Grandpop: survival in the Far East

The following biography has been adapted from my 2009 book and updated to include information from Charles’s military service record, oral histories of men who served alongside him and a Far East Prisoners of War questionnaire that he completed on his return from captivity:

Charles Alfred Hand, or grandpop as he was known to me, was born on 21^st August 1918 at 14 Mary’s Terrace, Twickenham, Middlesex. He probably didn’t remember very much about his early years in Twickenham, but the house backed on to the railway station and he would have heard the steam trains going past on their way to London.

Family tree

At a young age he moved to Edinburgh with his parents and his older siblings William and Doris. Little is known about this period of his life, but we know he spent his school years in Scotland and he received a good education. During this time his older sister Doris met and married a soldier named George Highley. At the time of the wedding, the family were living at 9 Northfield Road situated to the east of the city centre. After the wedding his sister and her new husband moved to India. Meanwhile, his brother William moved back to England in the 1930s and became a structural engineer. By the end of the decade, Charles had moved back to England with his parents and according to the 1939 electoral roll they were living at 85 Lyndhurst Avenue, Whitton. Soon afterwards he started working for the civil service.

In April 1939, with the threat of war growing, the government introduced the Military Training Act. The terms of the act meant that all men aged between 20 and 21 had to register for 6 months military training. Charles would have been affected by this legislation. By September 1939, Britain was once again at war and on 19^th October Charles received his conscription papers.

Army Training

Charles enlisted with the 162 Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps on 19^th October 1939, but according to his military record, was posted to the 197 Field Ambulance on 11^th January 1940. Charles and the rest of his unit boarded a train up to Norfolk and arrived at the village of Hillington near Kings Lynn. From here they marched through thick snow to a nearby hall. By May 1940, the unit was put to good use as Germany had invaded France and the Low Countries and the first Luftwaffe raids were seen. At this time, the 197FA was based at Cranwich Camp in Norfolk and in addition to dealing with the wounded from air raids, Charles would have been sent on various training courses. By the end of 1940, they had moved to nearby Lynford Hall which functioned as a training hospital. It was during his time here that Charles was disciplined for serving breakfast to patients on cold plates and on a separate occasion, for not washing up dirty plates. Both times he was fined 2 days’ wages.

As a part of their training, the 197 FA travelled to various locations in England and Scotland during 1941. The unit was then given disembarkation leave at a rate of 30% of the unit a week starting 26^th September 1941. This leave lasted for 7 days. At the end of his leave, on 8^th October 1941, he was posted to the 196 Field Ambulance and reported to a tented camp at Norton Manor near Presteigne on the Anglo Welsh borders. Here he continued training as a part of the 54^th Brigade, 18^th (East Anglia) Division.

At 0830 hours on 27^th October 1941 they marched through the streets of Presteigne to a special troop train that took them to Avonmouth on the Bristol Channel.

Off to war

The men boarded the SS Oransay, which was an Orient Line British ship of 20000 tonnes. On 28^th October 1941 the SS Oransay left Avonmouth and headed up the English coast in stormy weather, with nearly all of the 196 and 3000 other troops. On 30^th October the SS Oransay arrived in Greenock, Scotland were it joined the rest of the fleet for an, unknown at the time, journey across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. 

On 2^nd November, in the middle of the Atlantic, the British convoy met up with an escort of US Navy ships who would provide protection during the remainder of the crossing. They arrived in Halifax on 7^th November and Charles would barely have had time to stretch his legs before embarking once again to some unknown destination. The 196 and most of the accompanying division were kitted out for desert fighting, so speculation ran that they were set for Africa or the Middle East. Transport this time was provided by the US Navy and Charles departed with the rest of the 196 on the USS Joseph T Dickman, an American troop ship. The convoy set sail on 10^th November 1941 and had arrived on 22^nd November in Trinidad in the West Indies to refuel. There was no time to disembark and the convoy set sail once again. 

By early December the unit arrived in Cape Town, South Africa and was given four/five days shore leave. This must have been a welcome relief to Charles and the rest of the unit having spent 10 weeks at sea.

The 196 spent Christmas Day 1941 aboard the Joseph T Dickman. The menu was roast turkey, giblet gravy, pickles, sage dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and buttered peas followed by plum pudding, camper down sauce and fruit salad. There was also bread, candy, tea, cookies, butter and cigarettes. The ships food was apparently complemented by many in the unit.

