equivalent of fifteen cents a day, other ranks ten cents per day, lieutenants $15 per month, and senior officers $25 per month.30 The above sentence seems innocuous enough, but the importance of money in a prisoner of war situation is critical. We shall discover that in Changi a number of captives entered that prison with significant sums of it; that in many POW situations there were a limited number of financial ‘haves’ and a great majority of ‘have nots’; and critically, there were others who knew not only how to acquire money, but how to ‘invest’ it. These soldiers often understandably used their financial position for their own good, but also to help their mates. In addition, we shall learn of some who engaged in corruption and exploitation. And contrary to popular belief some of these were officers.
Pay brought with it privileges for some and work opportunities for others. Private Charles Edwards:
At this stage they also formed an officers’ mess. Now Sam Cameron was the only other member of my company, D Company of the 2/19th, in the camp. He’d been captured with Newton . . . Sam came down to my cell . . . He said that they were going to form an officers’ mess, and they wanted ten mess orderlies. Reg Newton always said whatever proportion of the camp the Australians are, we have that proportion of the good jobs. There were 100 officers in the camp, ten of whom were Australian, and so one of the ten [mess orderlies] had to be an Australian.31
Although Edwards had to be ordered to do the job, he soon realised its potential:
I always reckoned that the Japs were a little bit dim—two men could have done this job, but they accepted ten men. Now I was working seven days a week [on work parties and as an orderly] . . . further to that there were some officers without a batman. ‘Will you wash me a shirt Edwards?’ ‘Yes Sir, it’s five cents to wash a shirt and one cent to sew on a button.’ [Edwards had ‘scrounged’ khaki thread and needles whilst on a working party assembling Singer sewing machines.] I was getting about 70 cents a week pay and about two dollars from washing shirts. And so I became what I call, ‘a Pudu millionaire’. All I had to do was buy tobacco, and I didn’t smoke a good deal of that because now my rations were better, and I only smoked to cut the pain of appetite . . . when I went into being that mess orderly, my life took a dramatic change. We had to walk from the officers’ mess . . . to the kitchen, get their rations and their tea, carry it back, serve it out to them, wait on them . . . we got to know all the officers, all the civilian prisoners in there, and we got first hand, all the news. Everything else I got I shared with my mates, but not my money, it was too damn hard to get. I had a money belt which never left my body. Then came rumours that we were going down to Changi, and I thought now, I’ll take a punt on this and I’ll buy up as much tobacco as I could . . . and I rolled up all my possessions in this sack, that was my bed, and when I got down to Changi I was proved right. I made 500% on that tobacco. And I had much more money—I was never short of money.32
Throughout their newly acquired ‘Empire’, the Japanese refused to pay the sick—no work, no pay. In response to this, Newton and an officers’ committee ordered that two-thirds of officers’ pay and a half of the other ranks’ daily rate was to go towards the purchase of eggs
and tinned meat (protein and fat) for hospital patients. It should be realised that such meagre purchases would never have restored anything like satisfactory health to the inmates of Pudu, but rather, in some cases, could have forestalled death and in others perhaps facilitated a recovery—for the time being. A number of ‘Puduites’ initially refused to pay their way and did so only after pressure from Newton. It would take time before some POWs were to learn a critical lesson: you might work today; you might even glean a little extra food; but tomorrow a whole host of afflictions might see you in ‘hospital’. The frugal supplies of food and medicines for the hospital, therefore, would become everyone’s concern, because for the vast majority of prisoners, life itself was to prove nothing more than a day-to-day proposition.
June 1942 was a fortuitous month for those in Pudu. On the 12th around 150 soldiers from the Argylls and other British units arrived from the northern Taiping and Ipoh gaols. Amongst them were the Argylls’ Captain David Boyle and Lieutenant Ian Primrose. The advent of those two officers saw a similar swing to massed unit pride and organisation as Newton had brought to the Australians. And fifteen days later the morale of the prisoners received a decisive boost when three gunners from the 2/15th Field Regiment boldly smuggled a chaff bag holding a cumbersome short-wave transceiver ‘across the quadrangle to the jail, and across the 100 yards open space under the eyes of the guards . . .’33 The success of this audacious mission may have been attributed to the gunners showing the Japanese a number of nude calendars acquired at the markets the same day. Subsequently, the BBC night-time news from New Delhi was received by Newton and Archer and later relayed to the troops by an ingenious method.
