Australians at War Film Archive

Yes I went through, I was born in 1915. I went to school at Scotch College, Launceston for about eight or nine years and in 1932 I left school and was

apprenticed to my father who had a well established pharmacy in Launceston and I worked with him for two years and then he sent me to Melbourne because I’d probably get a better education there at the college. So I did qualify from the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1937. Incidentally I was at the top of the pass list at the college. I did alright and after that I returned

to Launceston and my father became the mayor and I wanted to do a bit of relieving here and there but as he was the mayor, he was so busy. So I had to continue working with him in his pharmacy and he took me into partnership.

I wasn’t dux but I did pretty well.

About 20 I think.

No, when things started to get bad, I thought I should do something about it and I think I decided the end of ’41 I think.I wanted to join a medical corps cause

I thought I could help the sick and wounded and so on. I didn’t know anything about army life, didn’t know a major from a mouse or anything else and so I wasn’t in the fighting force. But I was in the medical force and I joined this, it’s the 2/4th Australian Casualty Clearing Station, CCS and it’s a small sort of hospital, had about 10 or 15 doctors and about 120 members

and we worked behind the lines, patching people up and sending them back into the major hospitals elsewhere.

Quite separate, field ambulance is difference.

To a certain degree I think. They probably brought the sick in and then we’d operate them if possible.

If it was too severe, we’d probably give them transfusions and send them back to the base hospitals.

Well we started on the Queen Mary in 1942 and we arrived in Singapore and were sent to Kuala Lumpur at KL Malaysia [Malaya at the time]. Actually we ended up a little

village called Kajang, K A J A N G and there we took over a high school and ran that for about nine months as a hospital and training the men, lot of the orderlies had never done any work like that. We trained them which was a blessing for later and we had this nine months pleasant time in Malaysia.

Possibly. In this convoy, the Queen Mary we were on and the other three ships sailed off to the Middle East and we kept going straight along. The Queen Mary put up full speed and sailed between the other ships. The whole shipped throbbed, a very powerful ship and it was fast enough they hoped to dodge any submarines around there because we had a convoy protection when the

other, fleet were together.

Yes, went straight to Singapore.

Certain number yes.

Yes.

Well we were retreating, treating people all

the way down and we were changing. I’d set up a dispensary. We were there for a week or something and you had to pull it all down and go on and when the capitulation came we were again in a high school in Singapore and working as a hospital but the unit was split into two and other people were in the Cathay theatre doing surgery there.

That could be so.

Well after the capitulation we marched

to Changi and we were put into Roberts Barracks, quite a good area and it had the large parade ground and the concrete barracks were comfortable and we were there for about four months and we must sign

a thing, we’d never escape and that’s against the war tradition and everything and they refused to sign.

Yes.

Over three years.

I’d like to speak about the trip from Singapore to Burma.

No, after Thai-Burma we had some, peace was declared in August and we stayed there where we were in this prison camp, which now wasn’t one and eventually, after probably a month or so, we flew to Singapore and we were in a staging camp in Singapore

and then we caught a boat home and I didn’t get home till the middle of November.

Yes.

Yes, yeh.

Yes, I used to go in to father and watch him mixing things and so on and one stage he made me up a cough mixture or something or other and he put rose water in, instead of peppermint water and it tasted frightful and I complained about it for weeks after but I always

was going to do pharmacy, thought of nothing else.

That’s his photo there.

No, I just watched him and I used to help a bit and wash the bottles and so on.

At home? No only in the pharmacy.

Well when he qualified, his father was Frank Styant-Browne, S T Y A N T-Browne and he was a

homeopathic pharmacist. He had a letter once which I might mention, addressed to Mr F. Stagnant Browne, the Homeopathic Faracy, was just in a letter, received it. Anyway when my father qualified his father said “the business is too small to support us both” so he financed father

and he brought this property, 84 Brisbane Street, right opposite the quadrangle and it was a fairly small pharmacy and it had, when I got there it had been well developed of course. Had very good connection with all the sort of, won’t say snobbish, but all the better class people would come there and he had cosmetics and things and so on as well as all the medicines but it was a very good business.

To some extent, advice and so on and often they’d say “The doctor said something but I’ve forgotten what he told me.” and you’d come into the pharmacy, they would and they’d be told perhaps more clearly and then they understood what they were taking but some people I know had high blood pressure. They didn’t even know they had it. They didn’t know what they were taking for it

but nowadays of course people are more sophisticated with, the old days they didn’t have the knowledge.

Quite possibly.

A lot of them were doctor related and we’d have the prescriptions written. We’d have about 80 percent of them were mixtures. Tablets hardly existed and perhaps 20 percent ointments so was very much manipulative whereas and APC

was very popular. APC, you heard of it? It’s like astrem phenacetin caffeine, APC mixture.

Yes that’s right but it had this phenacetin in it and it was very popular and we used to make up mixtures and people used to like the APC mixture and there’s business making it up in the mortar and everything and one woman used to get a 16 ounce bottle. Your average bottle’s eight

ounces, 16 ounce bottle a week of this APC. Anyhow that’s all dropped out now of course, cause they found out phenacetin poisoned the kidneys so it’s very much on the outer now.

I don’t think so.

No. I used to mess about with photography and I used to develop, where we lived I had a darkroom under the house and I used to develop my photos and so on.

Yes. He was a wonderful man and

when I was a student, he was the examiner and in the Materia Medica. It’s all about drugs and grandfather of course refused to examine me as we were related so another man called Mr. Holmes had to examine me and incidentally, later when I qualified I became an examiner in Materia Medica and I did the same as he was doing years earlier.

I learnt a lot of chemistry at Scotch College, had a very good master there, chemistry master and it was a fairly good course. The Victorian course was much better, very detailed. There’d be 80 students and very good lecturers and so on.

Yes, Latin in the old days was essential and we had to recognise anything out of a hundred herbs, which now of course is nothing, but we had to recognise green colours that some were and roots were used and in exams, they’d show us about a dozen herbs and we’d have to say what they were and also liquids.

Yes, I don’t think we

knew much about those but a lot of the things like digitalis was a foxglove and we wouldn’t make it. People would make for us tincture of digitalis which was foxglove leaves stood in alcohol. See that bottle there, that would sit in the shop window for four weeks to macerate and they’d filter it off and they’d get tincture

digitalis, was very good for the heart but now of course they’ve got digoxin, the pure crystalline substance that was in the foxglove and now you just take a little tiny white tablet and it’s much more accurate dosing.

Not in my youth, no.

Not personally

because that was done in pharmaceutical factories or, like there might be Ely Lily or these big firms. They’d have a special factory of research people, a different branch really. They’d be research chemists.

Victorian College of Pharmacy.

Well I coped with it very well. I’m a funny sort of person. I was a bit of a loner and a very keen student and when I got there I got myself a unit

a bedroom rather with a couple of funny old ladies and I brought a ton of wood and I’d have a fire in the study at night, in my bedroom at night and I’d study every night of the week except Saturday and I’d have that off.

Just wander round and see the sights of

Melbourne and that. I lived very quietly. I had this man Braithwaite, who was a very fine man. He was unmarried but he treated me as a son and he’d show me all about the ins and outs of his business and a lot of people wont’ tell you that and after hours he’d show me the figures, what they’d done and so on and gave me a lot of very good advice.

Yes he was a pharmacist and I worked for this Harry Braithwaite. He was

highly regarded in the profession and when I went there, he had six different pharmacies. He owned six and I worked in the big one and after I’d worked there a few days, he said, or a few weeks, he said, “Bevan I want you to take the money to the bank.” so I set off to the bank. He said, “Don’t you worry, I’ll be behind you. I’ve got my revolver.” and I thought, “If I’m robbed, he’ll probably shoot me instead of the robber”. Anyway I got there safely.

Yeah well it was. They suited me. They gave me good food and so on. At one stage the King died and I refused to buy a black tie. I thought “What a waste of money.” and they were most put out cause I didn’t buy a black tie cause the King died.

Yes.

Very fine college and they had a marvellous lecturer Byron Stanton, a brilliant man and I’ve got a photo of him somewhere and he was full of sort of anecdotes and rather a cynic about certain things and a very good lecturer and they were top class lecturers.

We had a Doctor Tonkin another man that, I learnt a great deal there.

A bit of everything, Materia Medica and chemistry and botany, herbs and the straight chemistry and analysis, finding out what was in things

and so on.

Not as such but the treatment would come, cause a lot of the medication was for certain diseases and that would be dealt with.

Spread of disease, epidemics? Not specifically but probably come up with

smallpox vaccination and that sort of thing.

Yes.

Although in that era there were no antibiotics and no penicillin or anything like that, no sulphonamides.

I’ve got a good story later about

penicillin.

Yes, I used to go to the Botanical Gardens on the weekend. I’d take a book with me. Shows how keen I was and I’d study under the lovely trees in the garden and so on,

studied my chemistry whatever, it was really my life interest. I wasn’t particularly interested in any girls or anything like that.

No, botanical gardens were more for the pleasure of the public. You know they weren’t medical gardens.

Yeah.

Yes, a couple of the duties of the apprentices were to every day clean the leeches in the sink and I usually avoided

that by making up APC mixture or something cause the leeches would fasten on your arm and have a feed and I didn’t like that and another job was to put some sick dog to death which wasn’t very nice and I was sent out on one occasion, with another apprentice, the two of us and he had a large syringe filled with prussic acid and we’d go up to the dog, befriend him so he didn’t bite our heads off

or anything. We’d say “Good dog, nice dog.” then we’d insert that syringe into his mouth and the next thing he’d fall over dead with the prussic acid. But I felt it was really deceitful cause we had to sort of be nice to the dog, then put him to death but anyway that was another task. It doesn’t happen much these days I don’t think.

I don’t think anything, not as much. This all developed later. You see I’m talking about the ‘40’s. It was in ’38 I finished, I qualified so it was a long while ago.

Any bruising and that sort of

thing and just to get rid of inflammation and so on, black eyes of course, very handy.

Yes.

I frankly can’t remember much about graduation.

I don’t think it was anything like they do these days. I think you just got your certificate which is up there somewhere.

Yes.

Probably not. No they had to get a job I think.

I think it was just over, ’38.

The Depression didn’t have much affect because my father had the pharmacy and he was sort of fairly well to do and how he could afford me to go to Scotch College in the Depression, I don’t know but he did and that was it.

Yes.

It would be ’38 if you can work that out? ‘15, I was born in ’15. ’38.

Yes but I wanted to do relieving but father wanted me to be

at the pharmacy cause if he was acting as mayor he couldn’t even leave the pharmacy. That’s the trouble with a pharmacy, you’re tied to it. So I felt obligated, what he’d done for me, to continue working with him. I never worked anywhere else in my life until, no I think I did. I did in Queensland. I moved up there later but I might have worked for someone there. I didn’t like it much.

I’ve got a photograph here if you’d like to see it?

Yes it was a professional pharmacy, not cluttered. One wall had the medical stuff and the other wall,

there’d be an Elizabeth Arden, an independent Coty stand and perhaps a perfume stand on the other wall, separate and then you walked in there. At the end of it would be the dispensary and which was fairly large and roomy cause we had two or three people working in the dispensary, clerks and girls as well as the pharmacist and outside the dispensary

later, I rebuilt it later. We had a comfortable seat where people could sit and if anyone fainted, it was big enough you could lay them down like a bed and we had a public telephone there and so on but it was a nice, roomy, spacious pharmacy. It’s there today and I’d say it’s full of junk, overcrowded. Same building, but unprofessional in my opinion.

Pretty well yes.

Yes.

Yes

plenty of time and there was a lot of advice given and the thing was if it was serious, we had to make sure that they did see the doctor and to do that you had to sort of alarm them vaguely to make them understand how serious it might be and eventually they’d go or sometimes we’d ring up and say, “Can you fit Mrs Jones in?” and they’d say, “Well tell her to come at two o’clock.” or something but we farmed anything on.

The policy was only to treat the simple things, nothing too complicated.

Sometimes people would swoon and we had an epileptic and we’d throw him on the couch thing and he’d have his fit and so on and then he’d get over

it. You know it just doesn’t last forever of course.

There were capsules. Dilantin was an early one. D I L A N T I N. You may have heard of it, Dilantin? That was a very popular treatment, they never had more modern epileptic drugs and later of course there was a whole range of them. Some of them were far better than others.

I don’t think a great deal. There was the nausea of pregnancy but got to be pretty careful what you give people but these days people are much more aware of the dangers but they weren’t as aware in my earlier days.

They’d take anything the doctor ordered.

Yes.

And it was our responsibility to check everything. One doctor, since dead, Dr Gollon, Launceston, he ordered somebody a dose of prussic acid and he hadn’t

meant it. He meant another acid and so I rang him up said, “What it this you want?” and he said, “Oh dear.” or something and I gave him the right one but if I’d dispensed it and it’d poisoned the patient, I’d be personally responsible and to blame so you have to check back, you know if there’s any doubt of the dose. You know like all these, a lot of these blood clotting things, warfarin and that. There are about five or six

different strengths and lots of tablets come in 10 strengths of point one and then a one, say and a two and so on so sometimes a doctor will put the wrong strength and if you’ve seen they’ve had it before, you wonder why he’s increased the strength and then you ring up and he’d say, “Oh yes I increased that, it’s alright.” or he might say he’s written the wrong thing.

Very personal and actually we had customers at towns like Fingal, Avoca, Campbelltown about 50, 100 kilometres from Launceston and a lot of, we’d do a lot of postage, send out stuff by the post and a lot of country people used to deal with us.

Yes.

Pretty well all. If there was any doubt of course you ring up and say, “I can’t read that. What exactly do you mean?” and then of course you’re covered.

Yes most of them had accounts. It was a very highly regarded business.

Must have had personal accounts with 10 or 12 doctors, one or two are still alive too, Roberts, Thompson. I see them and they were customers of ours for years.

A local warehouse, once a day deliveries.

It depends, that was part of the dispensary but the tinctures in that era, in the ‘30’s were all bought ready made. This is just ancient. You know carboys in the window but that’s how it originated.

Yes although at the moment, everything you buy’s in a

little pack, separate. That’s been current I s’pose I don’t know for 25 years or so.

I’d say probably about the ’50’s.

I think so.

Yes, by ’38 I was through you see and I could have time to listen to the radio. I was quite familiar with

Hitler or his business.

Yes I didn’t think much of Chamberlain.

“Peace in my time.” you know rubbish. Hitler was a fiend that he couldn’t see it of course. It was absurd.

No I didn’t have to but I did volunteer at the end of thirty, I don’t know. I can’t remember dates now.

I enrolled in Brighton camp. I’ve got a photo of the unit there you might like to see later.

And

knowing nothing of the army. I didn’t know say a captain or a major from a corporal or anything else. I was in Brighton camp. I didn’t know anything about the procedure and so on and I got the honorary rank of staff sergeant and later all the pharmacists joined, about three or four years later, they all got a officer’s rank but unfortunately when I joined I didn’t and I sort of promoted it after the war.

They said, “Too late. You can’t do anything”. There was a big difference in the standing and also the salary too, the pay.

Yes.

I’m sure I

must have. I just don’t recall it now.

Yes it was very, very vivid.

Yes I did.

I think so. I had a feeling of sort of a

not awe, what’s the feeling of, you know destiny. Something bad was going to happen. That’s why I decided I should try and do something.

My father wasn’t happy but he didn’t put anything in my way.

No.

Oh siblings yes. I had

one sister that’s all, myself and my sister, two years older than me. She’s recently died.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes I expect so. During the war my father was terrific. He started a prisoner of war association. He was a marvellous man, my father, in

the community sense.

Very much yes but he was mayor of course after the war but he did form this prisoner of war association and all the parents used to join whose children were prisoners and

he also organised X-ray therapy, deep ray therapy at the Launceston General Hospital. Before, people had to go to Hobart but he organised this deep ray therapy which was a marvellous thing here, very influential and he got money donated and so on and they had these big X ray

treatment things now available to the public so they didn’t have to travel all the way to Hobart and a bit earlier during the polio epidemic here, he was on the committee to treat the polio cases and they had a poliomyelitis hospital out at Newstead there and he was involved in that, all sorts of public things.

Yes I could tell you probably more of that later but I think he organised, through the council and something, for I think it might have been free diphtheria immunisation and before it wasn’t available and that was a great step forward.

No I don’t think so, diphtheria.

No pertussis, yes pertussis is whooping cough. Diphtheria’s just a very fatal disease, you know dirty sewers and things, you contract it.

Yes. Incidentally I think the Queen’s husband died young.

I can’t, do you know anything of him? Queen Victoria?

Yes he died of diphtheria.

That’s correct.

He might have been too young.

Yes.

No Brighton in Hobart.

Hobart.

No cause father was qualified. See he was there all through the war and he had one or two female qualified chemists helping him and so on but it was just after the war, when I was qualified but he didn’t go to the war of course and so he just carried on and I left him

but, that’s right yes I left him.

