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Recent Letters & Cards
From COFEPOW Member Maureen Brimble
Dear
Carol
I have been a member of COFEPOW for some time. I admire all you have done in your Norwich area.
It might be interesting to see the unlikely situation that my son married a Thai lady he met at Sussex University. We come every year and the person in charge of Chungkai knows me. The flowers on this occasion were given at the opening of my son's Mekong Handicrafts Gallery in Bangkok.
Yours sincerely
Maureen Grimble
(Maureen's daughter-in-law and grandson at the grave of Maureen's father in Chungkai.)
From Ken Porter
Auckland, New Zealand
Ex POW Beds and Herts Regiment, 'C' Company
The Aftermath
On our return we had mixed feelings - guilty or not guilty! The Capitulation still bugged us - should we have continued fighting on until we were annihilated? Some people appeared to look on us as guilty, in actual fact they probably didn't but nevertheless we got that idea. We were angry inside - angry at the powers that be who had caused us to miss some of the best years of our lives - the early twenties mostly - and we were uncertain that we could catch up. In most eyes we were objects of pity, especially marked out with our scarred, scarecrow-like bodies and sallow complexions. Relatively we were weak and pathetic in the eyes of the beholders but yet by our very survival we had proved to be amongst the toughest men in the forces. We arrived home almost unnoticed as England was pre-occupied with the problem of peace.
Personally, I was extremely lucky. I returned to a loving family who very wisely left me to my own devices to adjust to a stable environment. Many others returned to a sad story of wives who had 'shot through' or parents who had been killed in German air raids. All I wanted was to be left alone - do my own thing - and this my family respected and seemed to understand. I took off with saw and axe and went down to a copse of silver birch and commenced thinning them out - as I toppled a tree I gave it the name of a Japanese or Korean guard and this made me feel better! Then when I wanted a change I went out with gun and dog after rabbit and wood pigeon. My demob leave was spent in this fashion. I think it all helped with my rehabilitation. At this point in time I never spoke of my experience - only much later in life, when I was retired and living in New Zealand, then only to other ex F.E.P.O.W.s or at least ex-servicemen, and there were very few ex F.E.P.O.W.s in my area, but with these I kept contact. With these I could relate but others seemed to have their own interests and did not include us in their conversations - we did not fit in and we were lost. We even found it difficult to talk to our own family and close friends - there was a veil of incomprehension - maybe they had been told not to quiz us too much as we may be unstable. It appeared as if we were an intrusion into the smooth running of lives of others. Meeting them was difficult, they did not speak the same language as us! Our mates were the only ones we felt comfortable with.
After all we had been living in close proximity of our mates for 3 ½ years. Sharing everything, even our thoughts, so we had become very close - closer than a man and wife, or a man and his mother. This affected our lives. We carried our mates to the 'benjo pits' when they were laid low with dysentery and they in turn fed us when we were crook with malaria and thus we survived. The only time you will see an ex F.E.P.O.W. really flowing with words, talking non-stop, is with another of that ilk, usually at a reunion, where he can relate to his peers and there is that bond of friendship of unique people. It is hard to explain to anyone else.
Nightmares - we all used to get them, for me they have almost died out. My last, a year or two ago. I was in Queen Street in Auckland City when I saw a group of armed Japanese approaching and I had to evade them by hiding in a shop doorway, hoping with all my heart they would not catch me! Of course we hated them, I confess I still do. I don't talk to them, just ignore them, although most we see these days weren't even born when the war was on.
So much for the mental side of life - now for the medical. After surviving malaria, dysentery, beriberi, and a host of other lethal tropical diseases, with scant medicines or treatment, I think most of us preferred to downplay our disabilities and get on with life best we could without the ministrations of the M.O. or the hospital. We had done without the normal care of the sick and now we fought shy of it when it was being pressed on us. Nowadays most of us suffer from heart problems, arthritis, poor eyesight, skin diseases etc., probably more than our peers who were not F.E.P.O.W.s, but it is seldom that you will hear one of us complain about his health. I don't think whinging comes into the F.E.P.O.W.s make-up.
