Address- Anzac Day 2003 Kanchanaburi Thailand
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It seems incredible that sixty
years have passed since we laboured on the railway to Burma, by
which name we knew it at the time. Often in those dreadful days
you would not have given yourself a chance of surviving for a
few days let alone sixty years. It is therefore with a sense of
deep gratitude that I recall the unswerving dedication of all
medical staff and the
abiding friendship of wonderful mates who made survival possible
in a universe of madness and suffering. When you are bereft of
everything, save perhaps a loin cloth or a tattered pair of shorts
the only thing we could offer each other was a helping hand and
encouragement to battle on towards better times.
In January 1943 as a member of a force known
as Dunlop Force, commanded by Lt. Col. “Weary Dunlop”
we moved up from Java into the Konyu Hintok area to commence work
on the railway. Fortunately it was during the dry season and we
were transported most of the way from Bam Pong in open trucks.
What a great advantage this gave us over our comrades of the various
forces who were compelled to march in monsoonal rain and slush
to such camps as Songkurai, Nikki and other hell holes.
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Our initial job was to construct the Konyu River Camp
and clear the rail trace. We then moved across to Hintok Road Camp
and began working in earnest. Our work area embraced the three major
cuttings after Hellfire Pass culminating in the
compressor cutting. It also included the curved seven metre embankment,
the three tier trestle bridge and numerous smaller
trestle bridges that linked knoll to knoll. Circumstances also made
us available to work on the fallen Pack of Cards Bridge
that was mainly built by Tamil labourers.
No matter where you worked the job was arduous in the
extreme, particularly for the many men who had to work barefooted.
In common with every POW camp food was at a premium. Rice, of course,
was the staple diet, but there was little enough of
it. For the evening meal it was served with a very watery soup, with
sometimes a smidgen of meat or dried fish known as
“Modern Girls”. The Japanese were merciless task masters
and bludgeoned men into long hours of soul-destroying work.
During one of the wettest monsoons on record there were 114 wet days
and our camp was worked for 92 days straight without a
break. This has come to be known as the speedo period. The huge embankment
was built by scraping dirt garnered between
rocks into double handled baskets which were passed along a man made
chain. Often the spoil was carried away in tankas – a
rice sack strung between two bamboo poles. Japanese, strategically placed,
bashed anybody they thought might be slacking.
In their weakened condition men often collapsed under a rain of savage
blows and kicks.
The construction of the numerous cuttings probably
contributed most to the ruination of so many men. The work would have
been hard for men in good physical shape, but was an absolute disaster
for men battling recurrent disease on starvation
diets. Most of the cuttings were put in by men working with hammer and
tap. One man held the drill while his mate belted
it with a sledge hammer. Drilling quotas were set by the Japanese and
the drilled holes were primed with gelignite and
fired twice a day. After firing the clearers moved in to clear the floor
for the next drilling. Clearing was an awful job
universally detested. The blasting left razor sharp edges which tore
bare feet to shreds. The loose rock was carried away
in tankas and emptied over the side. Blasting was indiscriminate and
men were frequently clobbered by falling stones. The
cuttings were a sweat box from the radiated heat and the workers suffered
great thirst. We were only allowed one army
bottle of water a day. Many of our strongest men broke down, often doing
too much to protect a sick mate. The Japanese
made no concessions for sick men and often used them as an excuse for
handing out more bashings. Building the three tier
bridge presented all sorts of difficulties. It was a giant of a structure
about 25 metres high and 250 metres long. The
timber for it and all other bridges was cut from the surrounding jungle
and hauled to the site by prisoners. There it was
prepared and erected under the supervision of the Japanese engineers.
The sergeant in charge was a sadist of the first
order who delighted in throwing tools and pieces of wood at unsuspecting
prisoners working below.
The long working hours, the intense harassment on the
job, the lack of footwear and the starvation diet affected men’s
health to a point where they became absolute sitters for all the tropical
diseases that were indigenous to the area.
Malaria and dysentery were their constant companions. There was little
quinine available to control malaria and nothing
with which to treat amoebic dysentery. With the monsoonal rain the camp
became a quagmire and going to the toilet at night
became an almost insuperable problem for debilitated men racked with
abdominal pain.
A lack of vitamins in the diet soon brought on all
sorts of complaints ranging from beri-beri to red raw mouths, tongues
and throats. Beri-beri caused gross swelling of the limbs and stomach,
making walking in itself very difficult, let alone
having to get out to the rail trace and work when you got there. Cuts
and wounds on the legs and feet generally became
infected due to the absence of antiseptics, disinfectants and bandages.
Many lesions soon turned into tropical ulcers which
often as not became gangrenous. Hundreds of men had limbs amputated
as a last resort.
Perhaps the greatest scourge of all was cholera visited
on our camp by passing Asian labourers who unfortunately were
denied any sort of treatment whatsoever. Cholera rapidly dehydrates
the body through purging and vomiting. As the fluid
leaves the body so do the body salts thus inducing severe cramp in all
muscles. Cholera claimed many lives in our camp
before a still was manufactured from salvaged material, enabling the
production of pure distilled water to be turned into a
saline solution for intravenous injection into comatose patients. This
procedure was marvelously successful resulting in
the saving of 60% of all cholera patients.
When we look back over those troubled times is it any
wonder that we thank the Good Lord for his provision of steadfast
mates and above all for the doctors and medical staff who overcame incredible
difficulties to return so many men to their
loved ones at home.
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