The 27^th December saw the unit arrive in Bombay, India, where they disembarked before getting on a train to Ahmednagar, where they stayed for around two weeks. The next stage of Charles’s epic journey was a train journey back to Bombay followed by another sea journey on board the USS West Point which left port on 19^th January 1942. This leg of the journey saw the first encounters with the Japanese, as an escort vessel fired on a Japanese plane, apparently on a reconnaissance mission. The Japanese had invaded the Malay peninsula on 7^th December 1941 and were moving south in the direction of Singapore.

The USS West Point arrived at Keppel Harbour, Singapore on 29^th January 1942. Charles and the 196 disembarked and were taken by lorries to a tented camp on the Tampines Road. They were to provide medical treatment to the soldiers of the 54^th Brigade who were now deployed in the north-east sector of the island and set up a series of remote dressing stations. The men of the Royal Army Medical Corps were not issued with any weapons and relied on the fighting troops around them for protection. This part of the island faced Malaya across the Johore Straits, where the Japanese had been steadily advancing and were expected to attack from.

On 1^st February 1942, the unit experienced the first enemy activity with artillery fire and aerial bombing. Between 2^nd and 5^th February the unit maintained its position and treated the wounded from the Japanese attacks. The minor sick were treated and held in the dressing stations, with the major casualties evacuated in ambulances, to one of three hospitals in Singapore City.

The Japanese landed on Singapore island late on 8^th February in the north-western sector, which was held by 8^th Australian Division. They quickly established a bridgehead and began to work their way towards Singapore City. By 13^th February the 196 were deployed in the Thompson Road/Bukit Timah Road area of the island just north of Singapore City. The unit was shelled and were almost immediately ordered to move from that location. The unit came under Japanese rifle fire as it prepared to move. The further withdrawal resulted in the main dressing station (MDS) being set up in the City High School at around 1800 hours.

The 14^th February was the busiest day for the unit and they treated large numbers of casualties. The situation was now very difficult and dangerous with men evacuating the wounded from the front line back to the MDS in the face of enemy fire. The morning of Sunday 15^th February saw large numbers of severe casualties received at the MDS with a report of over 200 wounded being treated. By now the City High School building itself was coming under attack from mortar shells and it must have been terrifying. By 4pm the shelling stopped and a final “all clear” siren sounded. By now the Japanese had complete air superiority and had captured the island’s water reservoirs, leaving the commander of the Allied forces in Singapore no choice but to unconditionally surrender the city and the island to the Japanese.

Japanese FEPOW card

Captivity

Charles and the rest of the unit remained at the City High School until 22^nd February when they were ordered to march to Roberts Barracks in Changi, on the east side of the island, around 15 miles from the school. Here the unit continued to treat the sick under very cramped conditions. There were no functioning lavatories and the medical supplies were limited. 

As time went on, conditions and the treatment of the men started to deteriorate. The diet was the main issue with very little food given out and there were very few Red Cross parcels reaching the men, as the Japanese held them back. With virtually the only food available being boiled rice, the men started to contract diseases such as Dysentery and Beri Beri, due to lack of vitamins.

From June 1942, the men were told that they would be sent away to “holiday camps”. Charles’ turn came on 5^th November 1942. He was transported with “Party M” firstly by truck to Singapore Railway station and then north by train in steel cattle wagons. The men were transported 35 to a wagon and by day these wagons became very hot and at night very cold. The doors did not shut properly and the rain would drive in. To sleep in these cramped conditions was near impossible.

The journey up the length of Malaya passed Kuala Lumpur and Prei Station near the beautiful island of Penang. Food was provided in a bucket, one bucket of boiled rice per truck per day, in the heat the rice went off and it wasn’t long before the men’s health suffered. Most of the prisoners suffered from Dysentery and there was only one bucket per truck. Occasionally the Japanese would stop by the train and the men would relieve themselves by the side of the tracks.

Five days after leaving Singapore, the train arrived in Ban Pong, Thailand at the start of what was to be the infamous Burma Railway. Here, they were greeted by more Japanese guards shouting “marchy marchy” and the men were marched to a nearby camp. The camp leader at Ban Pong was Lt Col Malcolm. Charles remained here until Christmas Eve. From here Charles was marched to a camp at the nearby village of Nong Pladuk which was at the southern end of the Burma railway.

Dysentery and flies were rife and the hospital lay at the lowest part of the camp and was often flooded. The hospital was an Atap hut (constructed with a bamboo roof and open sides) and at times the patients were laying only inches above the flood water on their bamboo shelving. It was not uncommon for the doctor to visit the patients in Wellington boots and then climb onto the shelving as the water was too deep to stand in. Mosquitoes took over the area at night and brought more illness to the already sick patients.