I still appreciate the simple ordinary things of life - like being able to walk to a greengrocer's shop and buy an apple or pear, or even a mango or pineapple, when I want to. I love buying a bar of chocolate or a pack of beer, though I have to stop myself buying two of each because deep inside we still have that 'squirreling factor'. I suppose trying to make up for those years of nothing.
There is still a great bond of friendship between all of us. If you know that an ex F.E.P.O.W. is sick, even if you don't personally know him, you ring him up and ask him if you can be of any assistance. The very fact that he is an ex F.E.P.O.W. is enough. I take my hat off to the wives who have had to endure all our quirks and idiosyncrasies, no wonder many marriages broke down. We are hard to live with. I cannot bear to see any food wasted - if I see someone throw half a loaf of stale bread into their garbage bin I have to stop myself from digging it out! I did not get married until I was 49 years of age but we have two lovely children - but had I married on my return from the war I know it would not have lasted.
I have compiled these thoughts after prolonged correspondence with some dozen or so mates, in England and New Zealand over the last fifty years. Some have now passed on, but to the others I give my heartfelt thanks and may you have good health and all the very best of life.
Letter from Risca Friends of the Heart
"Please find enclosed a cheque for £50 towards the project to build a centre at the National Memorial Arboretum.
Risca Friends of the Heart are a group of people with heart disease who meet weekly to prevent further heart attacks. Last week, we had an excursion on the Severn Valley Railway and held a raffle, which raised £50. We felt it appropriate to donate this small sum to your project, which will serve as a reminder of all those POWs who worked and died on building railways in the Far East.
We wish you every success with your project".
COFEPOW think these people have really big hearts and it is wonderful to have this kind of support.
Photograph submitted by COFEPOW member Delma Matkin, whose father, Sgt. Edwin Harold RASC 18th Division, is in centre in forage cap with arms folded.
The photograph was taken in Malaya on capture.
Letter received from COFEPOW member Teresa Stephens
1808986 Gnr J. Stephens RA
Joey
was my big brother. When I was born in 1932, the youngest of ten children,
he was already ten years old but that didn't stop us being pals and he
always tried to look out for me. For instance, one day our dad was having
one of his spells in the Military Hospital, mum took me out and I got
lost, it was Joey who borrowed a bike and searched around until he found
me.
When he first left school there was a recession and Joey could not find a job so he spent his time at what was then called the Dole School. We had a lot of wooden egg racks in those days! Eventually he found work in a grocery shop. It was a long way from our home in the Liverpool suburbs but he didn't give up until he found a similar job nearer home.
At this point in the story I should mention our dad, also Joseph, who served throughout WW1 in the horse artillery in the Dardanelles and France. He was discharged when the war ended and granted an invalidity pension which was only just enough to keep us going so we were not at all well-off but he was a first rate manager and as our mother was in poor health he looked after us all. By the time Joey was sixteen our dad's health was deteriorating badly, he died at the end of 1938 aged 43.
At this time the family began to break up, the single girls went to work in a hospital, our older brother James was a regular soldier serving in India and the other girls were married. In 1939 after war was declared we moved back to Everton and Joey got another job in a grocers.
Jamesie, as he was called in the family, was ordered home and spent the rest of his service as an instructor, in the use of the Bren gun. Soon the Christmas blitz was upon us, Mum's health worsened, there were shortages and long nights in freezing communal shelters. Joey spent the greater part of those nights running from one shelter to the next playing his whole repertoire of popular songs on his piano accordion. I particularly remember one raid free evening, Joey had won a hundredweight of coal in a raffle and we sat in front of a roaring fire feeling great. He told me how coal was formed from ancient buried forests. So there were some good times, girlfriends and dancing at the local ballroom and the occasional party.
Joey badly wanted to join the army. As soon as he was old enough he volunteered but was rejected on health grounds because he had a weak chest. Later he tried again and was accepted. On the 17th of January 1941 he took me up to North Wales where it had been arranged that I would stay for the duration of the war. There had been a light snowfall, it was very cold, he was wearing a thin brown pinstripe suit, and Joey didn't possess an overcoat. He got on the bus. I never saw him again.