Padre Duckworth had spent months selling watches, pens, lighters and all manner of items of dubious quality to the Japanese. The money from his bartering in food and goods had always gone to Archer and his outside contacts for the immediate benefit of the struggling ‘Puduites’. Along with his black market endeavours had come an always aggressive manner in dealing with the Japanese. And now, with authentic news finally available through the newly acquired transceiver, Duckworth became the purveyor of both real and morale-raising news. Private Charles Edwards: ‘So they gave the news to Chaplain Duckworth. Now every evening, in a little corner of the jail, he’d have a religious service—we called it “prayer corner”.’34 As the men gathered in this north-eastern corner of the gaol, two sentries called ‘cockatoos’ would be posted to warn of approaching guards. If those sentries broke into a whistling rendition of ‘Mother McCree’, Duckworth’s sermon would quickly become ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. Edwards:
This is the way he gave out the news: ‘. . . under thee dear Lord, our brother Winston who has today dropped three thousand golden eggs on Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Hamburg . . . and under thee dear Lord, our brother Douglas has vowed that he will return.’ [Then comes the sound of ‘Mother McCree’] . . . ‘Now gentlemen, we’ll all rise and have the Lord’s Prayer.’ The guard would look in through the gate, hear we all were deep in prayer, ‘Our Father which aren’t in heaven . . .’
I call him ‘The hero of Pudu’.35
July 1942 brought with it the opportunity for those in Pudu to notify the outside world of their existence. When on the 7th a 2/29th soldier died, Captain Reg Newton was approached by a Chinese man after the funeral at the Cheras Road Cemetery, who informed him that he was about to journey to Singapore with a consignment of Japanese stores. Asked ‘if there was anything he could do for us in Singapore’,36 Newton promptly had a nominal roll typed and placed in the centre of a toilet roll which was duly delivered to Changi. The roll exists to this day in the Imperial War Museum. Later, Sergeant Ken Harrison was able to smuggle a similar ‘document’ through to Changi with the names of the 4th Anti-Tank gunners recorded. Sergeant Harrison:
As it happened, our friends in Singapore had heard vague rumours of a camp on the mainland, but had long since dismissed them as wishful thinking. We had all been listed as ‘Missing believed killed.’ So my message, when it reached Major Quick, came like a voice from the grave.37
In mid-July a message was received from Paddy Martin via the Kuala Lumpur market for two of Pudu’s inmates. From late March and through early April, a number of civilian prewar planters had trickled into Pudu, among them Frank Van Renan and Bill Harvey. Both had been involved in ‘stay behind’ operations behind the Japanese lines under the command of one Spencer Chapman during the fighting on the Malay Peninsula up to the fall of Singapore. Paddy Martin’s message was sent by Chapman to inform Van Renan and Harvey that the time had come when they could escape and rejoin him, as Japanese pressure on the guerrilla movement in Malaya had died down to some degree. Van Renan and Harvey needed little prompting, and immediately sought permission to escape from the British CO of Pudu, Colonel Guy Hartigan. When approached, Colonel Hartigan and Lieutenant Ken Archer were pessimistic. Archer, through his knowledge and contacts outside Pudu, warned the men that the Japanese had now employed a new grid system throughout Malaya. This system was cunning and comprehensive, and relied upon a simple principle: intimidation. Each local community leader or leaders within their portion of the grid who failed to identify ‘foreign’ movement were to be executed. And in true Kempeitai style, such executions would be preceded by torture for intelligence and/or reprisals against all and sundry. Coupled with the bounty paid by the Japanese for the capture of, or information leading to the capture of any fugitives, the chances of success were slim indeed. But Van Renan and Harvey argued that they had extensive knowledge of the country, had various contacts and would move only by night. They also informed Hartigan that their party would consist of five: Van Renan, Harvey and two planters named Graham and Morrison, who had extensive local knowledge and could speak the native tongue. The fifth member was Major David Nugent of the 2/18th Garhwal Rifles, who seemed to have no other qualification for the party other than being a personal friend of Van Renan’s. What they asked of Hartigan and Newton was a head start, an initial distraction to delay the Japanese search for them. The escape was timed for the night of 14 August 1942.
