The most outstanding personality in Pudu Goal was a rosy cheeked little man, who at the battle of Batu Pahat had stayed behind with the wounded who could not be evacuated. He remained and stood fast, and when the Japanese swept down the road and would have slaughtered the wounded, this little man flayed them with such a virulent tongue that they were sufficiently disconcerted to restrain themselves from setting about the injured men. In fact the torrid flow of colourful language that he habitually let forth over the Japanese guards often seemed to leave them baffled and it was obvious they did not understand the words of abuse he hurled at them. This vibrant little man may have been small in stature but surprisingly he had a forceful commanding voice.

Underneath this strong, powerful character was another side to this courageous and religious man of God. He was wonderfully charismatic, a fascinating individual with a huge personality, a courage that was immeasurable, a faith that was eternal and a kindness that was unforgettable - his name was Padre Noel Duckworth But in their fury at not understanding him or their hatred of his courage, the Japanese guards would cruelly beat the Padre for days, because they did not like being verbally flayed, even if they did not understand his words and the language he spoke, but it was sufficient for him that they did not kill the wounded men he had stayed behind to protect. In the end they allowed this brave man who stood up to them, to look after the sick and wounded men and with a handful of RAMC orderlies food was collected so they could to try and nourish the helpless men. The Padre with his ever rosy cheeks, cheerful grin and a mop of hair that resembled that of a small boy, eventually brought all his orderlies and his wounded to the comparative security of Pudu Gaol.

Padre Noel Duckworth is the name which thousands of men were to always remember. He was appointed as Chaplain to the 2nd Battalion, Cambridgeshire Regiment at the outbreak of war and was sent out to Malaya in 1941. He was fearlessly outspoken, but his very nature was that of a very kind man. To men who were very ill, starving and dying, his mixture of courage and comfort, defiance and deliverance, humour and understanding all made up the necessary essence and spirit which the men needed and clung to when at their lowest ebb.

He founded the Pudu gaol’s black market with the Japanese, selling them anything from gold fillings to fountain pens.The Padre’s black market, though it might not in theory have secured the blessing of the Archbishops of the Anglican Church, was nevertheless conducted with a considerable flourish.

After Singapore capitulated, Padre Duckworth was moved with the other Pudu prisoners to Singapore and Changi, where he continued sweet talking the Japanese into parting with their money. The Japanese were easy targets when it came to westernised trinkets. The Padre perfected the art of selling broken, worthless pens, watches, lighters etc to the Japanese guards and the money received went straight to local traders for food for the prisoners. The Japanese guards would fall for his soft honeyed tones while they eagerly bought their bargains, smiling at his kindness, but in reality his words, although sweet sounding, were calling them all kinds of unflattering names. During his time in Changi, he became an inspiration to all who knew him.

Later, in April 1943, he was sent with the “F” Force up into Thailand and Burma bringing comfort to the prisoners with his sermons and lectures. He was in the camp of Tambaya, about 40 miles into Burma when the rail line was completed in October 1943. The majority of prisoners were then sent back, firstly to Kanchanaburi and then to Singapore. The last train load of prisoners to leave Tambaya was in mid November, but there were some men much too ill to be moved, those who would not have survived the journey back. These men were to remain in Tambaya with two or three doctors, an officer and of course the Padre remained with the dying men. My father was one of this group and he died in Tambaya on 17th December 1943. Padre Duckworth stayed on in Tambaya while he was needed and did not return to Singapore until April 1944.

He survived the war and on 12th September 1945 he wrote an account of the relentless suffering endured by the POWs. This story was to become known as the “Japanese Holiday” and was broadcast by the BBC in London from Changi in Singapore on the 12th September 1945. He also gave this speech on the M.V Sobieski, which brought him and thousands of liberated POWs home from the Far East.

M V Sobieski

Following the war years his posts included that of being Chaplain of St. John’s and the first Chaplain of Churchill College, Cambridge from 1961-73. He also preached in the diocese of Ely.

Padre Duckworth was a close friend of Bert Major who was also in the Cambridgeshire Regiment and spent time with the Padre in both Pudu Jail and Changi. On 24th September 1946, Bert and his wife Peggy, both COFEPOW members, were married by the Padre in St. Mary’s Church, Ely and he gave them a photograph of himself..

During his time as Chaplain at Churchill College he was to marry many of the young graduates during the 1960’s.

"JAPANESE HOLIDAY"

A Broadcast to London
by
Padre J.N. Duckworth
September 1945

The Japanese told us we were going to a health resort. We were delighted. They told us to take pianos and gramophone records. They would supply the gramophones. We were overjoyed and we took them. Dwindling rations and a heavy toll of sickness were beginning to play on our fraying nerves and emaciated bodies. It all seemed like a bolt from the tedium of life behind barbed wire in Changi, Singapore. They said: "Send the sick. It will do them good." and we believed them, and so we took them all.