Conditions inside an Atap hut

Charles was moved up country on 25^th March 1943 to work on the railway. At the railway camps, there were frequent beatings and sick men were dragged from their beds to work. The medical officers and orderlies working in the camp hospitals would do their best to prevent the seriously ill patients from working and this would often result in a beating from the Japanese guards. The sadism and cruelty of the Japanese guards knew no bounds but it was the Kempetai, the Japanese Gestapo, who were feared the most for their methods of torture. Charles would have dealt with the consequences of this on an almost daily basis and is highly likely to have been on the receiving end of Japanese brutality himself.

Apart from Cholera, diseases like Diarrhoea, Dysentery, Beri Beri and Malaria were universal and kept the medical staff busy. The Japanese had been withholding food and medical supplies but the monsoon made it impossible to transport these goods in any case. Charles and the other medical staff had to do their best to comfort dying men with no drugs. They felt so helpless that they could do little for these poor people, yet their ingenuity still saved many lives. Bed pans were made from large bamboos and cannulas for intravenous saline injections from bamboo tips. There were limb amputations to save patients dying from gangrenous tropical ulcers and artificial limbs made from timber. The biggest factor for saving lives was the courage and compassion of the medical staff that had to work in the most extreme circumstances. There were some dreadful sights on the wards - men who were only parchment and bone. These scenes would have scarred Charles for life.

Treating a patient with tropical ulcers

Hospitalised men were only entitled to 250-300g rice per day with a small quantity of beans. To the Japanese, men who held up the construction of the railway due to lack of health were guilty of a shameful deed. Despite widespread disease, men continued to be dragged from their beds to do heavy physical work.

The records do not name the camps where he was imprisoned but at the time his commanding officer was Lt Col Flowers of the 9^th battalion of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. From his CO’s record it can be assumed that Charles was at Hindato camp, some 200km from Nong Pladuk, on Christmas Day 1943.  By this time, construction work on the railway had been completed and most of the medical staff were subsequently sent back down the line in cattle trucks to work in the camp hospitals at Chungkai and Nong Pladuk. Charles arrived at Nong Pladuk II Hospital in February 1944. Conditions, though still severe, were not as bad as they had been further north. Charles was moved to the newly created Nakom Patom camp in March 1944 where he spent the remainder of the war. His commanding officer was Lt Col. Coates of the Australian Imperial Forces.  Here, he treated patients with nothing but the most basic equipment and under constant threat of beatings from the Japanese guards.

Following the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered on 15^th August 1945. With tens of thousands of Allied POWs all over South-East Asia, the task of getting them all home was huge. Firstly leaflets were dropped from aircraft telling them to stay where they were. Shortly afterwards items from clothing and boots to food and medical supplies were dropped. Charles was liberated by allied forces on 21^st September 1945 and was finally transported by train to Bangkok before being put on a plane for a short flight to Rangoon in Burma.

The men who arrived in Rangoon were treated with kindness. They were taken to a room set with tables with white cloths and flower arrangements. They were served white sandwiches of butter and cheese. English girls waited on them. The first white women the men had seen in years.

In late September 1945 Charles would have boarded a ship that sailed to England via Colombo and Port Said. The voyage would have taken about a month and his ship docked at Southampton on 28^th October. Once on British soil, he was taken to a military disembarkation camp before finally being allowed home to be reunited with his family.

Life after war

The Far East POWs (FEPOWs) had one short interview and completed a brief questionaire before they were demobbed and returned to their civilian lives. After a period of leave, Charles returned to work as a civil servant at the newly-formed Ministry for National Insurance even though he was still emaciated from his time in Thailand. It would take him years to put the weight back on.

 Charles’s obvious joy at being back home was tempered by the news that his older brother, Bill, had died during his period in captivity. His widow, Connie had been left to bring up her daughter Maureen by herself during the war years. Charles’s father had helped her through this difficult period but wanted to do more.

The decision was taken that Connie and Charles should get married. It was a practical solution and it isn’t clear whether Charles and Connie actually loved each other at that time, although they certainly did as they grew to know each other over the years. They were married on 29^th March 1947 at Saint Peter and Paul RC Church in Ilford.

Charles and Connie’s first child, Theresa, my mother, was born on 14^th July 1948 in Selsdon, Surrey. Soon after Theresa’s birth, Charles was transferred and the family moved to Nottingham. They lived at 10 Catterley Hill Road until around Christmas 1952. Whilst they were living in Nottingham, Charles’s father passed away and in February 1951 he had to return south briefly to register his death. The responsibility fell to him as his sister lived far away.

