Prisoners of War

Singapore to Japan

During our first few weeks as P.O.W. the food supplied by the Japanese was mainly rice and we had boiled...

Count Your Blessings

Of course every thing that could be useful to the Germans had to be rendered useless which meant...

5 Years a Prisoner of War

While we were resting one day, one of our lads ran out into a building, just off the road, about one...

My Battle With World War 2

The job was loading tinned jam and meat onto the train for the Germans fighting at the Russian front. For...

My Dad's Story

On the 23rd March – Les's 22nd birthday, they reached Nattalin where a rice mill had been...

'The Will To Live': Chapter 25 - Japanese Friend & Lost in the Jungle

One side was bounded by the river, one by the railway, one by jungle, and the last by a clearing which was...

Douglas Smithson-Glider Pilot Part 13

These are for all Allied Prisoners and the Germans had nothing to do with them except for the guarding of...

Pikes Peak or Bust

On the way back from church we were still singing, not hymns, but German marching songs like “Auf der...

Working in England

We had an open truck and a German driver with an English guard and two POW operators. Werner told me to...

Teenage Memories of World War 2: Part 3

In April 1944 the Japanese mounted a big offensive in the Naga Hilla in Assam, crossing the Indian frontier...

'The Will To Live': Chapter 28 - Tamarkan & Sexton Baynes

We had no grammar or other text books; however I had a New Testament, given to me by our village Free...

The Stove in Barracks 3

'The Will To Live': Chapter 24 - We See Our First Allied Planes, And Catch a Thief.

On the last day of our task then, our 'beloved' adjutant came out to work with us, the Japs having...

Experiences as a Prisoner of War in Italy and Germany

We all very quickly assumed a horizontal position and one fellow crawled across the floor to lock the front...

The Swiss Red Cross

'The Will To Live': Chapter 27 - A Very Fine Leader

There are several varieties of this parasite, some also cause the dreaded ‘black water fever’...

'The Will To Live': Chapter 26 - Bamboo, Our Drunken Captain, & I Swim to a Short Freedom

If a rat were trapped in the end of a long bamboo, and made to tunnel its way through the sections to...

Douglas Smithson-Glider Pilot Part 14

The rations from the Russians were no better than we had had from the Germans whilst prisoners. He chose to...

'The Will To Live': Chapter 23 - We Cross The River, & Camp is Flooded, Trucks Fuelled by Wood

An old timer in the hut told me of a spot in the camp boundary where Thais came along at night to...

A Soldiers Story Taken from His Taped Record: A POW in China and Japan

At Stanley we were to help protect the coastal guns which were firing inland and inflicting casualties to...

Douglas Smithson - Glider Pilot, Part 9

1945 With the German Officer was a Sergeant Major and about 50 soldiers, others having returned to their...

'The Will To Live': Chapter 11 - Introduction To Jap POW Life

The Japs passed in a few tins of biscuits, and told us to be ready to move off at nine a.m. We...

To Sleep Perchance Not to Dream

Jeffrey Parker was a friend but he was different to our usual motley gang because he was the son of the...

My Experiences - May 1940 - August 1941: A POW in Poland

He was true to his word and returned with a map - very up to date and containing the new German and...

POW in Poland

Although shortly before the German offensive in the Ardennes in 1944 there was a big build up of rail...

'The Will to Live': Chapter 34 - Bridge Repairs, Elephants, Air Raids, In Charge, Promotion

I was still in hospital when a trainload of wounded Jap soldiers passed through the station on their way...