Despite the grid system, the bounty on any escapee’s head and the fact that the party was required to travel around 150 kilometres to reach Chapman’s HQ, few escape plans stood a better chance of success because of the men’s local knowledge, contacts and linguistic skills. In addition, Hartigan and Newton had arranged for keys to be procured to two gates; they could keep an ear on the radio for possible contact from Chapman; they allowed Van Renan and Harvey to exit the camp to gather arms and ammunition; they arranged for the power to ‘fail’ on the night; and, critically, they were to stage a cover-up at successive tenkos (Japanese parades for roll counts), for the next morning and the following two days.
Unfortunately, one official and planned escape for 14 August became two, the very night before Van Renan’s group was due to leave. After returning from a work party late on the afternoon of the 13th, the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment’s Sergeant Ken Bell requested that Newton grant him permission to escape in a party of four led by Captain Mick MacDonald, a local Australian planter, a Dutch pilot named Jan Van Crevald and the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment’s Sergeant Clarrie Thornton. But when Thornton succumbed to an attack of dysentery, the first three still requested permission to escape.
After having informed Hartigan of his plan, an acrimonious and fiery confrontation then ensued between Hartigan, Newton, Archer and Van Renan and the second escape group led by MacDonald and Bell. It must have been very ‘fiery’ as Newton was not universally known as ‘Roaring Reggie’ for nothing. Newton has left us with an account of the ‘discussion’ that began at around 6.00 pm and finished at midnight:
MacDonald would not budge and all he kept saying was that he had arranged to go out that night. When told about the grid system he said that this was mentioned just to stop him from going out and that he did not believe Ken Archer . . . Van Renan pointed out that if he was determined to go out then he should wait one more day to give Van
Renan’s party a chance for they were well organized and they were an official party, and MacDonald was not. But to no avail and despite all entreaties and protests Sgt. Bell refused to listen . . .38
Initially, all went according to plan. Both parties made good their escape after passing through the gates and gaining time through the staged tenkos.
In the end, however, both escape attempts failed dismally. The Japanese grid system that MacDonald had dismissed as a ploy by Archer to prevent his escape was in fact the very reason for the failures. The ‘unofficial’ party of three fared poorly: Bell and Van Cevald were in Japanese hands and back in Pudu at around midday on 16 August, and MacDonald made his eventual return to Pudu on 4 September. Two Malays were given $2 each and the local police corporal $10 as a bounty for his capture.39 After a number of skirmishes with local Malays, Van Renan’s party was also rounded up. In the process, Nugent was badly wounded and, after the ‘official’ party arrived back in Pudu on 7 September, Nugent died there on the 13th.40
The Japanese reacted swiftly to the escapes. Searches occurred and, as they would demand in Sandakan in Borneo and Changi in Singapore, on 27 August prisoners were ordered to sign a form: ‘I, the undersigned, hereby solemnly swear on my honour that I will not, under any circumstances attempt escape.’41 Colonel Hartigan refused, which caused the Japanese to place the officers six to a cell normally occupied by one prisoner. In a morale-boosting display of fortitude and solidarity, the officers endured their lack of food and water for a short period before pragmatism overruled bravery. As the paper was to be signed under duress it was not binding, but most of all, it must surely have hit home that escape was not a plausible prisoner of war pastime in Malaya. And the cost of such escape attempts was soon shown to all.