On returning south, Charles and his young family moved to 57 Parkside Avenue, Romford, Essex. Connie was pregnant and Janet was born on 15^th March 1953.

Charles’s wartime experiences continued to haunt him. He had recurring bouts of Malaria but it was the mental scars that were worse. He struggled to cope with the daily challenges of life and suffered from periods of depression and these were perhaps exacerbated by feelings of grief surrounding his father‘s death. Today these symptoms would be recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder, but they were not so well-understood in the 1950s. My mum has memories of him being taken away in an ambulance for electric shock therapy. He would return home, wrapped in a towel, and would be placed in a chair. He would pick up a newspaper which he would hold upside down in front of his face.

Charles was eventually prescribed with lithium tablets which brought his symptoms under control. The tablets helped him to regain control of his life but they were to have serious repercussions for his health later in life.

Left to right: Janet, Charles and Connie

Life improved and Charles and Connie gave birth to another daughter, Clare Elizabeth Hand, on 23^rd January 1961. By this time Theresa and Janet were at school. Theresa was attending the Ursuline convent school in Brentwood and Janet would have attended a local primary school. Maureen married Brian White in 1964 and in 1966 she gave birth to a son of her own named Darren.

Circa 1967, Charles and his family moved from Romford to a large house in The Warren, Billericay.  The house had a large garden and a double garage. Everybody loved the house. At the time of the move, Theresa had left school and was working in London. Janet had moved up to the Ursuline and Clare was old enough to go to primary school.

At around the time of the move, Charles had lost his job at the civil service. They had grown weary of his absenteeism due to his poor mental health and had forced him out. Charles managed to secure work with the post office and then later with the insurance firm Eagle Star. All this helped to pay the bills but he was not earning as much as when he was with the civil service and he had also lost out on the lucrative civil service pension.

Theresa was married to Keith Melton on 18^th October 1969. The service took place at the Most Holy Redeemer RC church in Billericay and was a very happy occasion. Less than four years later, Janet married Brian Jewell at the same church. Clare, who was by now old enough to attend the Mayflower school in Billericay, was a bridesmaid at both weddings.

As the carefree and prosperous 1960s gave way to the 1970s the economic dark clouds began to gather. Bills rose and they could no longer afford to make ends meet. In 1974 Charles, Connie and Clare, were forced to move to a smaller house at 167 Mountnessing Road, Billericay. Charles and Connie had hoped to have some money for their retirement but the rates were just as high in the new house. Charles retired from work in 1978 and still faced financial uncertainty.

The wedding of Clare to Martin Gale on 4^th June 1983 meant that Charles and Connie were alone for the first time in their marriage. The wedding, once again, took place at the Most Holy Redeemer RC church and this was followed by a reception at a hotel in Basildon.

With all of the daughters now married, Charles and Connie were free to spend their retirement years in any way they wished. In 1984 they moved from Billericay to a newly-built bungalow at 4 Grimston Way in Walton-on-the-Naze. These were happy times and they made friends with other couples who had retired to the Essex coast. They had a good social life and fresh air was good for their health.

We would regularly visit them at weekends for Saturday or Sunday tea. During the summer holidays, my sister and I would spend a week with them. They would sometimes rent a beach hut for the duration of our stay and we would have many happy days by the beach playing in the sea when it was sunny or playing cards inside the hut over a cup of tea if it rained. 

Charles and Connie with a friend 

Charles never forgot his wartime experiences and would attend annual Remembrance Sunday parades in London with other FEPOWs. Sometimes, over tea and cake on a Saturday afternoon, he would talk to me and Dad about his wartime experiences. He would talk about his hatred of the Japanese and his helplessness at being unable to treat the sick due to lack of supplies.

In 1997 Charles and Connie celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. The family took them out for a meal at a local restaurant called “Harbour Lights” and it was quite an occasion.

By this time Charles’ was suffering from kidney disease which had been caused by his long-term use of lithium. Following his diagnosis, he spent several weeks in hospital at Black Notley. His condition stabilised with the use of new medication, but now he had to get used to having regular dialysis which he could have at home, although he still needed to attend out-patients’ appointments.

In spite of receiving treatment his condition gradually worsened and he was admitted to Ipswich hospital. He sadly died there on 20^th February 1998 aged 79.

Further reading:

Account of Charles’s unit until their capture in Singapore.

Lawrence Smith’s experiences in the 196 Field Ambulance

Ronald Fiegehen’s experiences in the 197 Field Ambulance

Account of life in NakonPatom POW camp.

Account of life in NongPladuk POW camp

Details of POW movements

Charles' FEPOW questionaire