It wasn’t anything profound. I was interviewed in Launceston by the colonel of our unit. I don’t know why and apparently I looked alright and he said, “Alright we’ll accept you.”

but I had this interview in the Launceston Club and then we went to Brighton camp and I think we were given injections and so on and I was only there for a very short time, only about 10 days I think then we had a bit of drill or something, nothing much happened. I think we did visit the Royal Hobart Hospital. We saw

or witnessed an operation being performed and one of the fellows collapsed with the sight of the blood and all that, didn’t worry me but then we were sent to Melbourne and the unit was supposed to be 130 men. We didn’t have quite enough so we got more men from Melbourne to form the unit and more doctors and so on and then we went to Sydney and then we sailed from Sydney

on the Queen Mary, did I mention that before?

Yes well we had the pleasure of enjoying the luxury liner and there were three other ships in the convoy and the Queen Mary we were on and I had a two berth cabin with another sergeant and a man, the steward brought us in a cup of tea and bread and butter at six in the morning and we had a sergeants’ mess.

I’ve got the menu here, not that you’d be interested and then the Queen Mary had left the other ships in the convoy and sailed up the middle, flat out and the engines were going like that, very powerful ship and the other three in the convoy went onto the Middle East and the Queen Mary being so fast they thought she’d be safe from the submarines, then we landed in Singapore of course.

That’s true I think yes. I can’t remember names and things now I’m sorry.

I think so. A lot of the people, I don’t say this unkindly, were terribly

rough and many of them uneducated and so on but I don’t know why he wanted to interview me. There was another chemist here. I’m not sure if he interviewed him or not but anyway.

Yes.

Well it was straight medical, oh you had to go through the silly army business and I hardly

had any time in the army and when we were on the Queen Mary, being a sergeant I had to round the men up for the short arm parade and that’s rather a funny thing. I didn’t know what it was all about but it’s to check whether the men had gonorrhoea or not and but it was all strange to me. I had to line them up and they went in to see the doctor

and so on.

Well I s’pose it’s, unfortunately it shortened your arm.

Yes well on the ship there and later we were warned of the terrible dangers

of VD and everything else and people were given French letters [condoms] and so on but I was never into that. I was too terrified of the diseases.

Yes of course.

No they didn’t bother. They just did their own thing.

I don’t think, might have been Browney. I don’t know. I forget.

Yes.

Staff sergeant.

Probably, anyway they just more or less did as they were told, no problem but I didn’t know what this short arm business was all about.

Not that I recall.

Yes.

Yes there were about perhaps 10 sergeants in our unit and we’d probably sit together and just talk, all wonder

what was happening and I think eventually it dawned on us we were going to Malaysia I think.

No. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was at the end of ’42. [actually December 7th, 1941]

See because when we

went to Singapore and Kajang there was no war on. It was peace. I mean apart from Europe, there was no war on the east and we spent that 10 months training as the doctors were training for the future and it was very good because they all learnt what to do and there were a few operations and people have appendix and so on and we’d do operating on the soldiers but there was no war, so that’s why we were

training and then when the Japanese struck, then of course the war started.

Yes I think we just arrived and we got in a train or something or other and I was running some fever and I collapsed or something and I forget what it was. I wasn’t too good anyway and we got to

Kuala Lumpur eventually and just settled into the school and I can show you a photo later if it’s of any interest.

Quite good yes and we had, you know proper bed and that sort of thing and all one big room.

Correct

yeah.

No I have latterly but not then.

Very little. We rather rapidly, we got off the ship. I think we got onto a train or something and we were taken straight up to Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur was

you know very interesting, very different and when we were there, we’d have leave. Of course there was no war. We’d get a taxi and we’d go to KL and there was a thing called the Bukit Bintang, think it’s there still. I’ve been to KL a few times since and it was a sort of entertainment place and they had these taxi girls and you could pay so much and you could dance with one of the girls and

they weren’t prostitutes as far as I knew. They were quite decent but a lot of them didn’t speak English of course and I went with a fellow older with me and he wouldn’t dance but he said, “Try that girl.” and so I danced with her and then come back. He said “What’s she like?” I said “I don’t know, talk to her.” but I learnt a bit of Malay, “Bunya charnkey”, “Very pretty”. I’d say that to them. You know that went down alright.

What?

Oh is it?

No, lots of girls there but at one stage a Mr. Grey who I knew had a rubber plantation at Klang and it was Easter and he asked me over to his rubber plantation and it was a fair way from

Kuala Lumpur and he said, “Bring some friends and help to pay for the taxi” so the nicer sergeant and myself came over and the pay sergeant who was a bit of a rough bugger. Anyway we went down and spent two or three days with him at his house and when we first arrived, we sat down for dinner and Mrs Grey said, “You all eat curry?” I said, “Love it.” and this pay sergeant said “Never eat it.” and a bit of confusion and she called the house boy

and he was served a tin of salmon or something and then they had bowls there and one of them started drinking out of the bowl, you know that you put your fingers in. Anyway we had quite a time and Mr. Grey took me to have a game of golf and I was a bit keen on golf, the only sport I was keen on and they had these female caddies and you’d slice your ball and they’d run down the bank, bring it back and everything

and rather interesting about and Mr. Grey whom I saw, his daughter lived in Launceston, was married to a friend of mine. That’s how we got onto them and I struck Mr Grey in Singapore in February ’43, ’42 or something, before the capitulation. I said, “Why haven’t you gone home Mr Grey?” cause he was elderly. He said, “Oh I thought

I should stay here. I can serve soup and feed the men.” or something. Anyway he said, “Will you do something for me?” I said, “Yes”. He said, “When you get home, see my lawyer in Launceston, fellow called Green”. He said, “Tell him that I’ve sent so much money to the bank in Scotland.” or something or other and I forget what it was and I had this message about some of his assets and silver was, the house silver was

buried in cottage, in the klang where he lived and so on and when I got home I interviewed this man, who later became a judge, and told him all about what Mr. Grey had told me and would they follow it up and I didn’t hear much more about it. It was quite interesting.

Mostly sort of minor things like appendix and a few fractures and things like that but I wasn’t on the theatre staff. There was x-ray staff. There was theatre sergeant and so on. They were actually assisting the doctors. They had nurses there too. They were sent home later but it was more sort of military training really, trying to build

the whole unit up to do their jobs. Like there was the, you know latrine staff. They’d dig all latrine holes and things and there was orderly room staff. They had to look after the pay, all the records and so on but we just ran it as a sort of army unit thing but there wasn’t a lot of surgery going on because no accidents.

Yes.

About 10 percent I think.

Yes there were about 15 doctors, various specialists. The CO [Commanding Officer]was a gynaecologist from north of Sydney, Newcastle.

There were, see x-ray staff. They were medical and nursing staff and so on.

Yes that was a man from Launceston. Atherton.

He’s since died.

I think there was x-ray equipment in Changi at this hospital there but of course, nothing in the prison camps but I think they must have because they had this x-ray. They had a sergeant and another assistant, two of them.

I don’t really know, just old fashioned x-ray stuff I think.

Moderate. There was another officer who was a pharmacist but that wasn’t his job but he used to order the stuff in for us but we couldn’t get a hell of a lot of stuff but fortunately I brought a Martindale’s

Pharmacopeia. There’s one over there, marvellous book. I brought it in KL fortunately, had to pay for it. I mean it should have been given to us automatically, all formula and things. Anyway it was a smaller book then. I had that and I managed to keep it all through the war and when I was, had a bit of spare time, I’d read it all through and I got formulae out of there and bit of guidance of what to do

with this and that.

I s’pose just waiting for something to happen and of course Japan was only brought into the war by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, wasn’t it?

No, was it the same day though as Malaysia? I didn’t think that was.

Yes.

Yes.

Not really, otherwise we’d be captured. You know,

we were in front of them. We were always and as they moved down, we’d move back and so on and there was a lot of fighting. Australians, one Australian Colonel, Anderson, he won the VC [Victoria Cross], marvellous man and he, lot of them think the Australians did nothing. They fought the Japanese very thoroughly and cleaned up a lot of them but of course we were behind that and as the people were wounded, they’d come back

to us.

No.

I don’t know. At one stage I was sent to Singapore for a week

to do a gas course on poison gas and when I went back I had to train these men on how to use a mask and so on if they were using gas but that was part of the training but I don’t remember much more. I’m all a bit hazy.

Yes well CCS was a hospital and we were part of it.

Was a hell of a lot of bombing going on and they had to dig slit trenches wherever

they were and when there was a raid on we had to run and hide in the trenches to try and avoid being bombed and so on.

Yes.

Yes.

I think all we did was to save our necks.

Yes.

I don’t really remember but the wounded would come in any hour of the day or night and you know you’d be working up sometimes at odd hours and so on.

Yes depending on what was happening.

I think just

supplying the operating theatre with whatever they needed from the medicines.

Sometimes. I’d quite often help the doctors anaesthetize somebody and with ether which they had, that stimulates them, the patient very much and they’ll roll off the table, you know and you had to hold them on the table until the ether took

control. Then they’d stop all this rising and they could operate on them but there was a sort of a period under the anaesthesia when they got stimulated and you had to hold them down until the ether had taken proper control, then they could operate.

Yes and try and roll off the table and that sort of thing.

They just, a mask over the face and just drip it out.

Yes gauze mask, awful smell.

I think they were a bit further away than that. Good question. I never thought of that but I don’t think it affected them.

Yes it was pretty terrible.

Yes, nothing upset me at all. I must be a bit hard hearted I think.

Not really.

More antiseptics and that sort of stuff and I might make up, you know aqua flavin solution for sterilising the skin and bandages, whatever you could need, whatever they needed. I don’t really, can’t recall a lot.

Yes we’d just supply it and the orderlies would probably give it under the doctors’ instruction.

I think Atherton and I worked together. He was the other chemist.

No, just ordinary uniform. I think we had a white armband.

I s’pose so yes cause we were a non combatant unit.

Yes I don’t think at that stage we did anything much except we were in this school and I don’t think they’d set up a proper hospital there

but some, the units were split into two. Half of them went to where I did. The other half went to the Cathay theatre and in the Cathay theatre they were actively operating on people but I wasn’t there and there was an awful mess I believe.

I think

this news just sort of got through, you know but I can remember some Japanese coming through, fortunately I think, some of them were brutal and slaughtered a lot of patients and everything in other places, but where I was personally, they just came through. We were all lined up and they were counting us I think and one man stole a, demanded a watch, one of the Japs, from his wrist

and so on but I can’t, we weren’t sort of physically attacked by them.

They just looked pretty rough. I don’t know really. It’s so long ago I can’t remember.

Shouting yes.

Yes I didn’t know what they were going to do to us but I was sort of, you know fairly fortunate where I was.

Well nobody was attacked or beaten up or, I think if you’d tried to do what they didn’t want you to do, well you’d have a hell of a time I think. We just had to obey them, you know. We were all lined up. We had to count and everything how many were there and

so on but the next thing I can remember I think, we were all marching back to Changi barracks. We were out of the heart of Singapore in this school we were.

Yes I think so, not that we could take much but

Yes the Pharmacopeia yes.

Yes I had that book and I s’pose a few, was it clothing and so on? That’s about all. We had a pack on our backs, that’s all, had to carry everything of course.

I think that came later in a Red Cross box. You know, I mean a pannier we called them, big pannier.

Yes.

Not really. We just got ourselves settled on the floor in this Roberts Barracks. I remember we had to go down to the river and get water and cart it up in

drums and, you know drinking water, only what was light we, and they boiled it up but of course the cooks, we had cooks in the unit and they cooked the rice and so on and all we had was rice and stew.

Yes but we didn’t get, we never got sort of normal rations

after the Japs took us.

No I think but the officers in charge may have been told, “You put the men there.” or something or other but we just lay down on the ground and on the floor and I don’t know, I must have had a blanket I s’pose in my pack.

I don’t think so. I hoped not.

Yes

I think he gave us some stupid address about how, but all in Japanese. You know all lined up and so on.

Not much no.

That was so, wasn’t much bashing then I don’t think.

I really don’t remember. It’s so long ago.

Yes.

I think it didn’t matter much as far as I was concerned.

Nobody signed anything I don’t think but the brigadier signed on our behalf under duress.

Yes.

By whom?

Possibly I’m not au fait with all of that.

Yeah you know it of course but I can’t remember.

Yes.

Not that I can remember.

I think so, don’t know what I had but sometimes, whenever we move, this is later. You’d have to unpack all your stuff and put it in front of you and the Japs would have a look and then you’d put it back again.

Whenever you moved from one camp to another they’d search. A bloody nuisance cause you’d all be packed up and everything, then you had to unpack it all, put it on the ground and they’d all be off. You’ve have to hurriedly repack and everything and put it on your back and….

Not much, no but later I can tell you, I’ve got a very interesting

document listing all the medicines, not that we had that many, but the Japanese and their interpretation. Later we’d see something that, a packet of white powder with a label on, well now, then I knew what it was cause I had this dictionary thing I’d made up myself.

I’m afraid I don’t recall very much about it. I can recall I think we’d dug trenches

so that people could urinate and defecate into the trenches and I think we just lay in the ground there and of course we weren’t bombed or anything because the war was over but I can’t remember very much about it.

I suppose

somebody had to, I can’t remember, they probably had to go down to the river and get the water and the cooks must have been working in the background because we had rice and a bit of stew or something or other and they’d be preparing that and I don’t know what we had to drink, I s’pose water but things went on that way but I can’t remember what, we didn’t sort of

do any work apart from necessary jobs I think.

Very closely. I’ve got a very good photograph or drawing I’ll show you later.

Yes there were the,

we had cooks of course and water buffalos in Burma and we might get two water buffalos for say a camp of 3,000 or something, and they’d cook the rice in a metal tin hat thing. You’d have boiled rice and then they’d make the stew and there might be a bit of fragment of vegetable in it and if you got a fragment of meat in this mug of soup

it was an occasion but it was just soup and rice and I think in the mornings we just had rice and water. I can’t remember but we’d all line up and there’d be, the cooks would be dishing out the food and we’d start off and we’d count the number “One, two, three.” sort of thing and when the food, when we were all fed

if there was any food left over, they’d have what they call a backup number which was quite interesting and if it was a better meal on, you’d say “What’s your backup number tonight?” and you could come back and get a second lot until it ran out and to be fair, the next occasion your backup number is a hundred, the next one would be 101 tomorrow so this backup number was quite important, provided

it was worth eating and you’d have, until it really ran out.

Yeah, it’d be different of course on each occasion but that’s true.

I figure

it was white cause it was polished and of course we lost all the vitamin. If it were sort of a brown rice we would have been a heck of a lot healthier but it was just white rice and I don’t know why it was white. I s’pose the Japanese preferred it white and they just had it or something.

No

you couldn’t dare speak to them or anything else. You know it was very, couldn’t do anything like that and they kept well out of the way of course.

Local Malays? I didn’t, no and you had to break through the camp. It was all wired off and you couldn’t get, they couldn’t get into us but occasionally I think in Singapore some of the more daring ones managed to

escape at night under the fence and see some locals and trade a little bit of, a watch or a ring or something or other and they’d get money for that of course and but very risky and if the Japanese caught you, you’d be beaten up and possibly shot for trying to escape.

Not much, not in a personal way, just in groups you know.

I think so. I’m not sure about Changi but there was Boofhead. That was one of them and Blubber Lips, rather protruding lips, think there was Boofhead and Blubber Lips but

I can only recall a couple I think.

Yes.

I think we’d sort of try and make light of some of the things rather than make the worst of them but all along we never thought, we

never gave up hope. I didn’t personally and we’d always be out for Christmas and then out for Easter, you know and was always on and on and on but we never thought we’d be there three and a half years.

Just another day, work. On one occasion I think it was the first

one Anzac Day came around, 25th of April and the officer in charge said “The men can’t work Anzac Day”. Said “All men work, all men work, bugger that.” sort of thing. Anyway and then they explained to the Japanese it was a special day for Australia, Anzac Day. We honour the spirits of the dead soldiers and the Japs said “Oh yeah, the spirits.” and so on and

that, being superstitious sort of buggers. I think we got the day off but that was the only occasion. All the other Anzac Days people worked just the same way.

No.

Really?

Bet he got beaten up.

I don’t think so.

Yes.

Well this is a good story. I’ll tell you this. One of the English speaking guards, after tenko, the counting, came up and said, “Japanese planes are very good.

Japanese planes bomb Darwin.” that was it yeah “Bombed Darwin. Japanese planes boomb, boomb, boomb. They bombed Cairns and Japanese planes bombed somewhere else.” and somebody in the background called out, “Bullshit!” and they said, “Japanese planes come boomb, boomb, bullshit”. That’s a true story.

Or bow to them.

I don’t remember teaching the English but the bowing was frightfully strong. You could be beaten up just for ignoring them. You had to bow

and drop low, you know and I don’t think you ever saluted anyone like you would in Australia but you just had to do this bowing.

Yes they were just beaten probably with a rifle butt or something like that, you know.

We knew it was, you know fateful and you make it worse.

I didn’t see them, no.

Yes, people who attempted to escape. I think, I’ve got some figures later but I think eight tried to escape and they were all murdered

by the Japs.

I don’t know. I think it just reinforced there wasn’t much point trying to escape but of course we were white and the Burmese would put you in, you know, put them in probably for a reward or something or other.

