Posted on 09/28/2017 7:21:47 AM PDT by Thistooshallpass9
My aunt, as a child, spent the war in Changi (Singapore) civilian camp with her mother, her father was in a different part of the camp.
I read once where prisoners brought into concentration camps would either succumb to despair and die within a few weeks or become determined to make it through, often finding their strength in God.
Give so much to your captors that they give hou the nickname, “Songbird.”
As a 20-year old, he was taken from Java in the back of a truck at the place he was to register with the Japanese after the Dutch Royal Army capitulated after their first major battle, "Tjiater."
They were brought to wherever the Japanese needed workers for a job done. There they toiled, most often in the hot open air (think Bridge Over the River Kwai, though he didn't work that particular project). They usually bedded down under the stars where there was essentially no obvious camp. That is, there were generally no walls, facilities other than newly dug latrine, no barbed wire, etc. They were told, "Don't cross this line, or that line, or go past that berm, or you'll be shot." It didn't take the regularity of too many men being shot before everyone clearly had the message: You don't do that if you wish to survive. Many other things were "learned" if one didn't want the most common form of punishment, a rifle butt to the face or back.
Escaping into the countryside wasn't really an option, as Europeans would stick out like a sore thumb among the straight-black-haired, darker-skinned population, and even the people who might in humanitarian fashion be sympathetic to a POW's plight could not count on the silence of someone nearby who knew just a little betrayal would likely mean a reward awaiting them if they reported an escaped POW to the Japanese authorities.
Food and nourishment--down to the calorie--was all increasingly honed toward survival just insofar as to return the needed amount of work for the Japanese soldiers. When the food intake's calories had been expended, it was time (in the big, ongoing experiment) for one's body mass to kick in for the rest of the energy that would be required. As this would be discussed among the men, he watched those around him and ultimately he would calculate that the Japanese must have considered only keeping a POW for no more than 2-3 years before he would die to make room for other, "fresher/newer" and healthier prisoners. He called the whole system a meat grinder. The Japanese would put the fresh men in, turn the crank and eventually what would come out was ground meat only the worms could enjoy.
Somewhat by happenstance, the POWs in his area would find themselves near the ocean or a fresh water stream. To lessen the stress on supplies, the POWs were allowed to fish. Circumstances reinforced my dad's love for fishing. He grew to be pretty good at it.
His catches would occasionally allow him to trade fish with other POWs. The more common currency--which wasn't as taboo as trading fish--was cigarettes, which were often "functional" and prized. I gather to minimize (micro) black market activities, dealing in fish was a lower-rung, lesser "crime."
Once my father used some free time to fish in a fresh-water stream in the midst of the village where they were bivouacked. After a Japanese soldier observed him and caught him trading the fish for cigarettes, my dad was brought to his Dutch officers, who were told that he needed to be punished. The actual form of the punishment would be left up to the officers.
There were some prisoners in poorer health, with dysentery and the like. Their clothes and bedding most often became quickly filthy. The undesirable task of tending to those needs fell to healthier men, who rarely seemed poised to volunteer. We may have the meme of a punishment to be "put on KP," but for them lower-level punishment involved washing the clothes and bedding of the infirm as well as one's own.
It was every bit the rotten job from which one could easily fall ill as well, especially if one were tempted to make shoddy work of it all, about which my dad had a sense. So he did a good job with it. But the real eye-opener for him--something that unexpectedly changed his life--was to see the fundamental human gratitude in the eyes of those to whom he returned clean bedding and clothes. These were people who had almost nothing else in the world, and for whom it made all the difference of hope for the future--over which they almost no control, outside their gratitude--that is, to have clean things next to one's skin.
Such gratitude was prized by my father. It offset the awful nature of the filthy punishment he'd been given. So when his punishment ended (noting he didn't seem to grumble about it or object to it as many others were known to do), he was asked if he wouldn't continue, to which he agreed.
To make a long story short, he became increasingly respected, and as they moved to more official camp surroundings, he was willingly assigned to the infirmary and did many of the nursing chores that were required--think wound scaping. His work became prized by the few POW doctors he met and worked with. He got exemption from having to do the heavy mining work assigned to most, where he was eventually placed (45 km across the bay from a city called Nagasaki), Omuta.
To make a long story short, while those "of the vintage" as those with whom he had shared his first evacuation from Java were mostly gone and buried, he was a survivor. Where other POWs daily expended 600+ calories more than they took in, he only expended 200 more calories than he took in (ok, I've forgotten whatever actual caloric numbers he told me. These numbers are just my place-holders, but the gist is correct.)
After that really big Nagasaki "ammo dump" got hit that day, many of the guards fled to the countryside to look after their families, leaving the camp poorly attended, guard-wise. The prisoners at Camp Fukuoka #17 decided (no, viscerally reacted) that the remaining guards' time had come to depart the Earth in thanks for their wonderful POW treatment. No guns, just bare hands, limb from limb, flesh and sinew from bone.
The inmates would quickly overrun the camp and make it their fortress against retribution that never came. They sent out patrols to get more supplies and weapons, if possible. They at some point were showered with Allied leaflets instructing what to do. They were eventually evacuated through ships at Nagasaki's harbor to Manilla where he spent a supremely grateful "Thanksgiving" a tradition previously almost unknown to him, but one which would become an indelibly positive representation of that which would only a decade later become his children's native land.
On January 1, 1946 he appeared at his parents' home in Bandung, Java. Weighing the proverbial 20 kilos (88 lbs.) even after three months of American fatted calves, his parents didn't even recognize him--that is, until the weeping began.
This is an fascinating account. I really appreciate you posting the details of his story.
Thanks both.
This is one of the reasons I tune in to FR.
How different history class would be if every week another hero would be honored from the time being studied. Can’t though because too many would be offended by the evil of some.
That’s why I love the Bible. Always keeping myself aware of the traps the Father of Lies has set, is setting and will set, for mankind is important. Plus I learn how to follow in God’s footprints, evading those mines, knowing He will keep me safe.
Thanks for adding the direct link
Thank you!
not all links on site are active but that’s ok.
You could write books. Amazing story.
Thanks! I’ve got one published.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.