“UNKNOWN TO THE EMPEROR” – FOUR YEARS IN HELL

 

Many years ago, I read “The Naked Island” by the Australian writer, Russell Braddon. It was first published in 1953, and told of Braddon’s experience as a prisoner of war of the Japanese military in WW2. Captured after the fall of Singapore in 1942, Braddon, together with thousands of British, Australian and Empire troops, was sent to labour on what some call the “Siam-Burma Railway”, designed to supply the Japanese troops fighting in Burma. For Braddon and his comrades, it became better known as the “Death Railway”, along which thousands of POWs and conscripted civilians suffered and died at the hands of their captors. The atrocities described I found unforgettable.

Years later, I have read “Unknown to the Emperor”, by J. R. Hill (“Jim”) , published in 1998. Like Braddon, Jim was taken prisoner in Singapore when it capitulated. He too, was sent to labour and suffer on the Death Railway. Unlike Braddon, Jim was later sent to Japan, where he was liberated after the Japanese surrender. Again, like Braddon, the atrocities, and other experiences described, are unforgettable and chilling to read about. Both books, however, are tributes to the human spirit facing adversity; both are searing indictments of their Japanese captors.

A Territorial Army soldier from Scotland, 18 years of age, Jim was shipped out to Singapore in 1941. When Japan invaded the Malay Peninsula, he witnessed, as a participant, the ignominious defeat of British forces. Jim, rightly, explains:

“We were not…trained for jungle warfare and this was realised by men of all ranks”.

In fairness to the much-derided military commanders at Singapore, they were under-resourced. Nevertheless, surrender began the captivity of Jim and many others.

Japanese brutality to POWs in WW2 is well known, but Jim’s accounts of his suffering and that of his comrades at the hands of their guards still have the power to shock. Beatings and torture were a daily routine. Jim quotes Dostoevsky who said, “…”suffering purifies everything” and without doubt we were purer than the pure”.

Jim provides an abundance of examples of Japanese viciousness, which lasted from the moment of his capture, to (almost) liberation. One example will suffice:

“…the Japanese would get prisoners to form a line and proceed to beat each man. God help the man who ducked or fell”.

Besides facing beatings himself, Jim endured repeated bouts of dysentery and malaria at frequent intervals during his captivity. He also, unsurprisingly, experienced the loss of comrades. One touching instance happened after he learned of the death of a friend. Bob Rogers, in another camp:

“I made my way to the edge of the camp and stood looking towards…I thanked Bob for his friendship and asked his forgiveness if I did not dwell on his death. You can only carry so much grief if you want to live…” Luckily for himself, Jim had good personal survival skills. He provides many examples of men who did not. He says: “Some men found great difficulty in shaking off depression…However…morale was higher than there was reason to expect. Every group or company of men had a priceless idiot who somehow found it within himself to raise a smile or laugh in others”.

For some indeterminate reason, Jim and many other POWs were shipped to Japan. Jim sailed on the 18th August, 1944, on an overcrowded ship which ran aground off the coast of Taiwan. Jim was rescued by a Japanese lifeboat, for which he received a gratuitous blow from his rescuer. Many POWs did not survive these voyages.

Japan brought more of the same suffering as that experienced on the Death Railway – but this time with some hope, brought about by US air raids, as the Allies drew closer, liberating occupied islands and nearing the Japanese mainland. Japanese guards grew a little less brutal in the summer of 1945. Jim says here:

“Little did we realise that not so very far away atomic bombs had been dropped on the 6th August…On 12th August all the existing guards were replaced by new faces”.

Understandably, freedom led to the newly released POWs taking some revenge on their captors. Jim himself chased after a civilian who had previously given him a beating. On September 5th, as the POWs awaited a train to freedom, a brutal civilian guard was spotted among a crowd of spectators. Jim says:“A big American broke ranks, clenched his fist and felled the Japanese with one blow.”Despite the understandable bursts of anger shown by Jim and his American fellow-POW, Jim, to his credit, was capable of pity for the suffering of Japanese victims of Allied air raids. Jim again:“Like us, they were victims of the futility and stupidity of war…No great wave of joy flooded my heart, nor did hatred. In some ways we were compatible…”.

Jim arrived home, via Canada, where he met up with relatives, on November 25th, 1945, five years after he sailed for Singapore. Almost 25, he returned from what he described as an abnormal life to a normal existence and, like many other returning POWs of many wars, found it difficult. Happily, Jim married and raised a family of three children. One of his sons, Ian, sent me a copy of his father’s book, elaborating on Jim’s view on the atomic bombings and the Japanese people in general. Ian says:

“…my father and those with him were about to be machine-gunned to death and thrown into trenches they had dug themselves. Their lives were saved by saved by the nuclear bomb, as were the lives of their unborn children”.

This raises a very valid, if not always popular point that I shall explore further one day. Ian continues: “”…I have been to Japan and visited Osaka where my father was held. The people are lovely. I hold no ill feeling for what was done to my father and neither did he”. But the concluding comment belongs to Jim: “Until one has experienced the bad things in life it is difficult, if not impossible, to appreciate the good. Every day is a bonus.”

16, 000 prisoners of war died building the Siam-Burma Railway. (Source: National Museum of Australia).

Numbers of deaths among Southeast Asian civilians pressed into service vary, the lowest being 90, 000. Wikipedia says: " The total number of rōmusha (SE Asian slave workers) working on the railway may have reached 300,000 and according to some estimates, the death rate among them was as high as 50 percent."

In the Year 2000, the Japanese government agreed to pay compensation to British POWs - most of whom had already died. SE Asian survivors (romusha) of the Death Railway received nothing.