Yes.

Yes A Force, correct.

Well we were marched to the Singapore wharves and the colonel of our unit said, “Browne take some yeast culture with you to Burma.” and there was a large glass bottle and I had this yeast there to take to Burma. It was very good

for vitamin B and we spent about 10 or 12 hours in the blazing heat of the Singapore wharves and we climbed up a rope ladder into the ship and then when we got in the ship we got down into the holds. I’ve got a very good photo to show you, all the men in the holds and next thing, bang and the yeast bottle exploded and gave my friend next to me a nasty cut in the knee

so that was the end of the yeast.

Yes it fermented and so on so that was the end and if you could get up on the deck which was a bit of a problem, you had to defecate, you’d get up on the deck and over the side of the boat there’d be bamboo slats and you’d sit there and defecate into the ocean, was a terrible business.

Yes.

Not by way of travelling anywhere, not that I knew of.

Nobody took much notice of us. I’ve got a different story to tell you about Burma.

I think so.

I don’t know. There’d be about a metre and a half between them and you couldn’t sit up or anything, you just lie flat. You had to crawl in and crawl out. There’d be three layers but the photo’s very good. I can show you a drawing.

Yes it was the hull of the ship and they’d put these floors in and there’d be, you know three and one, two, three, that confined.

It was terrible. I don’t know quite how the dysentery patients got on I’m sure, can’t sort of remember but

it was awful, very smelly.

Yes we had water and I s’pose rice. I think it was about eight days getting to Burma.

Yes.

I think we just talked.

I don’t know. When we were all settled in Burma I got into a little group of intelligent people and we used to talk at night which was very stimulating, very good, about life in

general and they’d travelled and they were educated and so on but a lot of the men, you might be lying, you know all close to each other and they’d say, “How many pubs between Flinders Street and the top of the hill?” or something or other and that was about their intelligence, count the pubs and some about the women they’d ravished and so on. All sorts of rubbish and they had no sort of sensible conversation at all. It was terrible. That’s why I liked to congregate

with some more intelligent people and you could talk to them and avoid this terrible, you know talk the others were going on with.

Yes I think there was dysentery probably and a bit of malaria about.

I think so, mosquitos.

No.

Not on the boat of course but when we got settled in Thanbyuzayat that was about when I think the

Japs sent us quinine there.

Quinine in Thanbyuzayat .

Yes.

I think so.

No they couldn’t have counted them.

It was hot as hell and may have been a bit rough, I don’t know but nobody was seasick I don’t think.

Yes it was different.

We got off the ship and we spent the night in an awful sort of prison and the floor was covered with just metal boulders about the size of a small tennis ball probably and had to lie on there and try and sleep and we were just there for the night and I was bitten with

a scorpion down here in the foot here.

Yes I think a scorpion and I had terrible pain in the foot and of course I was wanting to rest and I had to walk around at night the pain was so bad. Anyway next morning we packed up and started marching through the town of what was it? Moulmein and I’ll never forget this as long as I live.

Here we were, the defeated British army, Australian army, marching through Moulmein. The locals were cheering us and they were cooking food for us and handing it out and the Japanese would make a fuss but anyway it didn’t matter. We got a bit of food. They were also handing out us money and saying, give us a bundle of money and say, “All men.” you know, “Share

it”. We marched through Moulmein. You’d think we were a conquering army and I’ll never forget an elderly woman opened the top window of the house, leant out and shouted out, “God bless you boys.” so, so much for the Burmese. It was outstanding.

I think an Asian.

Yes but I don’t know what food got round but they were cooking, you know they’d run out with this food and so on. There was a big array of men of course. There were

800 or more.

Yes.

I think it was shared up with people yes. They couldn’t give it to everyone. They gave them a bundle and I think they probably said “All men.” you know or something.

Well the Japs were in charge but our officers were there.

Japanese.

Not really. Typical Asians with the shops in the bottom and living upstairs and so on but I don’t remember much but then we marched. I think we got into a train or something and went to Thanbyuzayat .

We arrived at Thanbyuzayat

No.

Yes. I’d heard of Moulmein, Pagoda and all that.

And Noel Coward and…..

Have no idea.

They may have told the officers. We were there to work.

More or less just looking after ourselves in the earlier part. Later they’d sent men to the aerodromes to repair them and that sort of thing and perhaps load ships and so on but they were the ones who were in Changi for a longer period

The Japanese? Very rarely.

Yes I s’pose so.

Well crowded to hell.

I think we must have had certain medical supplies. I don’t know whether the doctors had them in these medical panniers but I don’t know who brought them or who carried them or anything.

To Thanbyuzayat? I s’pose it took, you know a day to get there or something.

No, just went when we were moving.

No they were attap huts built by the natives, you know bamboo. Bamboo slats to sleep on and a roof over your head, all in attap. All the huts were like that all the time.

Might have been perhaps 10 huts

pretty big, you know bigger than the length of this house.

Yes.

Well for a start all the people in it were dressed in uniforms. We just had rags on us and a G string. You know a thing round your waist and it covered your scrotum and so on and that’s all we had. They were over dressed and the background of the film was

the officer in charge of the Australians was pushing them to finish the railway whereas it was the very opposite. They were doing all they could to keep the sick men out from having to work, so that was, gave a very wrong attitude. That’s basically what annoyed me. It was so untrue.

Possibly, it might have been first or second night and made a great speech and so on.

No.

We did have a very good interpreter with us. I don’t know just when he joined us. Captain Drower[?], have you heard of him? Marvellous man.

I’ll tell you a lot about him later, towards the end of the session. Bill Drower, good looking Englishman, perfect Japanese. He was the interpreter. He was with us a fair bit but I don’t know whether he was at Thanbyuzayat or not.

Yes and latterly we had quite a few Dutch from the

Netherlands, East Indies with us.

We didn’t get on with them. They were selfish buggers and the sort of thing they’d do, medical supplies came in and, you know very small amount and we’d divide it. If the Dutch were equal, you’d give them half. If the Dutch were

quarter of the thing, we’d give them a quarter and they always complained they didn’t get enough and so on and in our dispensary place the Dutch came over one night and said, “Can we have aspirin?” Aspirin, “We’ve got a man very sick.” or something and we gave them two or four aspirin or something and somebody went over to the Dutch quarters later and they had a whole lot of aspirin there themselves.

You know they were deceitful and when the vegetables came in we’d divide them up. You know if it was half, half for the Dutch but they’d try and grab a bit extra. You know very greedy and some later stage, we were given some multi vitamins. It wasn’t many and our policy was, the Australians, to keep

them for the people who really needed it and the Dutch would get theirs and give it to everyone in the camp and then probably want some of ours later cause theirs are all gone. That’s what they were like. They were selfish. “The only thing”, Rivett quotes in his book, he was a friend of mine, Rohan Rivett. He quotes in his book “the only thing about the Dutch is giving too little and asking too much”.

Yes.

I thought I was an Australian citizen but I was a part of Britain, why we went to the war, you know to back them up.

They may have been more exclusive to themselves. You know if there were a group of them, they may have stuck to themselves a bit.

Almost at once. Incidentally I was sent out. I think I worked for about four months on the blessed railway and you’d go out in the morning, march for miles and then there’d be a sack there with bamboo poles. You’d fill it with soil and take it somewhere and throw it up or down or something or other and I did that for four or five months. It nearly killed me because I wasn’t used to that sort of work and after that, some word

came through that they wanted the “Yagozachi” that’s “pharmacist” cause there were some “Yagozachi, Y A G O Z A C H I” and I was taken from there back to sort of a base hospital somewhere and from then on, thank God, I worked as a “Yagozachi”

and I didn’t have to do the physical labour cause if I had, I would never have survived it I’m sure.

No.

No, the officers didn’t have to work at that stage. They

did later.

No, they were ordered to work.

Did they volunteer to work?

Yes.

Well that is true. They didn’t work till probably the last year or so. They were forced to work just when things were getting desperate.

I s’pose they thought, “Well they’re officers and that’s it”. You know I don’t think there was any sort of any ill feeling really.

Well it was pretty terrible.

Well we’d get up at dawn and we’d probably be home at dark. Work all day. I think we were given a bit of rice to take with us and

water. We worked all day and we came back at night.

Yes.

I think I did. I was lucky and when they wore out a fellow made me wooden clogs, which was a Godsend.

Yes.

Yes that was sort of a bit later I think, more in the other camps as time went by. This was fairly new in the piece.

Nothing.

They lived in Japanese huts just the same as anyone else.

I think so yes. We had an orderly room sergeant. He used to have to negotiate with the officers and he’d go to the officers’ quarters and give him the figures of how many men we had and all that sort of thing but they were just the same sort of huts but probably more comfortable.

There didn’t seem to be any sunburn. Half of them were naked all day but didn’t seem to be any sunburn. We must have got hardened to it or accustomed to it or something.

No.

I don’t think so.

The Americans, but that’s another story.

About three

I think. There’d be engineers too. Engineers were worse than the guards in a way.

Yes a lot of them.

I think they had, a bit bigger face but I was at a Japanese camp once and over the road, the Japanese were training

the Koreans how to look after us and they were making them run around. They were bashing them up and all that sort of thing and the Japanese gave the Korean guards hell so when they were sent over to us, they did the same to us but they were training them and they hated the Japanese too really but they were sort of dragged into it somehow.

Just a rifle.

They used their rifles butts to bash people up.

No he was probably too

slow or something like that.

Well I wasn’t, when I was out, not then, no. Things were a bit easier then. The pressure wasn’t so strong.

That’s right and towards the end when time was running out, then they got far

worse.

Yes.

Yes just, I don’t know what we were doing even, probably making a bank or something or other, moving the soil from somewhere to somewhere else, might have been the base for the railway or something.

We just kept going really. If you stopped you’d be bashed.

Of course. Marvellous man Coates. At one stage he was very sick with I think, wasn’t malaria, was one of those, dengue fever or something or other and he had a batman, not officially of course. The man was

too sick to work and he was Coates’ batman and he used to look after him as well as he could and as he was so sick. He had this raging fever. He couldn’t work or anything, couldn’t eat but he’d grind up rice for him and he managed to get a bit of sugar or something to put in it and he gave him this pap stuff to keep him going, wonderful man and he,

anyway eventually Coatesy got better but while he was recuperating they’d take him out on a stretcher round to various patients to see him and he kept even working when he was so sick and this is diverting a bit but when he got home, he heard that

his batman’s wife died and he wrote him a very nice letter from Melbourne. Buckley, Ian Buckley was the batman. Buckley’s wife died and Coatesy wrote him a letter of condolence to the batman and Coates came in, what’s his name came into my pharmacy and showed me the letter from Coates. That’s the sort of man he was but he was terrific and he’d be very outspoken to the men,

Coates, and he also instigated autopsies and some of the younger doctors, he’d lecture them and if somebody died, they’d lift the top of his head off and check on the brain and apparently the brain was damaged by the deficiencies and so on and he’d never seen that before and he’d examine the dysentery patients and their intestines

would all be sloughed, all the tissues had come away from the intestine but these autopsies showed this and these conditions were never sort of shown, never evidenced in society because people weren’t starved to death, but he’d do all these autopsies, then he’d lecture the other doctors, younger ones on it which was, you know very stimulating for them. I mean I didn’t have anything to do with it but that’s what Coates did and but I used to work with

him with doing the amputations and apparently we had some dental cocaine tablets, cocaine and they were in a tablet so he knew how much cocaine was in them cause it’s a very potent drug of course and I used to make up the spinal injection and cocaine had never been used in trothecalie, that’s in the spine, never been used before

and Coates tried it out and it worked but we had to make up a heavy saline, four percent saline. How I did it I don’t know but we crystallized salt from the kitchens, then recrystallised it again so it was purer, put it out in the sun to dry and I’d make up this four percent, ordinary saline’s point nine percent. This is four percent so I had to estimate

how much four grams in a hundred mills or something or other. Then we’d put this cocaine tablet in this heavy saline and that formed the anaesthetic and the patient would be sitting up like I am and you’d inject their spine and being heavy, it’d go down to the lower limbs and the men would be paralysed and he could then amputate their legs of course without any pain and it was marvellous

the way it worked and later the only side effect, some of the men would get a headache later. We thought it was from the perhaps the impure salt or something but he was a man to work in a hurry and he’d probably line up three amputations and do them all in the one period and I used to help him with the instruments. We’d boil

up the instruments. He’d do the amputation. I think I’ve got it somewhere, he might do it in five minutes or something. We had of course a saw and then catgut, which we made. He used to catgut to tie the vessels off so they wouldn’t bleed, but we ran out of that and we made our own. Anyway he’d have the leg off in five minutes or so and the men would get

better and probably be quite alright. They could have died later, not from the surgery but from cholera or I mean malaria or something like that. They’d die from another cause and a lot of them are home in Australia still, minus a leg but they were still alive, cause if they didn’t amputate them, they’d have these huge septic ulcers and you get blood poisoning and he used to treat these

leg ulcers by curettage and that was, that’s scraping out all the muck and picture the scene. The men would be lined up outside their hut in a row and next to them would be a large leaf from the jungle and he’d do this curettage and put all the pus and infection and stuff on the leaf and it’d be burnt later and the screams from the men would be heard from afar but

that was curettage and a lot of them either recovered or went on to have a further amputation, depending on how bad it was, cause he did all that and the men, you know backed him up and they said “Get my leg off colonel, I’m in too much pain.” or “these ulcers”, you know but he was a wonderful man and he also, in his spare time, one of the educated members taught him calculus, you know that complicated mathematics.

He did that in his spare time which he didn’t have much and he also had a bit of French and am I talking too much about Coates? Anyway and he had a bit of French and one of the doctors, so-called doctor had learnt a bit of French in Sumatra or somewhere and he used to communicate a bit with him. We’d get a few drugs out but he had remarkable innings, Bert Coates.

In the First War he was a stretcher bearer in, what do you call it? In the Middle East, you know, Turkey, what do you call it?

Gallipoli, I couldn’t think, was a stretcher bearer in Gallipoli. Later he was sent on to France. He escaped Gallipoli

alive. He was sent to France and he worked there as a medical orderly and at one stage he was discussing problems with a doctor, the two doctors about something and they said “Go out and get something or other for me, we want that.” so Coates left that. When he came back the two doctors had all been killed and he would have been killed too. He escaped that and thirdly, the British knew he was rather

fluent in French and German and they employed him as a, behind the lines, as an advocate, as a what do you call it? As a, anyway the Germans were trying to poison water for the French, the allies and he got onto that and eventually somebody, the English caught him and didn’t know he was an Australian.

They thought he was a German spy or something and they threw him into jail and he was due to be shot the next day. This is all true and then later the British army were marching through and he, Australian army and he got a sheet and waved it of the, outside this jail or something or other, through the window and they came in and got him cause he would have been shot that day

so he had three escapes from life, from being shot. Amazing story. It’s all true.

Yes.

In Burma and Thailand, I forget then.

Yes, no I only met him in prison camp

but I used to meet him after the war at the Melbourne Rotary Club. He’d say “Well Browne, how are you?” We’d have a chat, you know, very nice man but he was a brilliant surgeon.

Yes, not the autopsies, no, only the amputations.

No.

No just doctors only.

Incidentally I used to assist him by sterilising all the instruments and on one occasion we had some artery forceps and he said “They’re no good.” and he threw them on the ground and of course he was thinking he was in the Royal Melbourne Hospital. There wasn’t another pair. It was the only pair

there was so I had to rush and grab them, re-boil them and sterilise them again and give them back to him and I’d be re-boiling them. He’d say “That’s enough, that’s enough”. He was impatient to get on with the amputation. He was that sort of, a very quick worker.

Just ordinary carpenter saw I think.

Possibly.

Crystallized salt, but we were given a certain amount of supply. How we got the cocaine? They were for, the Japanese had the cocaine for dental extractions, dentists used and if a Japanese ever came in with toothache, they’d always say “No anaesthetic.” and the dentist, Stuart Simpson this friend of mine who’s still alive, would pull the tooth and the Japanese would scream and they’d always used to say what terrible

dentists the Australians were and on one occasion Stuart Simpson’s orderly had been over and got some cocaine tablets in his pocket and the Japs came in and of course he had the cocaine. They didn’t know and they pulled his teeth without the anaesthetic.

I don’t think so. I think they just said “no anaesthetic”. If there was a bad tooth

they’d just have to put up with it.

Yes a certain amount came through. It was split up amongst the various camps. Later they had many camps but we always had quinine where possible for the malaria cause they would have died without it, you know, quinine.

Pretty good, it controlled the raging fever of malaria.

I don’t think, they may have been taking it daily for prophylaxis so they wouldn’t get the malaria, if we had enough I think.

Yes and if they weren’t amputated, pain would be terrible. They’d also die of blood poisoning so, I said before some of them begged him

to take his leg off.

No just out in the open air.

No, I mean just the attap huts, beds lying in there. You wouldn’t know if it was any different from the ordinary huts.

Yes, there’d be the dysentery ward so people didn’t catch it and then perhaps the malaria ward

or something.

No.

I s’pose so. They’d hear it.