He was sent to Sandakan North Borneo where he died on the April 5th 1945. The official Japanese records stated that he died of beriberi? In 1981 I visited Sandakan and also made my way to the offshore island of Labuan where Joe and his comrades were eventually re-interred in a beautiful War Graves Cemetery. It was a very moving experience and reminded me of the following lines by A E Houseman: -
"Here dead we lie because we did not choose to live and shame
the land from which we sprung.
Life to be sure is not so much to lose, but young men think it is, and
we were young."
Teresa Stephens
From: A. Hokkeling
Hoogland, Netherlands, 6th of July 2003
.
With great respect and rejoice I discovered your beautiful site to commemorate
all those British that suffered in the Far East during the bitterness
of slavery under Dai Nippon.
I myself lost both parents and a sister during the Japanese occupation of the former Dutch East Indies and had to struggle and fight in the days between 15 August 1945 and 24 December 1945, as a boy of fifteen years of age, together with our British liberators, to prevent extermination of those who survived the degrading concentration camps of the Japanese by frantic Indonesian youngsters during the so called Bersiap, the stuggle for liberty of the Indonesians.
On the 24th of December 1945 the British troops managed to get us aboard of 'HMS Colossus', that brought us safely to Colombo, where we disembarked and were lodged in army baracks in the mountains around Kandy, the capital of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. Being almost at the end of my life, full of agony due to the experienced beastliness in the Japanese camps, I found the opportunity at last to thank all those British servicemen who exerted their full strength in helping POW's to escape from death.
Many of those heroes are not alive anymore, but their spirit remains. Many thanks to the British Army and the British Navy! On Christmas eve in 1945 the crew of 'HMS Colossus' acted as real healers when they dedicated themselves to procure a day's long entertainment that let children forget temporarily their sufferings.
Again -being late, but better late than never- Royal British Navy- many
thanks for that! Thanks for all.
That those who passed away already may rest in peace until angels shall
awake them.
Albert Hokkeling
Ex POW Ambarawa camps on Java.
Letter from COFEPOW member Martin Prechner
My father was a POW in Java and Singapore and of course he was traumatised on his return like all the others. As a kid, I remember the nightmares when he would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. I would lie awake in the next bedroom feeling very scared because I didn't understand why this was happening to my Dad.
He was a very quiet and reserved man and never talked about his experiences except when he was with fellow POWs. Only once, just before he passed away in 1981, did he ever speak to me about he went through.
If it hadn't been for my mother I don't think he would have survived as long as he did. After the war, some returning FEPOWs were encouraged to correspond with women from abroad. My mother, who came from a Russian Jewish émigré family, lived in New York. They wrote to each other for two years before deciding to take the plunge. She came to London in 1948 to marry him and I arrived the following year. Without her energy, patience and boundless enthusiasm I am sure that he would never have been able to lead the relatively normal life that he did.
The only time I ever saw him lose his temper was when I was nine or ten
and we were driving along the Westway in London on our way down to Devon
for a family holiday. Suddenly a large black limousine drew up alongside
flying a small Japanese flag, it must have been the ambassador or some
other high-ranking embassy official. My Dad, normally such a calm and
mild-mannered individual, suddenly went beserk, f..ing and blinding at
the Japs while trying to drive their car off the road. My mother managed
to calm him down but we kids were scared stiff.
I regret that I only ever went to one FEPOW reunion with him. It was
the big annual gathering at the Royal Festival Hall and he was so proud
to introduce me to all his comrades. He was never very much at ease in
a crowd of people, but amongst his fellow FEPOWs he was a different man,
relaxed and joking, the life and soul of the party. They were a wonderful
bunch of characters, full of humour and spirit despite the terrible ordeal
they had all been through. I also had the privilege of meeting the legendary
Wing-Commander Gregson who had been their CO in some of the camps in Java
and had come over specially from Australia for the reunion. An outstanding
and very courageous leader who stood up to the Japs in defence of his
men, they idolised him and I shall never forget the sense of comradeship
that bound those men together. It was born out of unspeakable barbarity
and shared suffering and was
something only they could fully understand.
My deepest regret is not to have taken enough interest in the FEPOW story while my Dad was still alive. I have kept in touch over the years with some of his best mates but sadly there are very few of them left. In a few more years that collective experience will have disappeared, but hopefully the work of COFEPOW will keep the memory alive for future generations.
With best regards
Martin Prechner
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