POW - The Burma/Thailand Railway

Albert Slaughter was born in Ashington Northumberland on 17th February 1919. He started work aged just 14 at North Seaton Colliery. At 20 years Albert joined the regular army and reached the rank of Sergeant in the 9th battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. On 15th February 1942, 2 days before his 23rd birthday he was captured by the Japanese following the fall of Singapore.

He was made to work on the docks unloading supply ships, for three months.
He suffered from dengue fever and after he recovered he was moved up-country to work on the notorious infested jungles, and the living hell of the
Burma —Thailand railway, He was in charge of a forty-man hammer gang working twelve hour shifts. For the last six months of construction the men were forced to work 24 hours on, 24 hours off in order to complete the bridge on time. During this time he suffered three times with malaria, which weakened him considerable. With just small rations of rice, it was a starvation diet for all prisoners

With the completion of railway he was then transported to Japan to work in the copper mines. The treatment he received in the copper mines was far better than the brutal treatment he got on the railway. He found that the guards in Japan were more civilised than their sadistic counterparts in the jungles of Thailand. Albert worked in the mines for fifteen months until the war finally ended in 1945.

Once back in England he went back to being a miner at North Seaton Colliery. This heavy manual work was nothing to the slavery he had endured at the hands of the Japanese.

In 1946 he married Joan Porthouse a local farmers daughter, who he knew before he joined the army in 1939.

Albert left the mines in 1955 and acquired a three and half acre smallholding, where he kept poultry and other livestock. To supplement this, he bought a horse and cart to haul sea coal from a local beach, where mine waste was being dumped from Lynemouth Colliery.

He took up playing squash and jogging, winning many trophies. He became very fit and ran his first half marathon from Morpeth to Newcastle in 1979. Albert has now completed over 300 races, one half marathon in Thailand, 20 Great North Runs, the last at the age of 86 years old.

He gave up working his smallholding when he was 80 years, then past it on to his son David.

Albert has always done his best. He endured his share of beatings from the Japanese and he has forgiven them. However Albert will never be able to forget the loss of his fellow comrades.

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