No.

I

think so yes. I’d never watch it particularly but my job was to sterilise all the instruments and have them handy when he wanted them but the strangest thing was that there are two sorts of nerves. There’s the motor nerve and the sensory and the sensory nerves were numbed with the cocaine but the motor weren’t so a fellow could have lifted his leg up if he wanted to. He could still move it. It’s a strange thing so it was,

, they also did gall bladders and other operations with the cocaine as well.

Very good.

I don’t think so but of course they were lying back, you know but they may have covered their eyes. I don’t know. I can’t remember.

No it just depends where it is, above the knee or below the knee, just depends on where the ulcer is probably, where the infection’s got up to and after of course the leg’s removed, you get this post operative pain, thinking your leg’s still there, you know.

I don’t know, it just must be the nerves I think.

I don’t think so but the point’s made, it’s strange, you think with anaesthetic, you couldn’t do anything.

Yes.

I s’pose the orderlies just burnt them

highly infective probably but with all this amputation, there was no talk of the Golden Staph.

No doctor’s gloves but they had sterilised water hung up in a tin or something and your doctor would wash his hands with the clean water and then operate, no infection, whereas these days it’s everywhere.

I think just the technique of washing

everything and sterilising everything and just the open air I s’pose.

I really don’t know. They seemed to heal up remarkably rapidly, probably gauze. At one stage,

I’m digressing a bit but in one camp we were near a rubber plantation and we got permission from the Japanese and two men and myself went out and we tapped the latex from the rubber tree at the base of the rubber tree, tapped it out in the early morning when the cups were filled and we’d take it back to the camp and we found that adding, we had some formalin, adding

formalin to the latex stopped it jellying like rubber but later it would jell in the skin so with that rubber latex we could put a bandage on like that, a sore or an ulcer and put the latex round the side and it’d make it’s own Elastoplast as it were.

Yes so that was very useful and when we were out there, a Japanese

guard was with us of course with a rifle and so on and a prostitute from a nearby brothel came over and spoke to the guard and chatted him up and I think she must have said “Who were we?” or something and she explained I s’pose it was a war and do you know what she did? She said, must have spoken to him. She sent him down to a nearby little village. We had to stay there with her and he brought us

about six crumpets or something, like round crumpets, food, so I was very impressed. How, you can’t get much lower than a Japanese prostitute, camp follower. She had the heart of a woman and she brought us this food. True story and when we went back to the camp we told Major Fisher, who was a rather stuffy fellow, one of the doctors, how we’d met this glamorous woman. She had lipstick on and everything.

and he was wild he didn’t come out in the party to get the rubber.

Yes with a knife. They slash the tree and the latex runs down and they put a

cup in the bottom, in the appropriate position where the cup finishes and the latex just runs into the cup and they’re already filled of course in the early morning so we just empty the cup.

I think it’s the profession, the rubber latex but I don’t know about, ,one of the Dutch people may have known about the formalin. I don’t know who told

us.

It’s really an antiseptic formaldehyde, pretty strong stuff. It would burn your skin if you don’t look out.

Yes liquid, it’s a liquid.

Yes.

No.

Yeah but

there were English hospitals here and there and as the Japanese went through, they’d probably raid them and give what they didn’t want to us. That’s how we got, and also in one of the camps there was an English library and the doctors, this is the only, they asked for toilet paper, you know which is just stupid really. You used leaves but they sent us all these books for paper and

they were very good of course. There was some good books and we handed them all round to the men and some of them made very good reading so that’s how we got the books, was probably the same way we got the drugs, through these vacated English hospitals.

Yeah.

Well the

ordinary catgut ran out. Well they’d have the water buffalos, our source of food and they’d get the intestines of the water buffalo and they’d thoroughly wash it and dry it and dry it on racks by the fires near the kitchen and after it had dried, they’d get it and twist it round and make it sort of

might be a flat side of an intestine. They’d twist it round and make it into gut and that was the gut but what we’d do, we had tincture, we had iodine crystals and potassium iodine makes it soluble and I used to make up tincture of iodine with the potassium iodide and the iodine. No scales, just judgement and there were

secret stills in the kitchen area somewhere, the Japanese never knew and alcohol was made by fermenting rice and sugar. Sugar was very scarce and they’d distil the alcohol and first off, it’d come about 60 percent and they could redistill it and it’d come 90 percent so we used the alcohol to sterilise the

skin and also make tincture of iodine. That’s very good to prep the skin, you know before they cut you open and so on so that’s how we got the alcohol and then the catgut would be immersed about 10 days in this tincture of iodine, thoroughly sterilise it and then if you left it too long, it’d get a bit brittle so we’d take it out and put it in pure alcohol

then for storage and that was the catgut. It worked.

We must have had certain bottles I s’pose or something or other. I don’t know but I s’pose, I think we just had a certain bottle. It might have been, you know full of food or something or other. I don’t know quite how we got them.

No well they weren’t. I mean they’d make a hell of a stink if they were but it might have been, they might have confused it with the cooking and the kitchen and that. It may have been disguised. I really don’t know and of course they’d have to have the still. They’d have to have cold water running through; you know to condense the alcohol.

Yes but I don’t think they were particularly interested in the kitchens and I had some other point about that. Yes one of the men that ran the still was a fellow called Hugh Hodge, a school master from Malaysia, nice fellow. He was in charge of the still and sometimes, occasionally he’d come over to a group I had and we’d, with a small bottle of crucian salts, full of alcohol.

You know what a little bottle of crucian salts? About this tall, you know a little brown bottle.

No, anyway it was an empty bottle of course and he’d have that and he’d share this alcohol among us and it promoted some good conversation.

Yes.

Might have been 60 percent I s’pose or something like that.

No it just

cheered us up a bit. There’d be about four or five. We wouldn’t have had much each of course but he was very good. He didn’t overdo it. He’d just pinch a bit when they were distilling it I think and bring it over.

I don’t think so. I don’t recall. They just sort of got better and they probably, a lot of them were glad to be rid of a frightful pain they had with this septic ankle, whatever it was or shin, mostly on the shin.

Yes.

Yes I think so because they couldn’t hardly work with, you know and originally they’d just be on crutches but later they made wooden legs out of wood, you know and they’d end up with a wooden leg so they had two legs then.

I’m not aware of it.

I don’t really know. There was certain wood with some of the buildings, whether they got a bit of that I don’t know.

I don’t really, no. That was sort of remote from me. I didn’t sort of come into that part of it. Some of the other men may know a lot more about it. I don’t know.

Yes.

Just by skill and instinct. You palpate the body, you know and there are a lot of symptoms of course and it’d be symptomatic and also feeling and they’re all pretty thin. You could probably feel the organs

pretty well, you know by palpating their stomach.

Yes there were appendectomies done.

With the catgut.

Yes and the

number of deaths resulting from surgery remarkably low but they would subsequently die from some other condition.

I don’t really know. I think they just put up with it. There was very little aspirin around or anything like that.

They may have given them aspirin for a certain time but they’d be then back in this surgical ward and I wouldn’t have anything to do with them really.

Yes there was a thing called Vlemyks solution.

“V L E M Y K S” I think

V L E M Y K S solution.

Yes Vlemyks solution and it’s lime and sulphur and I discovered a suggested formulae in that Martindale I had, that book and you’d boil up lime and we did get a certain amount of sulphur. That’s yellow sulphur, not sulphanilamide, yellow sulphur and it’d make this browney stuff and

it was very good for tinea and you’d paint people’s bottoms or they’d get scrotal tinea here and with a Vlemyks solution and it was useful for that and they’d go round with a bright yellow bottom some of them. That was one of the things we used to make up and we were given some axle grease and we could make up some ointments with some of that. I just forget what we put into,

may have had a bit of some acidic acid or something for fungus infections.

Lime, it’s I s’pose building lime.

No, you know that white garden lime.

I don’t know where. There must have been some sort of building the Japs may have had somewhere. I don’t know where they got the lime but we got the lime and the sulphur and managed to make up the Vlemyks.

Yes.

No I don’t really.

Injected it into the spine.

Yes, syringes and very few of them, might only have two or three or something or other. You’d need a long needle to get into the spine, an intermuscular needle but it worked very well cause of course the cocaine’s soluble so it was just a solution like saline with cocaine in it.

But they’d be boiled up in between the next patient, you know.

Yes.

I don’t know. They were pretty careful with things.

I think some glass, some metal.

Yes.

I think we just had it in the dispensary I think, cocaine tablets

put away somewhere.

No, well just a bench with stuff around, you know, bamboo. I haven’t mentioned the cholera have I?

Do you want to deal with that?

Yes cholera’s a frightful disease and people will have 60 motions

a day, literally, just fluid and the result is parts of the bowel get sloughed off and you pass it and then you die but you get dehydrated terribly and the only solution is to re-hydrate you which you can do with normal saline infusions and that’s where the still came in. I’d forgotten. We’d have the sterilised water. We’d have the salt. We’d make up normal saline and we must have

had a few rubber tubes and needles and you’d run in this infusion of normal saline into the arm to re-hydrate the dysentery patients and some of them eventually recovered with this dehydration but if you didn’t re-hydrate them, they’d just be dead with lack of fluid and so on, very fatal disease and very catching and the doctors instructed

all the men to wash their dishes if possible in boiling water every time they’d eaten to keep them sterilised so they wouldn’t catch the cholera cause it’s an infectious disease and of course the natives had cholera and sometimes we’d go into a camp where the natives had been, left all their cholera bugs around. There were men who got reinfected with the native cholera.

Not generally, no, might have to be carried up from a river, you know a while further away.

Yes I think the river water was pretty right provided there was no Asian

cholera huts just above it, you know and the natives of course would defecate anywhere in the river or anything and spread it but…

Yes.

I think there

was enough containers and things.

Yes.

No.

Yes, there was a certain amount of equipment and they had the big intravenous needles, probably came from one of the hospitals and the rubber tubing.

Yes and when we made up the saline, being point nine percent, like the same as the sea water or they call it hisitonic, we’d put them in a water bath of course and boil it all up so it’s sterilised. I mean you can’t put in un-sterilised stuff into the bloodstream so they were sterilised so it was sterile saline

run in.

It did work but some cases of course were too bad and they were hopeless but others were saved by it.

Probably.

No but I’ll tell you we had one case of smallpox and this is interesting…..

There was one case of smallpox and Japanese of course are terrified of disease. They’re like children, frightened, so they built a compound and put this poor fellow in this bamboo compound, isolated and somebody must have come in to do what they could to help him and it was worked out that he was a naval rating from Britain who’d missed his vaccination

and the smallpox vaccine, probably from the natives, picked out this one man from 3,000 in the camp and it proves the efficacy of vaccination and the Japanese who hated this Captain Drower, the interpreter, they stuck him in with the sick smallpox man, hoping he’d catch the smallpox. It was a rotten thing to do, wasn’t it, but he didn’t fortunately. He’d probably been immunised

anyway.

I don’t know really but I think outside their rooms there they’d have a bowl or something of antiseptic and they’d probably wash their hands or feet in it or something before they came in but I don’t know but they were sort of terrified of disease.

Occasionally. I think my friend what’s his name? The doctor? Not Coates, Bert Coates, Colonel Coates yes. Bert Coates, he was called towards the end of the war by some Japanese and a Japanese so-called doctor

had tried to remove an appendix and they took this doctor, must have been near the end of the war. They took him down to Bangkok, was fairly close then and I think Coatesy operated on the man with great success and he was cured alright but apparently this Japanese doctor had no idea what he was trying to do and he opened him up all in the wrong place and everything and Coates says in one of his books

how ignorant he was. He didn’t even know how to start the appendix surgery. But occasionally they would do that but they had to be careful of course. If they made a fatal mistake and the patient died, there’d be a hell of a stink.

No.

And another doctor, Major Hobbs, he came to me one day and he said the Japanese wanted him to give him an injection but Hobbs had the sense, he wanted to know what he was going to give him in case he killed him so he brought the thing to me and it was an ampoule about that big and we didn’t know what it was and we got a Japanese who spoke a bit of English

and he drew a picture of grapes and it was grape sugar, 10 percent glucose and he wanted a shot of that before he went to the brothel, make him strong so Hobbs reckoned it’d be alright to give him that. It was glucose, wouldn’t have hurt so he gave him the shot and I think he got a few cigarettes out of the Jap and sometimes they used to give us something like that.

None, just psychological but, you know but glucose in sugar and energy, you know.

Good question. Nothing but I mean but if possible, bananas which we could buy

with a small amount of money or eggs and sometimes we could get eggs and we’d give the men say two eggs a day for a few days to just get them over it, but it’s amazing. There was this cardiac beri beri and people would come back from the hospital, from up the rail there working day and night with this cardiac beri beri and they’d go “ooogh, ooogh, ooogh” most awful noise and there was a certain amount of Marmite,

only a very small amount, a jar, may have got it from somewhere or other and I’d give him a couple of spoons of Marmite and a drink of water two or three times and by next morning all the cardiac beri beri would have settled and he’d be breathing normally. It’s amazing so I’ve always had great respect for vitamins after that but of course you couldn’t keep it up cause there wasn’t enough and possibly they may have continued with

eggs then, give him two eggs a day or something. We had a little bit of money and you could buy a certain amount of food and stuff but, officially.

No they paid us.

Yes and they paid the officers

so much, officers more than the men. We’d get paid. I’ve got Japanese money somewhere in that bag there I brought home but we would get paid and some of the traders would sneak out, risk their lives and perhaps get a watch and come back with a whole lot of money and at one stage I borrowed some money, this is towards the end, from a fellow and said I’d pay him back in Australian money when I

got home which I did. I forget what it was now but in one of the camps, vegetables would come in probably twice a week or something, come in a big cart with all green stuff and that and that was permitted of course by the Japanese and we’d buy it from the Japanese, from the Burmese with the Japanese money and one of the men

that supplied us was a very fine man, Boon Pong, B O O N Pong and he’d supply the vegetables and sometimes he’d get medication and he’d hide the medication under the greens and that and risk his life cause the Japanese would have tortured him or beaten him up and he used to try and get, when he could, medicine, things like

Iodaform, you ever heard of it? I O D A form. Iodaform, marvellous for tropical ulcers. You could dust it on and it’d help the ulcer heal from the edge and sometimes if he’d get Iodaform he’d send it into the camp, have to buy it of course. He’d use his money and let us get a few drugs and he did this for some time and it was a great help

and after the war the King honoured him with a decoration for saving the, helping to save the prisoners of war.

Did they declare war on Britain?

Did they?

Well incidentally this Boon Pong, I think Colonel, Weary Dunlop is it Dunlop? When he got home, Dunlop set up a fund, the Boon Pong fund and he got lots of POWs and people to send, give money to this fund, Boon Pong, in honour of this man Boon Pong who’d been brave and helping us and this Boon Pong

fund set up by Dunlop, that would bring one Thai surgeon to Perth, WA was the closest and he’d train them for 12 months or something and send them back to do better surgery in Thailand and that, I think that went on for some years, this Boon Pong fund.

So that’s the sort of thing Dunlop did. He was very good. He used to go back to Thailand, changing the subject but Weary

Dunlop, he’d go back there instructing the doctors there and surgery.

No, I think it’s a derivative. It’s a yellow powder, just looks like sulphur. It has a very strange smell, very powerful smell.

No it really, highly, it made

I think it’s possibly an iodine derivative but it’s a straight germicide, kills the germs.

I don’t think we had any bugs. There’d be more,

you know maggots I think, maggots.

I don’t really know. They’d be a pretty unpleasant thing to have maggots crawling up you. They probably did a bit of good in a way, devouring the crook tissue.

Yes but I’m not sure what happened about that. I wasn’t sort of actively nursing in the wards. I was just sort of in the background.

If you struck somebody who’d worked in the wards, somebody you might be interviewing, they’d probably be much better informed than I am.

No I don’t think I saw any leeches in Burma, might have been.

Did they what?

I didn’t, no. Part of your bowel, could be half the size of your hand. A bit of bowel would come through with the motions, just sloughed off.

Yes vitamin yes, that would affect the brain too, pellagra.

No.

The doctors, but apparently the pellagra and sends you a bit dippy too, a bit cranky.

I think there were a few but I have been asked “Was there any homosexuality about?” Well we were all too buggered to be bothered, you know but that never occurred but these days, you know it’s so rife isn’t it?

Yeh, no suggestion although I think one of the Japs tried to get somebody to buggerise him or something. I think he was shot I think.

Japanese shot him. I think he had that and I’ve written that in one of the books I think. He had that in mind to bugger him, whatever they do,

but I think he shot him.

Yes on a POW.

No I mean the Jap concerned shot him.

I think he was sort of, what’s the word? Prostituting him, I mean to say would he agree to be buggerised or something and he said he wouldn’t.

so he shot him. That’s only one incident, pretty rare but I meant the other things between the men prisoners, no talk of it even.

That’s probably why they, yes, I’m sorry, carry on.

The what?

Yes

fairly close to the camp. They had, a lot of them were poor bloody Koreans I think. They pinched them from Korea and sent them down to satisfy the troops.

