WHITE Strachan McLaren VX48632 HQ Coy A Force

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Friday 8 June 1945, page 3

PRISONERS-LUCKY FEW-SAVED BY AMERICAN TORPEDOES

Special to "The Mercury” - Article 6

CONCLUDING the story of his experiences in 31 months of captivity in Japanese hands, Pte S. McL. White, of the 2/29th Battalion, 8th Division, AIF, describes the fateful voyage in convoy from Singapore which was to bring death to many and liberty to a lucky few when the prison ships were torpedoed by American sub-marines.

THE beginning of 1944 saw us working in Thailand. In February; some of us were picked for transfer to Japan.

In March we were moved to Singapore. In the big River Vale Road camp there were already many British troops and, 750 Aus-tralians in one compound and In-dian troops in other compounds. Other Australians were marched in, after a few weeks, to join our party for Japan.

Our doctors were allowed once a month to take our seriously ill patients to the main prisoner of war hospital at Changi.

The greater part of the 8th Division, with some civilians, were in the Changi area.

I believe these prisoners were building a fighter airfield. Many of them previously had been on the Burma-Thailand railway, and a few had been in Borneo and elsewhere in the Pacific.

Our work was now mainly on the Singapore docks. On Sept. 2, 1944, we were told we would be leaving for Japan in two days.

We knew that we would never reach Japan. We had found out how well the American sub-marine blockade was working.

* * * *

WE boarded the Rakuio Maru. There were 1,300 of us-700 Australians and 600 English.

We were all supposed to flt into one hold, which had been sub-divided with a false floor. Under a four-foot ceiling, men were crowded in too closely to lie down. The heat was terrific.

Eventually the Japanese had to allow several hundreds of us to live on deck.

Our ship pulled out on Sept. 6. On Sept. 11 it was joined by other vessels from Manila, making a convoy of nine transports and five escort vessels.

We knew that the Americans had spotted us. They got a destroyer in the moonlight before dawn on Sept. 12. She just vanished in an explosion and a flame of light.

At 5.25 am, the submarine at-tack was on again. Two oil tan-kers blew up and left blazing oil for miles. Then a ship with Jap-anese wounded and nurses, as well as 900 British troops, was hit by two torpedoes and went straight down.

That ship carried no Red Cross markings to identify her:

Then it was our turn.

The first torpedo tore through the bows, just missing the pris-oners' hold. A second hit square below the engine room, and its explosion knocked me off my feet on the deck. The ship at once settled until the deck was only six feet above the water.

Our Japanese crew had taken to the lifeboats before the ship was hit.

The Australians did not panic. We threw over wooden rafts and hatch covers. Then, at a signal, everyone jumped.

I climbed on to a raft with an- other man from my company. We said: "We'll paddle her home."

After daylight we saw the main cluster of drifting rafts sweeping away from us on a current, while Japanese in lifeboats were picking up their own people from the water. One lifeboat came near us, and I asked if we could come aboard. The Japanese officer re-plied that a ship would pick , us up later. * * * *

THAT night we tied ourselves to our raft, which was several inches under water. We went through an oil smear, which coated us from head to foot.

Three Englishmen on another raft drifted toward us and we lashed the two rafts together. On the third morning there was nothing in sight except a few oil drums and an occasional shark.

Then a school of fish began to follow us. They came right up and bit our toes in the water. That gave us an idea.

Using our toes as bait, we lured them to the surface, above the raft. We were able to catch two this way. We gave one to the Englishmen. The other Australian, Jim Lansdowne, and I ate the other. We could not finish it because it was so salty that it made us thirsty.

Late that morning we saw a submarine surface on the horizon. For hours we watched her as

she moved slowly, picking up survivors. About 4.30 pm she head-ed toward us. We shouted and waved and the sub crew waved back.

Jim shook hands with me and said "Relax."

It was Sept. 15-just two years and seven months from our capture at Singapore.

That submarine picked up 73 survivors. No words of ours can express our gratitude for what the American sailors did for us on our voyage to Saipan, or for the kindness of the American medical staff at Saipan.

Burial of Lt T. C. Derrick VC, DCM, on Tarakan. Padre A. W. Bryson closes the grave of one of Australia's most gallant soldiers. Lt Derrick was killed by a burst from a Japanese machine-gun.