The first stage of the journey to this new found Japanese Paradise was not quite so promising. Yes, they took our kit and they took our bodies, - the whole lot - in metal goods wagons, 35 men per truck through Malaya's beating, relentless sun for 5 days and 5 nights to Thailand, the land of the free. For food, we had a small amount of rice and some "hogwash" called stew. We sat and sweated, fainted and hoped. Then at Bampong station in Thailand they said: "All men go." "Marchee, marchee!" We said: "What! We're coming for a holiday." They just laughed and in that spiteful, derisive, scornful laugh which only a prisoner of war in Japanese hands can understand, we knew that here was another piece of Japanese bushido - deceit.

Our party marched, or rather dragged themselves for 17 weary nights, 220 miles through the jungles of Thailand. Sodden to the skin, up to our middles in mud, broken in body, helping each other as best we could, we were still undefeated in spirit. Night after night, each man nursed in his heart the bitter anger of resentment. As we lay down in the open camps - clearings in the jungle, nothing more - we slept, dreaming of home and better things. As we ate boiled rice and drank onion water, we thought of eggs and bacon.

We arrived, 1680 strong at No.2 Camp, Songkurai, Thailand, which will stand out as the horror hell of Prison Camps. From this 1680, less then 250 survive today to tell its tale. Our accommodation consisted of bamboo huts without roofs. The monsoon had begun and the rain beat down. Work - slave work - piling earth and stones in little skips on to a railway embankment began immediately. It began at 5 o'clock in the morning and finished at 9 o'clock at night and even later than that. Exhausted, starved and benumbed in spirit we toiled because if we did not, we and our sick would starve. As it was the sick had half rations because the Japanese said "No work, no food."

Then came cholera. This turns a full-grown man into an emaciated skeleton overnight. 20, 30, 40, and 50 deaths were the order of the day. The medical kit we had brought could not come with us. We were told it would come on. It never did. We improvised bamboo holders for saline transfusions, and used boiled river water and common salt to put into the veins of the victims. Cholera raged. The Japanese still laughed and asked "How many dead men?" We still had to work, and work harder. Presently, came dysentery and beri-beri - that dreaded disease bred of malnutrition and starvation. Tropical ulcers, diphtheria, mumps, small-pox, all added to the misery and squalor of the camp on the hillside where water flowed unceasingly through the huts at the bottom. A rising feeling of resentment against the Japanese, the weather and general living conditions coupled with the knowledge that their officers could do little or nothing about it, made life in the camp full of dread that each day would bring something worse. The lowest daily death rate came down to 17 only as late as September 1943, when the weather improved and things began to get a little better. Yet we had to work, there was no way out of it. Escape through the jungle as many gallant parties attempted, would only end in starvation and disease, and if the party survived and were eventually captured, the torture which followed was worse than death itself.

We were dragged out by the hair to go to work, beaten with bamboo poles and mocked at. We toiled, half-naked in the cold, unfriendly rain of Upper Thailand. We had no time to wash and if we did it meant cholera. By day we never saw our bed spaces (on long platforms of those bleak hundred metre huts). Our comrades died, we could not honour them even at the graveside because we were still working.

The spirit of the jungle hovered over this Valley of the Shadow of Death and my boys used to ask me constantly: "How long now Padre? What's the news?" We had the news. Capt. James Mudie, who now broadcasts from here, by an amazing piece of skill and resource, got it and gave it to us. And we lay and starved, suffered, hoped and prayed.

Never in my life have I seen such tragic gallantry as was shown by those men who lay on the bamboo slats and I speak now as a priest who ministered the last rites to all of them. Yet they died happy. Yes, happy to be released from pain, happy because our cause would not be suffered to fail among the nations of the earth.

No Medical Officers or orderlies ever had to contend with such fantastic, sickening, soul destroying conditions of human ailment. No body of men could have done better. We sank low in spirit, in sickness and in human conduct, but over that dark valley there rose the sun of hope which warmed shrunken frames and wearied souls.

Here I would like to pay tribute to the sterling work and worth of some Officers, amongst many, to whom many men now living may owe their lives - Lt. Col. Andy Dillon, RIASC, Lt. Col. John Huston, RAMC, and to Lt. Col. Hutchison, MC, known affectionately to us as "Hutch", also to Capt. E.J. Emery, who tended the sick even from his bedside and to Major Bruce Hunt of the Australian Imperial Forces. One cheering result comes from this dismal epoch in our lives, the coming close together in friendship and mutual understanding between the men of the United Kingdom and the men of Australia.

A new understanding has been born and will endure amongst those who think over the things which are of good report.

Those of us that came out of that hell, thank God for deliverance and for the memory of just men made perfect, whose examples. as martyrs at the hands of the Japanese. blaze yet another trail in the annals of human perseverance.

Singapore, 12th September 1945

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