But that’s the only contact I’d ever heard of them, you know when this woman came over to talk to the Jap guard.

Not really except she was a female and I s‘pose she

wasn’t that ugly. I don’t, I can’t recall but we sort of stretched it a bit, you know and said “This glamorous woman was there.” but it wasn’t a kind thought she had.

We didn’t see any local women, never.

Never, no.

No, there was no contact with the Burmese

except if you were brave enough, you could sneak through a barbed wire at night and, you know try and buy something or sell something with Thai money.

Yes, yes.

I don’t know, I can say but when the war finished

we were in Bangkok, near Bangkok, a friend and I went to Bangkok on leave and we went to a striptease act in Bangkok and who should be in the front seat of the theatre but one of the padres and these girls would get up and dance in front of you and some of the men would throw down some money, then they’d give a bit of a jig in front of them and so on and then they’d strip off, you know

the striptease show and after that we went and had raspberries and cream, was a great treat and on the way back to the camp I started to feel crook and I came out in a terrible rash and all over my body and I was hospitalised I was that crook and it was the raspberries. I was grossly allergic to raspberries but all my friends said it wasn’t that. It was the striptease act that caused it

cause that’s when peace was declared of course. That’s one of the lighter sides.

Yes.

I’m not aware of it but this is, I’m glad you brought that up because in those days a May and Baker six ninety three, you ever heard of it? M and B six ninety three, it’s a sulphonamide, sulphanilamide and that was specific then for VD and the Japs of course were mad on getting May and Baker six ninety three and some time

we may have had a few tablets or something and they were a round tablet, M and B six ninety three and one of the smart guys got one of these tablets and he got a piece of wood and cut it out just the same as the M and B six ninety three and he managed to scratch in M and B 693, have to be in reverse or something, very clever and they got plaster of paris and he made these M and B six ninety three tablets and they looked really quite good and he sold them to the Japs for a fortune

but that’s a true story. I had nothing to do with it but it did occur. They made, that’s one of the inventive things.

And I think it’s said that it was a pretty serious thing if the Japanese got VD and I think possibly some

were shot because they got the VD so they were very careful. I s’pose they had condoms and so on.

Somehow we had some, yes,

all sorts of stuff we had, funny things. That will come later anyway.

Theft?

I don’t think so.

Sometimes possibly they may have stolen stuff from dead bodies or something, you know that sort of thing but it wasn’t too bad. It was a pretty awful thing to do and I don’t think it much, might have been a bit of theft going on.

No, they just dug trenches or threw them in, you know.

I think a sort of tentative thing. I think they may have sounded a last trumpet or something or other. I don’t know but

I think there were certain, they did have padres.

Mildly but I used to chat to one of the padres, something to sort of talk about and I was brought up as a Congregationalist. We used to go to church regularly, my parents and I used to go to Sunday school but I struck this padre and he’d

tell me all about the Church of England cause I rather liked the slightly higher glamour of the Church of England, their clothing and so on and he used to tell me all about the religion, the details of the Church of England, the garments they wore, what was the significance of it and West End and the chapels and all this sort of thing. We used to talk religion a bit and

but I may have gone to the odd service if they had one but they were a pretty decent lot the padres and, you know of course a bible’s a bible and it’s very good, thin paper and the padres would have a bible probably and they gave it to the fellers and they could split the paper, which was pretty thin, into two,

to get two bits out of it, make cigarette paper and the padres did that thinking it would help the men which is fairly broad minded I think.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

No and there were, you know a few cigarettes. The Japs would have them of course and sometimes they’d give you some if you’d done something for them like pulling a tooth or something like that, you know.

No but I think there might have been some local

tobacco, you know in leaves.

Yeah and they’d be dried leaves and they’d come out like a, a bit like a parsnip, you know all dried and you’d shave it off and you could put that into a cigarette. That was, I think some, I was never interested because I wasn’t a smoker but I think they’d have these, you imagine a parsnip. It was full of tobacco leaf, you know it’d be solid and they’d shave

bits off and use that as a sort of tobacco.

Yes, you’d need something to roll it in, yes, the paper and the bible apparently is a good paper for it.

Yes. I have no idea. I often wonder about that. I don’t know how we ever shaved. I s’pose I had a razor because otherwise I’d have a beard down to here.

No, it’s a funny thing. I, we must have had some sort of shaving thing, razor. I did have a cutthroat. Whether I managed

to keep it or not?

Otherwise we’d all be, I don’t know how we got rid of our whiskers.

No, no.

Just because you’d done something

for them, like, trying to think, what they might want done.

I don’t think. I think they were well vaccinated, probably some sort of, they’d probably give them to the doctors if they had given them some treatment or something like that but they wouldn’t, you know

give it out to anyone. I can’t think what they might have done.

Very few but I think the Koreans were the worst I think but some of the Japanese, like one or two weren’t too bad.

I don’t think so.

He was a prisoner of war and he was a journalist and for some reason he managed to get himself made a temporary officer which meant he didn’t have to work as much

as the others and the people rather resented him because he really wasn’t a proper officer. He got that rank through one of the brigadiers or something or other. Anyway he’d been to Oxford and he was a bit left. Tended to be a bit communistic, like all those people were in that era and he was the funniest looking fellow but he was interesting and well educated and interested me because,

you know it was nice to speak with somebody worth talking to, you know. Anyway I ended up bringing his book home.

Well he had notes. We weren’t allowed to keep any notes of any sort or any written material and I’ve got a book here somewhere, a medical book and it had a Japanese stamp on it. That was passed. I was allowed to take it

but anyway he had all these notes about what happened and they were the guts of this book and he gave them to me and I risked my life by bringing them home and I had a small medical pannier a bit bigger than the top of that table and it had handles either end and there were sort of medicines and stuff we’d carry round, drugs and things and I got an English coffin maker

to put a false bottom in this pannier, about that big and in this bottom, underneath the thing, I put his papers and fortunately it wasn’t detected, otherwise I would have been beaten up and so on and so forth. Anyway after the war he, I think I told you, I didn’t get home till the November. He had some influence of people in India and they flew him straight to India

and then he got home and he started ringing my father “Where’s Bevan? I want my book, want my book”. Father got sick of him. He kept ringing up all the time. Anyway eventually when I got home, I rang him up. I said “I’ve got your book here, your papers.” so I posted them over to him and he wrote his book.

I think ordinary paper. See we were given paper by the Japanese to record the number of men and so on, you know. There was paper like that so he possibly got some paper from the Japanese office. I don’t know how he got it but it was ordinary paper and

I s’pose he had a, I don’t know how, I wrote notes through the war. I don’t know quite how we had pens or what.

Really don’t know.

Maybe.

Yes.

A pretty small one but and then here, see I wrote this or somebody else did. I don’t know what they used. You said “What did you use?” you see and this is the drugs we got and there’s a bit of stuff came through there but that was ’44. See the war was nearly over, but who’s written that and what have they used?

But see, why I got that out, I don’t know how I wrote all that. Of course I wrote that when I got home but this has all been written up, look.

’45 see the war was still on so I don’t know. Is that a pencil? Perhaps it is.

We were friendly and he asked me how could he get them home or something. I said “Well I’ll try and stick them in the bottom of my pannier”.

I think, yes.

Yes, I don’t know who did but his father was Sir David Rivett, rather a big shot. He had influence with the government and that and he was flown to India pretty soon after and he got home very quickly by plane.

That’s right. We weren’t together.

The officers and he was supposed to be an officer, he was sent separately to another part. When the war finished all the officers were sent away about six months before or three months before the war finished and Rivett was in this officers’ camp, out of Bangkok somewhere and we were back in Kamakan[?] or somewhere so I was nowhere near him when the war finished.

No he gave them to me to bring home.

Can you follow me?

And why he didn’t take them, see he was miles away in this other camp and I s’pose you never thought of, I don’t know how he would have got to me somehow cause I was in a camp on the other side of Bangkok.

Wooden.

Wooden pannier.

And we were allowed to take that and the Japs may have looked inside it or seen whatever I had and I hoped to death that’s all they saw, you know.

I think we had to just show them what it was or something, I don’t know.

Yes I was a bit anxious but it looked alright.

Yes that’s true. Terrible to, and a book, cameras were frightful or anything like that and radio, yes you’d be tortured and everything.

Well I didn’t see him until November and I presume his writing,

he couldn’t have started his book from November could he, cause that’s when he got his papers.

Well that was probably in ’43 or something like that.

Oh yes, yes.

Yes

it is, yes and after the war I used to see him. He asked me to dinner in Adelaide once when I was there and Don Bradman was there and I didn’t quite know who the hell he was for a while. I wasn’t much of a cricketer but it was a great treat for me to meet Bradman but he died fairly young, Rivett. I’ve got a note from his wife when he died.

1948, 1978 he died.

Yes quite a few. I might tell you later

perhaps.

But Patrick Levy was a good friend. Incidentally while we’re on Rivett, he went to Russia with this university group and he’d say “A marvellous place, Russia.” cause he was a bit communistic so on and everything was “glucis”. The Russians must have turned it on for a vet and Patrick Levy, another close friend, he went on a private tour to Russia and said they were a lot of bastards and

he said he never saw an egg or anything and they all laid on eggs and bacon for Rivett and he’d give a talk to the men and then Levy would come later, the next week or something and give another talk, be all the opposite from Rivett’s, cause they were different attitudes.

Yes.

Yes.

Good question, yes. My Uncle was a Gallipoli veteran and he had a shot in his head and so on but he lived to quite some age after Gallipoli but he was in the Gallipoli

campaign.

Yes I’ve talked to him but it’s a long while ago of course. We didn’t talk much about Gallipoli but he was in there and he was an uncle, father’s brother.

I don’t think so.

No cause we were there such a brief time, only about three or four months, so we’d moved off. I’ve got a good friend, Griffin, heard of Griffin? He was the Lord Mayor of Sydney, quite a distinguished man. He ran some of that but, David Griffin, but I’d gone then on the Burma-Thai railway.

No.

Griffin incidentally was on television a while back about the early days of Changi. He’s still alive of course.

Not in Singapore, in KL.

Yes.

I think it was a complete surprise, best thing that ever happened really cause it brought America in on our side and before they were not against us. They weren’t even with us.

No.

Yes, that’s a good question. I have no idea. It must have been anticipated.

Yes fortifications were made many years ago I think, just in case.

Constant bombing, day and night, terrible bombing and don’t know how we weren’t hit. Where we were must have been safe or something but there was bombing constantly, terribly noisy and very

disturbing.

Yes, smoke and bombs and lights and things, yes.

That’s a good statement, chaos and confusion. I’d agree with that.

Well where we were, I explained earlier

we were split into two and one of, half our unit went to one hospital. They did quite a bit of operating and our second one we were split into didn’t do much at all and we were in a high school, a little bit out of the centre of the city so we were spared any surgery. I don’t think we did anything much, just waited for things to happen.

I thought it was all over.

Yes.

I don’t know about people around us. I didn’t sort of; we weren’t in contact with anyone else much particularly.

I heard they were very good fighters and they were intrepid and unusual. They rode on bicycles as we said before but the Australians fought them very well and contrary to what a lot of people think, there was a lot of active fighting with Australians versus the Japanese on the way down and a lot of it

was very successful.

Not really, no.

I don’t think so. I came in with a group of Australians. We moved into Changi and I think we more or less stuck to ourselves. May have been a few British there but at that stage there were no Dutch there at all. They were all in Sumatra or somewhere.

I don’t think so.

I think there was a medical area there but there wasn’t much going on there because nobody at that stage was

particularly sick. They were all fit, you know and they’d had a good army diet for years and so on. They were alright so there wasn’t much sickness in this brief period we had in Changi.

The what?

Yes, I

don’t think at that stage many of them had gone out but later a lot of them did of course but we were, by that time we’d been sent to Burma.

Japanese guards? I don’t think we saw the second wave.

This is all in Changi.

I don’t think we’d experienced much of it by then.

No.

We’d never thought of it.

It was a very different story

when they flew from Burma to Japan of course, terrible, many were sunk and killed, you know but nothing like that, was no talk of British attacking this boat, thank God.

No that never, and even later the Japanese had no

type of, Japanese, lots of good friends of mine were killed on the way to Japan but no marking of the ships or anything else.

Yes and at one stage in Burma or Thailand we were divided into two groups. One went to Japan, one stayed there and we were divided in two and I couldn’t have looked too fit so I

was in the back row and I wasn’t sent to Japan but the others were and many of them, good friends, were killed, drowned I presume. The Americans sunk the ship because they had no marking on it.

I gather fitness. They had to work in Japan on the coalmines and so on.

Yes that was after about, I don’t know, two or three years in the railway. They split us up then but there was still work to be done on the railway.

The what?

No, personally because being a pharmacist I didn’t have to go out and fortunately, that’s why I’m here today. I would have been dead otherwise but I’m told by friends that the elephants were very meticulous, careful not to tread on the men, lovely animals.

They probably were tougher. I think the Australians might have been tougher and they put up with more. I would say that. The British may have given in a bit more easily. I’m not anti British, but I think that’s so.

I think the British were, tended to be a bit sort of dirtier, not try and keep as fit as we did. Not that we could keep fit anyway but that was the general impression, that the British were a bit sort of slack in the cleanliness area.

Possibly less.

Beg your pardon?

Yes, I hadn’t heard that but I’d believe it.

Yes.

Really?

Really? How frightful.

No,

no, no.

A reasonable amount but of course they were for the Japanese on whom we didn’t use them. They were for pulling their teeth out and we had a reasonable supply and they did things other than the amputations. They did gallbladders with the same thing and appendicectomies and so on and a wide

range of surgery. The cocaine was marvellous for that but what was your question?

We had sufficient. I’d never seen any brutal non surgical interventions.

Well it’s an extraordinary thing but I don’t think, I never struck any particular complications and I say, there was no post operative stress or infection or anything else. How they healed the wound or not may have been they dressed it and so on but it all went remarkably well. There may have been post operative traumas in the patients with this pain. They think their leg’s on and it still isn’t. How they treat that, God only knows.

I don’t know. They probably just put up with it. A lot was just suffering.

As far as I know, not one, not one and post operative, there were no terrible infections like you have even in Australia now. There weren’t any and

anyway they all seemed to either heal up or disappear or something. I don’t know.

It is amazing but of course all through the procedure, the doctors were using sterile methods, washing hands in sterile water, so on and so forth, boiling everything. It was all done aseptically. That may have been the answer and the Golden Staph I s’pose was still in Sydney or somewhere, London

or something.

I don’t think so. Most were glad to get rid of this terrible wound. It was killing them with pain. They’d say “Please doctor get my leg off”. It’s a fact.

Really? Tell me.

Really?

30 people? I had no idea of that. We had nothing like that. I don’t think there was one death I can attribute to amputations.

Yes.

Really?

That’s a very good thing. Can I tell you something now?

I give a talk to schools and different Rotary Clubs and things. “The mind rules the body.” and I reckon that’s

pretty true. There was an American sergeant who’d been captured by the Japanese, top sergeant in the American Navy. Imagine what he was like and he’d been bashed by the Japanese for some trivial offence, had never happened to him in his life. He was bashed by the Japanese and he went into decline and he died and the doctor said he had no disease state which is

my argument, “The mind rules the body”. He lost the will to live and he died, so there you are.

Yes and I think the men, perhaps the wife and children at home, are more determined to live because it’s a lot of, you know, other factors and so on but the mind does rule the body and if you’re brave enough to keep going,

you might survive, otherwise you’ll die.

I think the hope of returning to their wife and family and kids and the war would end soon. We always thought it would be over by Easter, over by Christmas, as I’ve told you, over by next Easter, next Christmas.

Yes. I’ve always been optimistic, all my life and I always hope, wife’s a bit, said “Something might happen.” but I’m always more optimistic than she is.

I don’t think frankly anyone bothered to help them. There was too much going on and there were no

psychiatrists or anyone else, you know to help anyone.

Not that I recall.

Very much so, if I could

that’s something I had at the end of a talk. Yes, after the nightfall we could talk about, we’d all be counted and everything else. I’ve told you about the cats haven’t I?

Did I tell you? After tenko there was a little group of educated people, was Patrick Levy, a sharebroker from Sydney, top man,

wealthy man, had three wives and he’d been through the First War and the Second War, Patrick Levy. There was a Bannerman, very nice Englishman who went through the First War. He was in a Scottish regiment, intelligent. His father was a minister of religion in England and he became a bit of a pacifist so he didn’t want to fight and a bit like me, he joined this medical unit.

That was Bannerman. There was Hugh Hodge, a schooled man, a schoolmaster from KL. He’s the one that ran the still. I mentioned his name earlier and there was a fellow called Rick Larkin, L A R K I N. Rick Larkin and he was a well to do rice grower from New South Wales and there’s myself and then maybe and I’ve forgotten one or two and we’d talk together

at night after the tenko and frankly, I was only in my 20’s and they taught me a lot about life and religion and background and everything. Patrick Levy was a very clever man. Incidentally I’ve seen Levy and Bannerman well since the war. We’ve been friends. Bannerman’s dead, so’s Levy but I visited Levy with his wife in Sydney and so on and he was a very well

established, well travelled man. He’d been in South America, spoke Spanish and so on and they taught me a hell of a lot about life and travel and education and I say, I was only young but I absorbed a lot of education and background from them so that was really a most pleasant part of the prisoner of war life, talking after tenko before we went to bed,

but there was that little group because basically, I don’t want to be derogatory but a lot of the men were ordinary people, uneducated, no background, nothing to talk about and all they’d talk about is, you know stupid things, football or something I couldn’t be bothered with so that was rather a stimulating part of the exercise and after the war I used to contact two or three of them still.