PRISONERS—LUCKY FEW—SAVED BY AMERICAN TORPEDOES (1945, June 8). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved June 19, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26065316

WILEMAN Ernest James VX43111 D Coy Sing

Cpl Ernest James Wileman

VX 43111

D Company

Joined 29.11.1940

Killed in Action 11.2.1942 in the battle for Singapore or died as a POW on Singapore Island.

Buried Kranji Cemetery Singapore

WILSON, William Gordon VX63826 C Coy [Ch]

Report on Gordon Wilson Diary:

By Dianne Cowling

Gordon served in the WW1 but when urgent calls went out for volunteers to serve in WW11 in the Far East against the Japanese invasion, Gordon again joined up.

Gordon trained with the AIF at Darley Camp in NSW and was finally shipped out on the Aquitania, from Sydney on 10th January 1942 for Malay. Unbeknown to one and all, this was just over one month before the allies were to surrender to the enemy on the 15th February 1942.

Their ship travelled down from Sydney around the Victoria coast, across the Great Australia Bight and on to Perth WA. The trip through waters during this time of the war was harrowing and exciting and Gordon describes the allied ships that shepherded them safely through dangerous waters to stop for a short stay in Sunda Bay where the Captain was told to return to Australia. The fateful decision to not return would see these late arrivals taken POW shortly after their arrival in Singapore.

The Aquitania continued in convoy throughout January 1942, to finally arrive at the destination, Singapore, 24th January 1942. The men were to be immediately sent to Malay, Johore where they were to have joined the 2/29th as reinforcements but were still on Singapore Island until the end of January. Gordon describes the conditions at the time and it is ‘an eye opener into the frustration and helplessness the men were feeling at the time.

Gordon describes in great detail of the conditions and what they had to face each day until finally the fateful day of surrender arrives and they are all POW’s of the Emperor of Japan for 1276 days and so begins a time of depravation and bravery in the face of man’s inhumanity to man. Gordon’s diary is a vivid day by day account of what he and his mates went through, first on Singapore Island and then as part of F Force on the Thai Burma Railway. How they came across their other mates in H Force and the conditions, weather, food and treatment of these brave men, those who survived and their mates who didn’t. Kindness in the face of unimaginable horror, sacrifice for one’s mates in the hope that this will make a difference if only they can survive another day. Even during this time, Anzac day, the anniversary of the Battle of Muar (17th January) Melbourne Cup day, Christmas Easter, individual birthdays and even family members back home are still celebrated and not forgotten. As 1945 dawns they wonder if this is the year and start again to look forward to when their torment will finally end. Gordon counts the time off in weeks and as the weeks 156 – 159 show a marked air movement by allied planes hope builds. Their hope of Liberation is never far from their thoughts as they continue to encourage and help other survive and look for every positive sign from day to day that soon this will all be over. 11th June 1945 Gordon is allowed to send a wireless message home and his thoughts are for his family and easing their worry as he sends not complaints but instead says ‘ I am quite well don’t worry, love to children dad and & mum, no mail since Feb 44, remember me to relatives, longing for early reunion, Gordon.” And he thinks “Do hope they get it ok”.

Despite poor reports by British Officers of the performance of the 8th Division these men know it was “a lie! A B-----a----lie”“The Eighth Div fought fantastically and bravely. Thirty days and thirty nights, never more than 15 minutes rest. Almost never a British or allied plane; Only Jap planes, as if the heavens’ belonged to them. ”Gordon wrote his diary at the time so it is a day to day account with all the stark details only a first-hand account can deliver. Heartbreaking and yet it makes one proud to see how these brave Australian soldiers never lost their humanity or hope.              Not for the faint hearted

WEST Albert Benjamin TX5828 A Coy [F Force Ponds Party]

Article written by Dr Tim Flanagan from Tasmania and published in 'Barbed Wire & Bamboo' Feb 2016.

‘F’ FORCE SURVIVOR – STILL AT HOME

Albert Benjamin ‘Ben’ WEST TX 5828

Ben West, ex2/29, an F-force survivor and still at home.

At the 2015 annual reunion of the 2/29th Battalion, held in Melbourne, there was only one former POW present- Ben West. He was though surrounded by the next three generations of his own family, all testimony to the remarkable life he has lived, and person he is.

I visited Ben at his home, still on the Soldier Settler block his father was granted after returning wounded from World War One. Ben came to live there as a 5 year old. The farm is on north-west Tasmania’s Table Cape, just outside the town of Wynyard. The cape is now famous for the tulips grown on it, and their colours which with the rich brown soil, sea and a lighthouse perched on a high cliff makes for a photographer’s paradise. On this farm Ben and his wife who died earlier in the year, raised their 7 children, one of whom now works the farm, 3 others live nearby.

In all likelihood walking up and down the steep paddocks as a lad helped attune Ben for what was to lie ahead.

Ben is the only bloke left, from a group of about 80 Tasmanians who enlisted in September 1941. After initial training at Brighton camp near Hobart they went to Victoria. In January 1942, about midway through the Malaya-Singapore campaign, they were amongst 3500 personnel who sailed from Sydney on the Aquitania. The Tasmanians were part of a draft of about 500 reinforcements who were sent to Johor in southern Malaya to reinforce the 2/29th Battalion shortly after ‘it was cut about badly at (the battle of) Muar River’ on 20 January 1942. Then the retreat back to Singapore- all on foot.

Ben sees life’s various turns as lucky- in Singapore only two days after the surrender he was put in the first work party to go to the city, and did not return to Changi until ten months later. As a result he told me he missed out on being put in A-Force which went to Burma, or B-Force which went to Borneo and as he says ’And only six of them survived’; or the Selerang Barrack affair.

His luck deserted him when he was drafted to F-Force, 7,000 men slightly more than Australian and British POWs. F-Force was ‘loaned’ by the Japanese command in Singapore, to the Japanese command in Thailand, which was an added complication, and added to the groups’ deprivations. They left Singapore by rail in  ‘….. April 1943, in F Force, Pond’s Party, 700 of us, we never had a permanent camp, just carried our gear, you’d walk and work – finished up at Nieke, up near the border with Burma’ (which is 302 km from Bampong where they had got off the train that bought them up from Singapore). The group carried their chunkels and qualies, and few worldly possessions on themselves; and eight men to a stretcher but soon only four left capable of doing that; and on top of this still expected to work by day.

Ben quietly tells me of his experiences, and I am mesmerised as I listen to this humble old man.  ‘ The Japs set us up in companies, in alphabetical order; Hec Watson, Jimmy Welsh. It was all night time travel, about 20 km a night. I remember when we pulled into Tarsau, only a little bloke, got him up …he told me to stop and have  a break, I said “If I put you down cock,  I’ll never be able to pick you up again”…put him and his pack up on my back and pack, sort of like a fireman’s lift’.

Did you ever see him again? ‘No, I don’t think he made it, half of them (F-Force) never returned’.’

After the Thai-Railway was completed, Ben started the long walk back down the Line, but inevitably ill health came and he travelled part of the way on a barge.

Ben though does not see life in terms of misery and suffering. He was a tough footballer, who knew how to take a blow; and a realist so when a Japanese guard abused them for being too slow going down a greasy slope, and showed them how but slipped and landed on his backside the group of Australians all laughed, which I commented on was a brave thing to do ‘Not really, they couldn’t shoot us all, they had to have someone to do the work’.

Ben was in Thailand for 12 months. Upon his return to Singapore he spent much of his time working on Changi airport. On the 15 August 1945 when the Japanese surrendered he was in the River Valley Camp, working on Tagglin Hill digging foxholes for the Japanese. Coincidentally, this was the same place where he had been at the time of the British surrender on 15 February 1942, at that time he had been with other Australians guarding a crossroad.

The Japanese initially made no announcement of the surrender, it was a growing presumption, badly interrupted a few day later when a British plane flew over, and the Japanese opened fire with their Ack Ack guns. The surrender became real, when a 6 feet 3 inches tall British lieutenant who had parachuted onto the island, commandeered a car and came to their camp. It was to be a little longer before they saw the next ally, but it was none other than Lord Louis Mountbatten himself with his wife and entourage, but the delay had caused the Australians to begin to refer to the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia as ‘Linger, Louis longer’

Ben returned to Australia on the Esperance Bay, via Darwin where they were issued with new uniforms, then to Sydney. As he says, by this stage he had completed a circumnavigation of Australia!

Then a train to Melbourne, and boat to Burnie. The Wynyard RSL had a bus for the 4 or 5 other POWs from his town returning home. Later in the day when Ben and I went for a drive in Wynyard, he showed me where the bunting was up in the street, and the townspeople had gathered to greet the survivors home.