Yes I got that bit in about, because it was terribly, they gave me mental stimulation which was excellent, you know.

Yes, exactly. We weren’t there then but that did the same thing. I agree

and the man that set it up is a friend of mine still. We communicate. He’s 80 something and I mentioned his name before, doesn’t matter. I’ve forgotten who it is but he did all that but he was left in Changi. He nearly was sent to the railway and he wasn’t sent and he’s still alive of course. He was Lord Mayor of Sydney this man.

Yes did I mention?

You’ve got a good brain. Yes, David Griffin, yes.

Yes four or five.

Yes, very much. It’s the only sort of mental stimulation we had and I knew nothing about the world in general. Levy, as I said before, Levy had been to Russia and been all round the place and we’d talk about

things and life and politics and so on. I found that very uplifting and stimulating.

Yes, yes.

Probably politics and, you know perhaps religion but particularly English politics and the members of parliament and that sort

of thing, you know and Bannerman was an interesting man. I mentioned him. His father was a big shot in the Church of England and he turned Catholic cause his wife was Catholic. His father was very upset but he used to, now what did he tell me? Bannerman, yes that’s right.

He was in the British army, Bannerman, was an officer and he joined as a common sergeant, like me although I was a staff sergeant, that’s one up and Bannerman used to train the officers in, what is it? In Malaysia and before all the war started and some

officers would come to visit the camp, medical officers, in this hospital in Kamakan, no, what’s the name? In Kajang. Kajang was the hospital but some medical officer from Australia had come to visit this hospital there and before they came, Bannerman, the humble staff sergeant, had to train all the officers in their drill, how they’d have to drill and use their swagger sticks and all that sort of thing

and how they’d have to receive the officers and if some of our troops had misdemeanours, the colonel, who was this gynaecologist from Sydney somewhere, he wouldn’t know what to do so he’d get hold of Bannerman, staff sergeant and say “How do we charge this man?” and they’d tell him all about procedure,

method of procedure of the charges and all that sort of thing but he was one of the group that used to meet with us and he had a wide experience of the world, having lived in India with the British army during the First War before the other one started.

Yes.

Yes quite a few good friends.

Possibly, I don’t know. It could have done, not very definite on that.

Pat Levy.

Yes. No, no, Rivett was a socialist.

Rivett was very much right hand, successful sharebroker, wealthy man.

Well he was in the group and we didn’t discuss his personal relations, though he used to say he had three wives and the last one was better than the others.

Yes, yes.

Just a metal spoon, scrape the ulcer clean and all nice and clean and hopeful it might heal, God’s blessing it might have.

Of course yes.

No, the person just exposed their leg and the slough was put on a leaf and so on.

Yes, out in the open air. Open air must have been quite good, no germs.

Mm.

I’m not aware of it. You either suffered that or lost your leg or didn’t lose your leg and died.

Mm.

They didn’t give a damn about any

of them. They’d say “Bugger you all.” you know. They couldn’t care less but, we all got paid a certain amount. The men got paid a bit. I got paid a bit. Officers got paid more. There was money and where possible we were allowed to buy eggs, if eggs were available and the ones that were really sick and so on were given a bit of protein. That was the lack. Why we all died, lack of protein

and people that were, perhaps had amputations, I don’t know I wasn’t in that area, but they may have been given a couple of eggs a day for a few days or something, might have got them round it, you know but the protein was what they missed.

I don’t know. I don’t know what they thought.

Yes.

I really can’t remember. It was tremendous help. He may have been perhaps a bit pro us because he might have known they were losing the war.

I don’t know but he explained and they read those funny Japanese articles and they could say what they said and I knew what he meant cause it was in Latin, you know. It was a Latin translation but I’d know what it was, so I sort of wrote it down but most of the Japanese things translated into something, which he didn’t know but I did and it might have been potassium iodine. It might have been

“kadicum iodatum” or something which I knew what it was and that’s how we did it but it’s a long while ago and I forget but it’s the most useful thing I had.

I really don’t know. I don’t know.

No, I think he just agreed.

I think he must have been a bit on our side which was very unusual.

I don’t think so except the silly bugger that told us how the Japanese bombed Australia. We dealt with that earlier.

Terrible ones, yes but

I don’t know, or have you got much more to say or not? Do you have very much to ask me or not?

Yes, anyway there was a terrible incident in one of the camps with a drunken Japanese. Will I tell you about that now or not?

Well that was really frightful.

Rapu, a 30 kilometre camp and the officer in charge was Nito[?],Nito, wasn’t a bad sort of chap when he was sober. He could speak English but he was a chronic alcoholic and he’d get on the grog and everything and he’d terrorise all the guards

and he’d go round at night. He used to get worse at night. He must have got into the grog during the day. He’d go round and get all the men to come out of the camp and count them all, in the middle of the bloody night. We’re trying to sleep, you know. Anyway one night everyone ate a lot of rice so you had to urinate cause of all the water in the rice and Jack Coombe, he’s a man, a

close friend of mine, lived in Hobart. He’s just died. He went out to urinate and as he went out to urinate, Nito saw him and he decided that he’d play up with him. He thought he was going to escape which was ridiculous. He was just going to urinate and

he went down to urinate and the guards knew Nito was mad and they were terrified of him. The guards were more or less frightened of him as we were and they knew he was a madman, full of the grog and everything else and I think as he marched him down, one of the guards tripped Coombe to try and sort of help and

as he got thrown to the ground, Nito fired at him twice and the second shot went through his spine and missed his spine and anyway he escaped and he rushed back to the camp saying “the bastard’s shot me” and I was in the very bed there quite near him

and he snuck into bed and stayed very quiet and the guards knew where Coombe was but they wouldn’t tell Nito which was decent of them and the next day, Nito came round the camp and he said “Where’s this man that was trying to escape?”

and they told him then, the next day and Nito spoke to Coombe and said “Who shot you?” and Jack said “I don’t know.” which was very good, he didn’t know cause if he said it was you he probably would have shot him again or something or other so as a result of that the whole camp, he was roaming the camp at night. This went over several days

and as well as that the officer in charge of the tent said “Nobody must leave the tent to urinate.” and in this camp, you’ve seen all these trenches, you know these attap things. They dug trenches and people would urinate in the trench at night or defecate because they were too scared to go out and get shot by Nito. It was a terrible performance. Anyway eventually

Hirohi, he was in charge of this camp and he ran to the, this is Japanese, he ran to the 55 kilo and told them that Nito had gone mad, you know with the grog, which was pretty good cause they were just as frightened of him as we were and the Japs sent a truck out to capture him.

The next day, they sent a truck in to get Nito and he wasn’t there. He was in a village playing hell with the local villagers, this Nito. He was drunk down there bashing them up and so on and they grabbed him and returned him to Rapu to collect his gear in the camp and then they put him in a truck and took him off and that was the last we saw of him and the next day, Brigadier

Blackburn was called to the Jap office and this Hiroshi, he was the one that warned them about this madman in the camp, this is all very true, Brigadier Blackburn was called to Hiroshi’s office and he was there in charge instead of Nito and he had his feet on the desk the same as Nito did

and anyway he said “I am now the new Nito” and he said, he ordered a camp concert that night to celebrate the fact that Nito had departed, most extraordinary incident. The whole place was in turmoil about it, you know, terrible. So that’s the Nito.

They’d come to the hut at night and you had to speak in Japanese how many men were in there. This is the old days. “How many men at benjo? Ichi, Ni, San, Sung men, three men banjo.” you had to tell them all in Japanese. It was awful. You had to wake up at night to tell them, you know. You had an hour each or something and we’re trying to sleep. We’d have to go to the entrance

to the huts and tell them how many men were here and “how many weren’t.

Very little, only to count.

No. We had a very good interpreter and I’ve got a lot to tell you about him later, before we finish.

Well I think we usually had interpreters. This madman Nito had some English. He had English. Some of them had a bit of English I think but it was usually the officer in charge of us all. He’d communicate but they must have had somebody speaking a bit because they’d have to give all the figures to the Japanese orderly room. That’s how we got the paper and so on

in different times.

Yes, generally it was reasonably civilised, organised I mean.

At night and morning, drive you balmy. You had to get up, line up,

count up to a thousand, whatever it was, every night, every morning.

I think it was only the workers and the Japs knew how many in hospital, how many workers and that’s why they’d say “The troop in there in the hospital, bring the buggers out and make them work.” you know they had the figures. Something crossed my mind

a minute ago, forgotten what it was now. I’ll think of it in a second, fairly important.

The what?

Just on the spot. Like if you were on parade

ground and being counted and didn’t bow properly, they’d take you out and bash you in front of everyone else and send you back again. It’s just stupid, you know.

Of course trying to get out at night was very serious. A lot of people were murdered by the Japs.

Do you want to deal with the bombing here, how the Americans bombed us? Can we deal with that now?

First in one camp wasn’t too bad by the Americans. It was frightful cause we saw our own planes going over and they bombed us. The Japanese had no markings whatsoever in the camps

and I think eight were killed, you know Australian prisoners and probably 40 or 50 injured.

No and the second bombing.

The first bombing wasn’t near the bridge. The second one was near the Tamarkin Bridge, now what do you call it? The River Kwai Bridge and they were bombing the bridge and the camp was fairly near it.

Yes and the first raid, 14 were killed

and altogether 60 were killed, over the previous raid and the other raid, was terrible really being bombed by Americans and there was no mark whatsoever and we were near this bridge and they were bombing the bridge and they thought we were probably a military Japanese camp and the stupid Japanese started firing guns

at them, not that that did any good for an aeroplane and then they shot back and there was shrapnel over our area, the Americans responding and so on.

Yes and we’re all in trenches and when we started to be bombed, the, Japanese said “All dig trenches.” so as soon as the planes came over we’d rush into the trench and I remember being in the

end of a trench there and there was a Dutchman and he was sharing that trench with me and he was saying “muda, muda, muda, sakracore” or something. He must have been catholic or something or other. He was sort of praying we wouldn’t be hit but a lot of people were killed that way.

Did they land?

Yes in the camp.

Yes that’s why we were killed and they were probably aiming for the bridge and they missed that and hit us. See we were all tied in at the camp and in a previous bombing, this is, I like to get these amusing things in, lighten the horror a bit. In the first camp we were bombing, we were there for three or four days and the Japs said after that we can get out of the camp

in the day when the bombers didn’t come cause they usually seemed to come in the evening or something so we were allowed to go out and swim in a river and have a bit of a wash and then come back to the camp at night when they might have been bombing and when we did the swimming, Colonel, one of the surgeons, what’s his name? Coates, Bert Coates is it? Yes, he’d go down.

No it was, yes Bert Coates. He’d go down but if somebody had a large foreskin he’d say to them “Report to me tomorrow. I’ll fix that for you.” and he had a bit of spare time and there couldn’t have been too much surgery going on so he used to circumcise a few people there to keep his hand in. It’s an absolute fact and a lot of them were too scared to go swimming after that.

That’s a true story. I don’t know quite the, but these doctors are, like to keep doing something and apparently he didn’t have much to do and he’d circumcise them.

Yes.

Just a sec, they were five days with the Americans and it was terrible really, being

bombed by your own people and it was rather interesting. We were in different huts at that stage and the Dutch were the first hut. They were the first to panic when we heard the planes, the British were the next and the Australians were the third. They were a bit more phlegmatic. They didn’t panic but soon as they heard them we’d rush into these trenches to hide so we weren’t killed.

Yes, not really, no.

They just realised. They weren’t angry. They just realised that we were put in a terrible position and the doctors did make a strong effort to get the Japanese to signify the camp and they wouldn’t, terrible.

I

don’t know. They thought it might, I don’t know, they just wouldn’t and the same way, when the ships sailed from Singapore to Japan, they wouldn’t identify the ships. I don’t know why.

Yes

and no. I understand the natives, the Malays, they were brought up from Singapore and Malaysia to go to the land of milk and honey, wonderful where we were, Burma, Thailand, everything was wonderful. They put these poor buggers up here and they got them to precede us clearing the jungle so when they came to build the railway, these natives had already been employed by the Japanese

to clear the jungle so that the railway could go through and we later would follow them and that’s why we went into camps that they’d occupied and left all their disease behind, we’d strike, you know all their infections and cholera, not cholera, yes cholera probably.

Yes, we had nothing to do with them whatsoever.

But they preceded us and then we did the, they cleared the land apparently.

Troppo? There are very few, very few cases

of people going troppo, very few.

Yes, no it wasn’t common, wasn’t common at all.

I don’t really know. The doctors were in charge of them and I don’t know what symptoms they showed but I gather it was a sort of minimal number.

They didn’t stand a chance because they were a different colour and where could they go, you know, a place like Burma or Thailand. They couldn’t get anywhere.

No, lined up and shot in front of everyone just to discourage the others I think.

Only about one or two occasions I think.

More, there might be a group of people and in front of them, yes. If somebody had done something they’d pull them out the front and beat

them up in front of everyone.

Yes and of course you couldn’t do anything and if you’d protested they’d have taken you out and done the same to you, which everyone knew.

I don’t think so.

Probably cause there’s nothing you could do about anything really. You were completely in their hands.

I think so.

No.

Yes I’m glad

you got there, yes.

We ended up at, where have I got it? I’ve got a map here. It might be Kamakan or Kanburi or somewhere. Kamakan I think, fairly close to Singapore, very close to Bangkok.

Just in trucks. I’ve got a photo of people travelling

did I show you that in trucks and don’t know how far it was but that was a fairly big hospital and in that hospital we had Dutch, British and everyone. They were all there together, large hospital, last one I was at.

No

that all sort of came automatically. I didn’t have to personally do it but somebody must have, I don’t know, brought it in the rear or something. I don’t know but in Kamakan, it’s interesting, in one of those books your friend’s got there, shows in ’44 when the war was getting close to an end, a lot of the drugs were sent there. We received, I don’t know what you’re reading in that book, but we received nothing like that quantity.

That quantity had to be split up between probably 10 camps over the whole of the railway so it was very little, but it looks a lot there.

I don’t really know. A day or something travelling in trucks. 30 or 40 in a truck and

never stopped. You had to urinate on the floor and so on.

Mm.

Where, I missed, describe the scene of what?

Yes exactly the same, just attap huts everywhere, attap huts, same old thing.

I think by then the railway had been finished and some of the healthier ones were sent to Japan and I told you I missed out on it. They were sent to Japan to work there and we sort of, I think we did damn all in Kamakan. It was just, they just didn’t know what to do with us I suppose. We were just there,

was no work particularly. There might have been a bit of work but I didn’t think there was much work there cause we’d done all the work.

A bit better and we got a bit more from the natives. I think we brought it. You could buy eggs and bananas if you were lucky and that sort of thing.

Mm.

About a month before we heard a bit of activity. There were some radios, done very secretly. It was frightfully dangerous having one. The Kempetai [Japanese Military Police] would be right up you. It’d be terrible. You’d be shot and tortured and all for days on end and so on

but anyway we had an idea I think the war was coming to an end.

No, I don’t know where they hid them. I didn’t have anything to do with it but probably in some funny sort of place under a bed. I don’t know how they hid them but they had them more or less off and on. Is that a map

there of the railway? You’ve probably got that.

Too big isn’t it?

Yes.

A little, yes.

No, I had no idea. We knew when we got home. I’ve got photos there, unless you’ve seen them, have you?

Yes and they were all slaughtered by the Japanese in the water and one woman got home and she was the only one survived and she was shot and she managed to get ashore and she, befriended

some Australian who was also wounded or something or other and she survived and she got back to Australia, amazing.

Not personally but some of them were in our unit and that nurse there that survived, she was one of our nurses.

Terrible, yes.

And incidentally ,we’re not on the air yet are we, we’re just talking?

No it doesn’t matter. This nurse that got home, she went to work for Major Hobbs. He was one of the prisoners of war, one of the top surgeons, very general, not specific surgeon but a general

surgeon, very fine man and he survived it and everything else and he worked in Adelaide as a surgeon there but when he come home he had some extraordinary affliction of his throat and he couldn’t speak properly. He’d say “I, I Hobbs” or something, very awkward so he had to drop most of his patients cause he couldn’t sort of communicate with them but anyway his wife died and he said to me, Alan Hobbs

he said “I married my nurse.” and he said “I married so and so. She was my nurse for some years. I knew her fairly well.” and that was the one that was the prisoner of war, you know. He married her and I’ve met her in Hobart, lovely woman but she’s still alive.

Yes I can tell you now, but I have to look it up I think.

Yes, Margaret but she since, yes, Hannah. Sister Hannah but she remarried an Englishman and he died and she married, remarried Hobbs and she’s still alive and we exchange Christmas cards.

We did have certain concerts. I can’t remember them much but course they were with Japanese permission and some of the men dressed up as women of course. I don’t know how they got the clothing or anything else. I have no idea, but they did and it was singing, quite a few musical

people there and there was songs and things but I can’t remember much about them. We had perhaps over the years might have been four concerts or something or other, not many.

Yes.

No, no.

Not personally, no.

I think more opera, personally.

No but he’d tell me and it was in Latin and I could interpret the Latin into the English.

Well just supposing, I think I said before, he’d say “That is grapefruit something 10 percent.” and I’d know it would be

glucose but some of the things sound the same in Latin as they do in English and that’s how I got, he wouldn’t have known it so I got all the translations.

No.

No I think we asked him. I don’t know how on earth I got onto it but I really don’t know. It’s amazing. I

got all those, I steamed them off all the packets, you know, glued them in there.

No. We didn’t share it with anyone. You were in 10 kilo, 15 kilo. You never mixed up. That’s why I never met Weary Dunlop. He was in another camp and they never mixed.

I don’t think many more deaths would have occurred but we wouldn’t know what to do with the stuff. We wouldn’t know what it was. White powders all look the same, you know.

How do you mean test the cocaine?

Yes.

Well they just did it. They wanted their leg off and they didn’t want any pain so they had the stuff, just straight like that. They weren’t guinea pigs.

Yes and cocaine apparently, I say it had never been used in the spine but it must have been reasonably

safe cause it worked for years. That’s an anaesthetic they use for the gallbladders and everything else.

Medically, it was of course given to the Japs for teeth extraction.

No, no-one knew anything about that, no

never heard of it.

They weren’t invented in my time. I mean it was after the war the amphetamines came out.

Yes, yes.

Well just that they were used but I mean in prison camps, you were bloody lucky; we hardly had any morphine or any opium.

I was aware of the fact that yes, they were addictive things and people got on them. Yes, I was aware of that.

No, never.

In that era, we were a bit purer I think, if you know what I mean, don’t think so.

Death?

So much death?

I think I must have immunised, no is that the word, immunised?

Desensitised myself

to it that this was just occurring, just happing.

I don’t think they did. I don’t know why but I don’t think they did, fortunately. I would have felt it more of course had it been close.

No.

I don’t really know. It’s something I didn’t want to go into, can you follow me? I tried to block it out in my mind.

Didn’t get me down or anything cause I realised I wasn’t going to die.

An American.

I wanted to get home.

I had a wife at home.

I didn’t want to discuss it. She was faithless to me during the war and I wanted to get home and rehabilitate myself. I was married a year or two before I went away.

Well why I wanted to get home, I wanted to get home to my so-called wife, who didn’t act like one during the war and that probably, you know brought me home I think. I tried to go home and it was a sheer waste of time.

Good question.

Some people did. I’m glad you brought that up. I never received a letter, not one letter but a lot of people did but the Japanese were brutal like that and orderly room staff would come into the things giving the Japanese figures and they’d see this pile of letters this high, you know. They’d been censored in Australia, censored in Japan and they had to censor them in Thailand.

The bloody people couldn’t even read English, you know and these letters were kept back and never handed out and many men died without ever receiving these letters. It was terrible and that really happened and Boxall, a friend of mine, he used to see these letters there and they were never distributed and I think right at the end they started to panic a bit I think, the Japanese cause they knew they were losing

the war. They may have sent out letters then but I didn’t get one, probably my so-called wife couldn’t be bothered writing. I don’t know.

Certain amount, not a lot.

What do you mean?

No.

Men I think.

Yes.

No he didn’t talk about it.

Yes, yes.

Yes I hoped it’d be a good reunion but it wasn’t.

I don’t really know.

Well that probably happened. There was no alternative, you know.

Yes.

I just believed in God and Christ and what things that people were taught. I went to a good school. We learnt all about it and he told me a lot about the church

which interested me, the garments they wear and the significance of, in different seasons and so on they wear different clothing and I got a bit religious in that sense but it didn’t sort of follow me up very long when I got home.

No.

I just thought, in-borne faith I think.

Probably.

A light?

I don’t know really. We never sort of talked about those rather sort of intimate things.

Yes.

No “muda, muda”,

That’s the only thing I remember I think.

No.

But there were the odd service which I’d attend. It was pretty rare really.

I don’t think so.

Their spirituality? I think they were just obsessed with one bloody thing, the Emperor. He was God and everything to them.

No, I mean

I knew a bit about him and how domineering he was and he ran the country.

Yes he was Captain Drower, a tall Englishman, very fluent in Japanese and a charming man. At one stage one of the prisoners I think refused to fill a bucket of water for a Japanese soldier.

This Japanese soldier asked him to fill a bucket of water for him, a menial sort of thing and he refused to do it and he struck him over the face and so on and Drower got taken into this argument over some silly bucket of water and the Japanese bashed him up because

Naguchi he was the Japanese. He’d hated him for years, Naguchi and he bashed him up very badly because he stood up for the soldier who’d been assaulted by the Japanese because he refused to do this menial task. The Jap could have filled the bucket of water but of course Japanese soldier, here a private, lowly he is. You’ve got to do whatever he tells you, you know so that was an excuse

for Naguchi to make a scene about it and he bashed Drower up very badly and it was a frightful business and he was there for three and a half years doing all the interpreting and he put him in a slit trench for six and a half weeks, in a slit trench and half filled with water and for three days they gave him no food. Imagine in this trench for three days and after that

they gave him a bit of rice and water or something or other and he got worse and worse, stuck in this slit trench all this time, out in the open, frightful and he was pretty well near death and they didn’t, they apparently got a bit worried, so they moved him back from the slit trench into the Japanese guardhouse. There was a sort of room behind there and they stuck him in there and they allowed

then the English kitchens to bring him proper food and apparently he eventually recovered but he had a dreadful time and they were absolutely brutal to him. Anyhow as I say, he nearly died. He went out of his mind temporarily and so on and they stuck him in this, and he was there I think for about three weeks and then, God help us, the peace came but what happened

his father was an influential man in London and when peace was declared he rang up somehow Bangkok and said “Where’s my son?” what’s his name, Bill “Where’s Bill?” or something and Bill fortunately, thank God was still alive and you’d never believe it, in this camp where we were, the Japanese sent out a double bed and a case of Black and White Cats.

Black and White Cats Whiskey, not dogs, you know, Thai whiskey and this, and thought that would, you know soothe things down. Shows how idiotic they were. This bloody bed came out; don’t know who he was going to share it with. Anyway by that time of course the British were looking after him and he was recovering slowly but he nearly died. He was treated most abominably and anyway the interesting story is this bed came out. I don’t know what they did

with it but some of the Black and White Whiskey got sidetracked into the dispensary and we got stuck into a bit of it.

Yes.

I don’t know but that was, of course peace was declared then.

Yes apart, things were easing up a bit. We knew something was happening and the Japanese sort of weren’t so horrible and we didn’t see quite as much of them.

Yes, more cranky.

I don’t know. That thing there, ’44 and when did the war end, ’45? That’s when some of those drugs came in that we’d never got before and that’s why a bit of them came in. They knew they were going to lose the war and they eased up a bit but stuff was coming through all the time. Incidentally

we had, in my period, we had one loss, one shipment only of Red Cross parcels, one and it’d be one between six men and there might be a cake of chocolate. You might get two bars of the cake of chocolate, spread between six and we shared it all out and we shared it equally with the Dutch because that was their, the Dutch had their proportion and the Dutch would say, “Oh that’s all we got? Queen Wilhemina would have sent

us more than that.” or something and they’d bellyache cause they didn’t get enough, but we shared it with them. That’s why the Dutch were such, you know unreasonable people really and so on.

No.

We had our lot of bombing. That was more into Burma I think and helping the Burmese battles.

No but there were, I don’t know whether people still had their radios. I’m not sure.

No, no.

See that was

Singapore. We were in Thailand.

Well the first medicine that we received was after peace, dropped from the air by the British.

Yes there was some Japanese gave us a bit more stuff, yes.

It’s in that book there, a whole lot of stuff.

I think so, nothing very vital but all useful stuff but that came through and see they’d had it all along I think and they were using what they wanted and then towards the end, they thought they better give it to us, you know. It might have saved their bacon a bit but when

the war finished, then we had stuff parachuted in, food and medicine.

Not Changi, Burma.

Yes.

I’m sure there were letters to burn there because we never got any, terrible you know but that was just sort of physical, what’s the word? You know, torture, you know.

Deprivation.

I think the officers announced it or something and that was about all I think. We just knew it was over, probably pretty soon after and the Japanese sort of disappeared and the officers took over.

I don’t think we knew anything about that. We didn’t know why the war ended and the atomic bomb, I’ve got a strong point about this. The atomic bomb ended the war, it saved thousands of Australians. In every area the Japanese had planned to slaughter us, provided the British had landed in Thailand or wherever it was and we were in the camp

and it was like that table, a square camp and we dug 10 foot, we had to dig 10 foot trenches all around the side and in each corner there were machine guns so in event of the British landing or the Americans or Australians or something or other landing, we’d be herded into these trenches and slaughtered with a machine gun and that’s all been documented in Japan. They’ve seen the evidence of it and that was

their plan, to slaughter the lot of us, bloody fact.

Not personally but the men did and, what was I going to say? Yes and the atomic bomb, it ended the war and saved our lives. Secondly it kept the peace for 60 or 70 years cause everyone was too scared

to use it and still there’s a bit of talk about it but I’ve always got a respect for the bombs. It was a terrible thing. It ended the war but it kept the peace and it still has, don’t you agree? They’re all too scared to use the bomb.

Yes well that’s kept the peace, so it was terrible but it has kept the peace and a lot of people think the bombs were the worst possible thing but I’ve got a sneaking regard

for it cause I’m still here.

I think they had an idea cause some of the Japs sort of said you know to sort of boast “Oh men go in there.” you know, they were sort of boasting a bit about it, but it’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? It’ll all be heard and it’d be quite easy to dispose, cause the Japs seemed to think if the allies

landed, we’d rise up and fight them. What, we had no guns or no nothing, you know but they wanted to get rid of us.

I think they were probably always there when they set the camp up. It was a fairly new camp.

No animals no but the whole camp was of course wired off this high, you know with wire and so on.

Disappeared yes.

More or less overnight, yes. I’ve got a couple of points here, yes.

When it was over “We’re going to bash the bastards up.” you know and so on and so on. There was no talk of that. Everyone was so sick of it and so glad that the war was over, there was no talk of reprisals, about beating the Japanese or doing what they did to us, was no talk of that. You may have heard that before, have you?

I think we’d had so much horror and terrible troubles that we wanted to forget about it and hate only, I’ve got a bit of a talk, “Hate only injures the hater”. I give talks to classes, to people, to schools and things and

one of my things, the mind rules the body. I’ve told you that and hate only injures the hater. If I keep hating the Japanese forever it’ll only affect me so why hate them? And I’ve known people that won’t buy a Japanese car, never go to Japan, you know, some POWs and some fellow in Launceston he’s mad. He was a prisoner of war and the Japanese came and they put a flag

up and he went out of his mind about it. What good’s it do, you know? So my philosophy only injures the hater, so why hate them? I’ve been to Japan twice, pharmacy conference and a world conference of Rotary and when I got there, get out of the plane and here are these Japanese guards and the first time I get there, I think I just bow instinctively, you know then I of course forgot all about it

and generally speaking, the educated Japanese are charming people and it’s a very safe place. You can leave your camera somewhere for half an hour, an hour and nobody will steal anything, you know. It mightn’t be the same these days. This is in the 1960’s I was there for a Rotary conference I think it was.

Yes, I think the young people know nothing about it. They’ve

kept all that information from them but latterly they’ve released it but they haven’t told the Japanese children all about the horrors of the war. They’ve kept it back and I think the ones that you might see now, weren’t even born when the war was on so I think it’s no good hating them. They didn’t do anything and they were led by this military

junta of the time into battle cause they did terrible things in China. This is well before the war started I know, very brutal people and basically they’re brutal. I mean I’ve seen them get a WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK or something and play around with this WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK and put a cigarette, lighted cigarette into the WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK ’s eyes to see what happened to him, you know what he did. You know they were cruel and sadistic. This is the

prisoner of war ones. Whether they’re still like that, I don’t know but they did terrible things. They were real sadists.

No.

What?

Not really I don’t think we talked about what we were going to do, no. We just wanted to get home.

Possibly. I was fortunate in my position because my father had this pharmacy but I s’pose a lot of them might have been unsure what they could do and we weren’t given much of a reception when we got

home really either, defeated army and we surrendered to the Japs, you know.

No although they dropped some good stuff into the camp of course. The minute the war was stopped, you know we started to get medicines and we started to get food and stuff dropped

in and we were stuck there in the same camp probably a month before we ever got into Bangkok and then we flew from Bangkok to Singapore to get rehabilitated. I think I told you that and there was a theatre sergeant, man of fair age. He’d never been in a plane before. He’d been through all these horrors. He was more frightened of getting in the plane to fly to Singapore than he was all through the war.

Yes.

Pretty boring really.

It didn’t. I think we

were warned of course. There were a lot of doctors there. You know they said “Take it easy.” and so on but I didn’t have any upsets apart from the raspberries.

When I came back to Launceston, some friends of fathers were there, asked me out to lunch. They gave me raspberries again and I had exactly the same thing happen the second time. I was in

the hospital in Campbelltown for a couple of days, so I’m right off raspberries.

Well I didn’t know the first one. I thought it was the striptease girls.

A great sense of freedom and I don’t know if you want to hear a sort of few silly things

but the dentist, good friend of mine who’s still alive, he was pretty crook. He went off to Bangkok straight away. He was an officer and they took him off and the dental clinic we had there was run by a corporal who was his dental assistant, so male nurse as it were and they all thought the dentist was still there and the natives would come in to get free dental treatment and this chap wanted to be, you know a dentist all the time and of course

the dentist wouldn’t let him, so he was pulling their teeth and all that sort of thing, practising as a dentist and they had a great time. I mean he probably did quite a good job, you know, been watching his boss for years pulling teeth out and he did removals and so on and they’d bring in bananas and WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s, live WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK s with their legs tied together, in payment, you know in thanks for the dentist so that was rather amusing time. We had this dental clinic running with the

corporal running, treating all the local people.

They’re the things I like, the funny parts to think about.

Yes, yes probably. I just can’t think of them now.

Yes.

Amazing, in 12 months.

Yes I’ve been to Kanburi, so have you and I hope the railway, you go a bit rickety don’t you? And the water

down there. I’ve been to Kanburi. Jan and I have both been there.

I was just very interested. I hoped it didn’t collapse on us.

Yes I think so. We knew they were aiming at the bridge. That’s why they hit our camp, bad, Americans, bad aimers.

Handiwork, what in the railway?

I don’t think we gave a bugger, myself.

I think so, yes. I think we did.

Sealed up.

30 men in a truck, terrible.

Mm.

Yes, pharmacopoeia, yeah.

I don’t know, just a few things. I must have had the book I s’pose.

Yes, we didn’t have to hide it cause it had that stamp on the inside.

Yeah I don’t know where they come, have no idea but biros weren’t invented then I don’t think.

Really?

To behave themselves, no rioting and so on, avoid the women and some unfortunately wanted to have a bit of a “jiggy jig” as they say and one or two got the gonorrhoeaand so on being stupid but most, a lot of us were too frightened to have anything to do with the women because of this VD, you know, venereal disease.

I don’t think it affected them really. It didn’t seem to.

Yes, yes exactly.

Yes.

Yes I think so, yes. There were about half a dozen of them dancing on the stage area.

Just had a good look and weren’t particularly, I can’t remember any reaction much but it seemed to be the right thing to do, sounded

interesting.

Yes that was, they sent out to Bill Drower to make up for nearly killing him.

Yes, mostly beer. I’ve never drunk beer much since, gives me the burps, you know. I’ve got a reflux problem and gastric problem. I had incidentally

18 months in the prison camp, I had chronic dysentery, frightful, four or five times a day I’d rush off and defecate, you know. It was terrible and some of the drugs that came in, once there was some bismuth, you heard of bismuth?

Bismuth, B I S M U T H. Bismuth carbonate and I got stuck into that and that’s a sort of gastric thing to lay the acid and so on

and it more or less cured me that, although when I got home it recurred again but there were two sorts of dysentery, bacillary which is acute, a bit like cholera, perhaps 10 or more motions a day and there’s the bacillary and the other dysentery, wait on, bacillary and the

I forget now. There are two sorts but I didn’t have, I had one I think but anyway settled down again but I had to endure it for 18 months. It was terrible.

That was all, gastric and I still have it to this day to some degree. I’m on a sort of small pension, bugger all

really. I’m never on this, I couldn’t get on this TPI [Totally and Permanently Incapacitated pension] whatever they call it.

No.

I was kicked a few times over something. I forget what it was but I wasn’t sort of badly beaten up fortunately.

How do you mean duck and weave, if I’m being hit?

Yes I did I think really.