Returning home was to have its own sadness, as he was to find out that his oldest brother Jack -Bertram John West TX3397, a member of the 2/40th Battalion, who was captured on Timor in March 1942; after escaping and going bush, was betrayed, recaptured, tortured then executed by the Japanese there in October of that year.

WARD Lindsey Francis VX36843 D Coy Sing

No. VX 36843 PRIVATE LINDSEY FRANCIS WARD

I was never fortunate enough to meet my Uncle Lindsey. He was killed in action on Singapore Island on 11 th February 1942.

My only connection with him are his Service medals, photographs and the numerous letters he wrote to his parents from Malaya.

No. VX 36843 Private Lindsey Francis Ward enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 9 th July 1940 at Royal Park. He grew up on an orchard in Stanhope, Northern Victoria, the son of a 14 th Battalion AIF veteran and first President of the Stanhope RSL.

Known as “Tinny” because of his lucky streak, he became known around town as a bit of a larrikin, finding trouble wherever he could find it. He was 20 years old when he enlisted, being allocated to the 2/29 th Battalion, D Company. Within twelve months he was on the Transport Ship “EE” HMT Marnix heading for Malaya.

It wasn’t long before he was up on a charge receiving 21 days detention. The charge being “Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that he was taking part in a fight in a public place”

After his release he was sent north along the Malay Peninsula to the village of Segamat where he joined the rest of his mates. Throughout his time overseas he wrote constantly to his parents describing all the new sights he was witnessing, the exotic animals he had not seen before, the farming techniques and how a Rubber Plantation operated, the bargaining with the local traders trying to sell him fake watches and the humidity which he hadn’t experienced before. Lindsey always signed off with at least half a dozen kisses to his Mum and Dad.

He of course, like many of his mates, contracted dengue fever and was hospitalised for some days which “knocked him around. “In his letter dated 20 th October 1941 he wrote “According to the papers here now we look like being stuck into the Japs any tick of the clock. It won’t come quick enough for me though. I’m dying to see a bit of action.”

His parents sent him a mouth organ he requested and it arrived in late October. This was one of the few personal possessions passed on to me which I treasured. In amongst the letters from him are three Xmas cards with the 2/29 th colours. One to his parents and the others to his two sisters.

His sisters enlisted, one serving in the Royal Australian Airforce and my Mother as a Gunner on Bofors guns. By February 1942 the Battalion was well and truly back on Singapore Island.

Lindsey’s last letter was written on 4 th February “I have been to the front as I presume you have guessed and came out safe and sound. We were up there for about eleven days and was not sorry to get out for a bit of a spell believe me. ………… no one could image what it is like until they see it. We were under rifle fire, mortars, artillery but compared with dive bombing and machine gunning from the air it was a mere trifle.”

On the 11 th February 1942 “Tinny” and his close mate “Ossie” were sent out with a Bren gun. “We moved forward against the enemy at Bukit Timah with Captain Bowring M.I.D in command and he placed the Bren gun which the inseparable Tinny and Ossie worked out on a flank to cover the advance and a sniper got onto them and silenced the gun.” Lieut Bill Smith. They were both shot where they lay next to the gun. (refer to page 90. A History of the 2/29 Battalion. 8 th Australian Division AIF). Lindsey and Ossie were buried in Kranji War Cemetery and ironically an Officer Lieutenant Oldfield, 2/26 th, buried between them. I wonder what they would have thought of that?

Lieutenant Bill Smith wrote a touching letter to Lindsey’s parents on the 24 th November 1945 writing that “we found ourselves cut off and although the rest of the company retired I didn’t receive the order and was left behind with a few men. I might still have been there if Tinny and his mate Ossie Francis had not stayed behind to warn us what was going on and so we were able to get through the Jap lines and rejoin the unit on the next day. So there are fourteen men who owe their lives to the risk that Tinny was willing to take- you can imagine how deeply I regret his loss.”

It appears that Lindsey parents were not informed of his death until November 1944 however they would have been aware that he was missing in action. The anguish and sadness expressed by the residents of Stanhope is revealed through the many letters and cards of condolence to Maude and George Ward. Lindsey’s name is etched into the Stanhope War memorial and can be seen on the Wall of Remembrance at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.  

My daughter’s middle name is Lindsey in honour of him and his great great nephew, her son, marched on Anzac Day 2023 proudly wearing his medals.  

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN

LEST WE FORGET

Contributed by his niece Kate Kirton