Yes, good question. I think I might have mentioned that in the notes, yes and I received it in the dispensary and a doctor came in. He said “I’ve got a fellow with tonsillitis”. I said “Oh, tonsillitis”. I said “What about trying this penicillin doctor?”

He said “Never heard of it and it’s probably no good.” bloody fact and we’d been isolated from the world and never heard of penicillin and he didn’t want to use it cause he didn’t know anything about it.

No, it was dropped into the camp, the supply of drugs and it was a blue and white box

Pfizer, P F I Z E R. I can see it now, penicillin from Pfizer and it’s on one of those lists I think too but that’s when I received it and I just put all the stuff in the dispensary and all sorts of stuff we were dying to get and I just said “What about using this?” and he didn’t know anything about it.

Yes, what it was for.

That’s why I told him but, you know these doctors. They’re pretty conservative and they said “Oh I don’t know what that is”.

I don’t know. I don’t know really if we ever used it. Probably, you know we might have just taken it back to some of the base hospitals or something.

Yes, well I learnt all about it as soon as I got home of course.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

I think we did sort of damn all, you know, just

I didn’t go into the city a lot. Some people, there were riots between two groups in Bangkok. I don’t know if they were fighting among themselves and some poor buggers survived all the horrors and were killed in this fighting. I forget, there seemed to be some fighting between two groups on Bangkok. I don’t know what they were but was rather, bit of a dangerous place.

I don’t really no. I don’t know anything about it but I know it was pretty dangerous spot. I don’t know whether, who’d they be the different groups I’m sure but they were fighting among themselves of course.

Pardon?

Yes, yes.

Yes, killed each other, yes and some of the POWs were caught in it and killed, don’t think many but that’s why we kept out of the city.

In Bangkok? I can’t remember. I think we were just

kept in the same camp we were always in and that’s when we were free and they dropped the drugs in and all that sort of thing and I think the next move was to fly. We probably went to Bangkok I think and then the same day or something flew straight to Singapore.

And then we were in Singapore for a month at a Rapwi, silly name, R A P W I, ever heard of it? Recovered Allied Prisoners of War, R A P W I

RAPWI camp. We were stuck there for about a month and eventually got onto some horrible ship and we slowly got back to Australia.

Rapwi, R A P, Recovered Allied Prisoners of War, is that right?

I don’t know but there was a group and incidentally an old man, was a colonel

in that and I met him at home later. He was in charge of it. I didn’t know him then.

No except, you know we went to the, I s’pose we had to pay to go to the striptease act and we had to pay to get the strawberries and cream, raspberries and cream.

Yes, yes.

There are figures in those books there but I don’t know. I would think, this is off the top of my head of course, 30 percent

would have died I think, starvation and over work, 30 percent and some very fine fellow, John Chalmers, very nice doctor from Hobart, he was drowned on the ship going up to Japan, to work in Japan. Poor bugger. We lost a lot of our men there.

Yes. I was

just very thin.

I don’t really know.

I don’t think it was particularly a hospital camp. It was one means of getting all the prisoners there and getting rid of them back to Australia. It was just sort of an accommodation camp I think.

The what?

I s’pose so. It was too damn slow. You know they mucked us about. Then we got in some awful ship and eventually got home.

Yes, looked after us alright.

I think by then we were probably back to normal eating I would think.

I s’pose three meals a day. I don’t know. It’s so long ago.

Yes, yes that sort of thing.

Yes, depends I think on their background and their family at home or how they looked after them and so on cause a lot of them got on the grog too. You know some friend of mine, was quite a good friend and he got quite a good job with Parke Davis, then he got on the grog and I said “Don’t

marry in haste, Ben.” I said. I used to treat him a bit like a father. “Marry in haste repent at leisure”. He married in haste, married some bloody nurse, didn’t work out and he was divorced or something and he got on the grog and anyway they sacked him from Parke Davis and he ended up a bit of an alcoholic forever I think. Some of them went that way but fortunately I had the family there to back me and so on.

I don’t think they went blind, blind, you know really blind but that did exist, ambliopia. It might have been a partial loss of …

Yes A M B L I O P I A, ambliopia, that’s loss of sight, vitamin A deficiency.

Probably with treatment, it’d come back.

Yes, yes.

I think so. What the body can stand, what it can’t stand and lack of vitamins is vital, you know. That’s why I’m so keen

on the vitamins. I’ve seen them in action and what they do and, cause the lack of them caused all these terrible diseases. All the stomach comes out, all this beri beri and wet and dry as you said and so on.

Yes.

I don’t think you need the organic origins, just the straight vitamins.

Yes like they’ve all been synthesised and all exact amount. If you take a herbal thing, you don’t know what’s in it. It might be a bit of this and a bit of that.

Yes, they can be dangerous, specially if you’re on statutory, ordinary medication.

They’re not.

Yes.

Aircraft? No idea, some old fashioned thing. It went alright. I have no idea what it is, was probably propellers. Jets weren’t in then I don’t think.

Too long, about a week I think. I don’t know. It might have taken a week.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

It might have a bit. I mean if you had a friend, you’d still have him. You’d still stick to him.

Yes.

I don’t think I came home with them. They all came home at different times but after the war I looked them up. This chap Bannerman

that was in the British army, he came to live in Hobart and I used to see him quite a lot. He’s died since and Levy I’ve seen, the stockbroker in Sydney and one or two others I’ve kept in touch with.

I don’t think so. I’m a bit of an intellectual snob. You know if people are sort of ignorant, I can’t be sort of bothered with them. You know what I mean?

Sydney, no idea what the boat was, no idea.

A boat.

In Sydney.

Yes, November.

Yes alright.

No but I can remember leaving Sydney harbour on the Queen Mary and what’s that great song? I forget. It was a very, anyway

they all sang this song, you know, Goodbye or something or other. It was very popular.

What’s that?

Yeh I don’t know if it was that. Anyway, we sang this song. I remember going out. I can’t remember coming in.

No.

I don’t know how, I must have flown down there and flown into Launceston

I s’pose. A plane must have been, yes they were obviously working then but I used to go in as a student, go by boat, by tug.

Say two or three weeks. I went to Campbelltown. That’s a town 50 miles away, midlands there and there was a hospital there and I went through

that and they said “You’re fit.” didn’t take much notice of me and then they demobbed me, gave me some abominable suit. I don’t think I ever wore it.

I don’t really remember. I s’pose it was in Launceston.

Yes, mother and father were fortunately both alive.

They knew I was a prisoner of war. I don’t think they knew where I’d been. I s’pose they knew I was in Burma or somewhere.

No, they knew nothing and the only thing they knew,

Rivett was a bit of a goer and he wrote an article for the paper and as I brought his book home he mentioned my name in one of these papers and it was published in Tasmania and that’s the only time they knew I was alive.

Yes, yes he got out in early, end of August.

I don’t think so.

I don’t know. How are you? I s’pose.

I don’t think we talked about it much. I don’t know why.

Yes that’s so. I don’t think, I can’t recall talking about anything much. I was just back and that’s it. I don’t think they wanted to know what I’d been through or anything.

Possibly not. Latterly I’m more interested and I like to tell of these prisoner of war

things and that. I like, some people won’t look at it but I like to look back on it now.

Certain different television programs on prisoners of war and so on and the nurses were put on once. That was a bit silly I think but I don’t mind talking about it and, I say, over the years I’ve given

quite a few talks to school boys and Rotary clubs and things and a big school. There was an award they gave me. It’s hanging on the thing, the wall there. I spoke to 400 boys at the TSS college in Southport, Queensland, all about it and so on, what I experienced and that went down well

so I don’t mind recounting it and I try and bring in the funny parts, you know a bit medical but mostly the more amusing things that happened.

Possibly.

No.

Possibly.

I was very close to father cause I’d worked with him every day, you know but we didn’t talk about, we just talked about the pharmacy and he gave me my head. He said “Do what you like Bevan.” very good man. He was terrific like that and I had this quite nice pharmacy and the photos you’ve seen, we rebuilt it and I’ve got an architect friend. We bashed all the back down, rebuilt the whole pharmacy. It’s

still there, 84 Brisbane Street, opposite the quadrant and I rebuilt all that and it was very good and we had a pharmacy that opened one end to the other and from the rear end opened on to a rest centre. You could walk through the shop into Brisbane Street so I was sort of very absorbed in the pharmacy and the business and that but we didn’t talk about what I’d been through. I don’t know why. Nobody talked about it and it’s only more latterly that I sort of

quite like to talk about it. I don’t know why but I like to talk about it now. That’s why I’m talking about it to you.

What would I tell them? I s’pose what a terrible time we had and so on.

I don’t think they wanted to hear. I was home and that was it.

Is that common from speaking to friends?

Really? Yes well I don’t remember. Nobody gave a damn about me. I was here and that’s it. You know I just carried on just as if I hadn’t been away.

No, I enjoyed it.

I think pharmacy, being in business and I was thinking about rebuilding it all and everything. I had a good friend who was an architect. He was very good and did a wonderful job for me doing it.

I think so.

You know I did what I could and under terrible circumstances, cause if I hadn’t been trained properly I wouldn’t have known how to, there were no scales or anything, had to judge all these things we prepared just by experience and I think I did a good job, pharmaceutically, best I could.

Yes and I learnt a lot about asepsis and, you know looking after infection with the doctors and so on.

Not, I don’t think, particularly. I have published one or two things but I was mad during the war and after, to do medicine, chuck it in and do medicine. I loved being a doctor

and I could have got through probably and the government would have paid me and all that sort of thing cause I’d worked for years with all these doctors and there are two sorts of doctors. There’s the physician who can’t make up his mind and there’s the surgeon. The surgeon knows what he does and he does it. Physician ums and ahhs and says “What can we do about this and that?” so I’m very familiar with the attitude of doctors and I’d love to have been a doctor but of course I had this pharmacy there sitting and

I don’t know. I didn’t go any further but I would have liked to become a medical man.

Probably a physician, knowing all about drugs but didn’t go any further.

No cause I loved it, not to please anyone.

He handed over the whole business and when he died, I opened a little pharmacy up here at Travell[?] and we had three pharmacies. Anyway, what was I going to say. Yes, when he died, father paid no death duties on the pharmacy cause they were all mine. He was very sensible. He planned his demise and incidentally, this is probably not of much interest but

father wasn’t well and he was sick and apparently he discovered, they eventually discovered he had a cancer of the blood a sort of carcoma thing and he came and said “I know what it is. I’ve got an incurable disease. They know what it is. Terrific and they can treat me.” and after being told he had this incurable cancer, it bucked him up and he went on a trip with his mother up to Queensland and so on but that’s the idea I think.

If you’re told what they know what it is, you know, you feel better and he did and eventually died of this carcinoma business but once he knew, cause he’d felt so crook. Once he knew they knew what he had and could treat it, he felt more satisfied.

I used to go to this, our medical unit thing in Hobart. I used to go there quite a number of times. Once a year they’d have an annual dinner and so on and then of course a lot of them started to die and dropped out. Then I sold out and went to Queensland.

I used to

attend them, yes I always used to go to them. I loved them and when I came back to Tasmania, that’s four years ago, I went to two or three Anzac Day marches, didn’t know one soul there, didn’t mean a thing so I gave them away but I used to like, always go to the Dawn Service in Surfers Paradise because we had 30 years there and a lot of good friends. We’d get together. It was lovely but going back here, no,

didn’t know anyone, so I don’t go anymore.

I’m still a member, only about 10 people left now out of the whole lot and some, that’s one that gave me some of that stuff there.

Exactly, you’re right.

I don’t know, didn’t feel much. I just had the pharmacy because I was keen on, I was bloody lucky I had a job. You know some didn’t of course and they probably got on the grog. I don’t know what they did but

In Australia? I wasn’t aware of it cause the war was on.

I don’t recall really.

I’d rather not mention it but it was a disaster and the long and the short of it was, the woman I married should have married somebody else and she married me and she reckoned I was no good but I could perform alright, I’ll tell you, but still can,

at my age, fact. Anyway so that was that but, and then, you know incidentally she did marry the man that she thought she should have married. That lasted about five years. She got rid of him again so anyway.

No.

Not some

thoughts so much but what this left me. The war is 66 years ago of course and quite often I’ll wake up at night with dreams.

And it’s packing up and moving camp. Seems a funny thing to worry about, doesn’t it? Packing up and moving camp but you had to pack up by a certain time, dawn or something, pack all your belongings. Not that we had much

and you’d go out on the parade ground, expose them all. The Japs would check them, then you’ve got to repack, “Hurry up, hurry up” and so on and then when you moved camp you arrived at a new camp, some awful bamboo hut city and then you’d have to find a bed to sleep in. I mean not a bed but a place and you didn’t want it next to some bastard whom you couldn’t stand so you wanted somebody who was a bit of a friend to be lying, cause you’re as close as you can, you know

just like this and so that Japanese searching and moving was an awful sort of business and sometimes I’ll dream about that and say “Wonder where I can get when I get to the new place?” You know, “Can I get a bed near somebody that I don’t dislike?” so that’s one of the things and the wife sort of laughs at me and when we go on holiday

and we do a lot. We’ve travelled the world many times, been to Finland and all over the place and when I had the pharmacy I had a bit of money then. I haven’t anything much now but we used to travel a lot and we’d always book things ahead, you’d know and we’re going to Canberra to the Festival in September and I’ve booked somewhere where we go in Canberra cause I want to make sure when we get there

I’ve got somewhere to stay. You know what I mean? This is sort of background from that other thing and then the other, yes and the other thing is food and I always like to know what I’m going to eat

and Jan says she’s traced it back to the POW thing. I think it is, you know but I know what I’m going to have tonight and I always say, “What are we going to have tomorrow?” We always discuss food and I like to know what I’m going to have when, you know so they are the two sort of, and sometimes I dream, wake up and have a dream about being out somewhere and they’ve run out of the food or something and there’s not enough cake or something

or other so I’ve got those two sort of things, safety at night and accommodation, where I’m going to get something decent to eat and I say sometimes I dream I’ve gone out somewhere and this is 66 years ago and another night I ran out and I’d run out of something or other and I missed out but that’s all I meant to say. Sounds

silly things but that’s the sort of what…..replica of what it’s left me with. They’re all pretty harmless but I’ve got these silly traits and fortunately she’s sweet enough to understand. You know, she understands the way I think. We sort of work things out a bit ahead.

So that’s about all I think.

But you wouldn’t think I’d still have the idea, would you? In dreams, you know.

No, I don’t wake up with them fortunately but I remember the next day what I’ve dreamt about.

I think I just sort of remember what I dreamt about.

Yes it’s very reassuring, you know. It’s not all the time but these things flare up occasionally. I’m always amazed at why they do, you know. I s’pose it’s in the back of my head or something, I don’t know.

Yes.

I love it. We have it at least twice a week, still love it.

Curry and rice and chillies, I’m mad on chillies. I’ve got a gastric reflux but I like hot stuff.

Yes.

Not really. We’ve been to Singapore

three or four times and Hong Kong three or four and Japan and I rather like the East and we’ve been across to Bangkok I think twice. Sometimes we stop over if we’re going to the UK.

No.

Which war?

Yes, yes, yes and Australians are, I’m no fighter but Australians were wonderful in New Guinea. They kept the Japanese away and they could have descended on New Guinea and come to Australia and

they’d even planned, you know to conquer Australia hadn’t they? And there’s been an article somewhere where all the people in Tasmania, when Japanese had us, they’d be removed and sent back to, we’d all be sent back to the mainland and Tasmania would have been colonised by the Germans and, have you heard about this? The Germans and the Japanese I think and they’d

all run Tasmania on their own. We wretched people would be sent to the mainland to I s’pose work in the mines, whatever we had to do but they had that plan. It’s terrible isn’t it?

I don’t think there was very much difference.

I don’t think so.

Yes, probably 70 percent Tasmanian.

Yeh we all kept together, the unit was together.

I s’pose so, yes but they’d, most of them were in Hobart I think and I lived in Launceston, you know.

Yes but I mean I wouldn’t have seen them in the street.

Normal?

I think I was probably normal probably in six months or something.

Perhaps trying to cope with a cranky

wife who I thought I’d have a good time, happy return and it wasn’t. That was probably what worried me mostly but I sort of put that aside and the business kept me going, the pharmacy.

Not particularly. I think I did go back to the Victorian College of Pharmacy and did a course to update me but not, wasn’t that much new but I did get updated I think with a course after the war, a week or something or other back in the College of Pharmacy.

No, just in substances, new drugs.

There was sulphonamides. They were new and I think mostly a whole range of sulphonamides and penicillin I think.

The other stuff sort of came in a bit later but I still get four journals every month and I read them. That keeps me up to date. They’re all sitting over there, the journals.

Yes, yes.

Mm.

I can’t quite answer that. I don’t know

quite.

I think medically, I’m more inclined to look at a whole person like the doctors did, you know and see what was wrong with them and that sort of thing but that’s nothing, it doesn’t answer your question really.

They taught, instead of just saying “He’s got a cough.” or something, “Why has he got a cough and what can we do?” you know.

No.

I just don’t believe in it, although the mind rules the body but that’s a different thing I think.

I don’t think so but whether you can use any of these photographs?