The George Adams Interview — Part Nine

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of George Adams, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Adams fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
Other parts to this story can be found at:

INDEX: A7544630

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This is a transcript taken from audio footage made by the Department of Sound Recordings at the
Imperial War Museum,
Lambeth Road,
LONDON SE1 6H7.

It has been copied almost exactly as recorded, therefore the terminology and grammar are as spoken and have not been manipulated in any way. Where place names that could not be found in an atlas, and/or unfamiliar terminology are mentioned, phonetic spellings are used and are subject to alteration.

On some occasions, sentences were not completed; the following symbol is used to denote that: ……………………
Only repetition has been suppressed.

Bill Ross — BBC People’s War Story Editor.
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Int: You were aware that you could be bombed at any time.

GA: Yes. I think everybody did this that tried to avoid the lower decks and kept to the upper decks. It was a boat, it was refrigerated boat and there were different holes. We didn’t see much of it actually, we were on this deck and there were some on the top deck, the two top decks. There was a lot of people up there, quite a lot of our lads there too, because they’d also pulled some more of our section out from other places where they’d been on guard, and brought them down onto the boat. So we’d got quite a few of our lads on there.

Int: What was the deck you were on now, was it a living quarters deck?

GA: No, it was just ordinary board, a wooden deck, y’know, no living quarters or anything like that, but it was on the top, there was living quarters and a few cabins for the odd passenger, they used to use it as well. There were women and children on board too.

Int: Were you actually out in the open on this deck, or was it covered in?

GA: No, under cover. You just stepped out onto the main deck, and there we sat until dark.

Int: In the port?

GA: Yeah, and a strange thing, usually in an afternoon, at half past one to two o’clock, the Japanese would suddenly stop. It was as if there was a tea break. There was no more bombing at one o’clock. So it all died away and, nothing, everything went quiet.

Int: That was just after you got aboard.

GA: Yeah.

Int: About one o’clock in the afternoon.

GA: Yeah, between one and two o’clock, everything went dead.

Int: And it wasn’t just the fact that the bombers had to go back for more bombs and stuff.

GA: No, they didn’t come back.

Int: The artillery stopped too.

GA: Well, we never heard anything, they may have continued shelling, further across onto the island, because there were one or two islands around us. There was an oil depot on one of the islands there, they may have continued, but I don’t seem to remember hearing much noise of battle at all. There we sat until dark.

Int: Probably a sore point, but did you have anything to eat while you ………….?

GA: No.

Int: Was there any provision at all on the……….?

GA: No, we’d got our iron rations, but we didn’t touch them until we were desperate.

Int: There was no way of getting off the boat and back to your car?

GA: No, because I think one thing that put us off that, you might just get off the boat and back to the car, and they’d be off.

Int: Did you say anything about what the warrant officer had done? Because they’re not really supposed to wave revolvers about.

GA: No, we were so shocked; it was unbelievable, and I think we were so shocked, we thought………………..

Int: You didn’t report it to your officer or anything?

GA: We never saw our defence officer again.

Int: But you did see the admin. officer.
GA: Just after we got on board we saw the two admin. officers.

Int: Did they see you?

GA: They must have done, but I think they disappeared out of the way. That was the last we saw of them. They…………………

Int: So you were never able to sort out these affairs.

GA: No, It was all strange.

Int: While you were going through the town, besides these signs of perhaps panic, you could call it in some of your officers and warrant officers, was it the general thing that was going on in Singapore? I mean, were there other units commanded………..?

GA: I think this was the feeling right the way through, yes. There was quite a lot of panic.

Int: Was it just officers and N.C.O.’s or was it the men as well?

GA: I think it was the men as well. Oh yes, I don’t think it was — but the thing was, you expect more from the person in charge, don’t you? You don’t expect that sort of thing. I never saw any of our lads get into a state like that. They were quite well controlled, they did as they were told, they were still under discipline, and, they were quite good really.

Int: So, when you were aboard, you sound as if you ceased to be part of an organised unit, you went where you wanted on board.

GA: That’s right.

Int: So, how did you fend? There was this lull, no food, what happened in the rest of the day, on the eleventh?

GA: Nothing, until it got dark, then they pulled out. We pulled out away from the dock, as soon as it was dark. We thought, “Oh, we’re on our way, good.”

Int: Had they been taking more specialists on board?

GA: Yes,

Int: So it was filling up.

GA: Yes, filling up, yes. We thought, “We’re sitting pretty now, we can get away under cover of darkness. It’s not a long sail down to Java.

Int: Did you realise how lucky you were, I mean, as specialists to be taken off……?

GA: Yes, very lucky.

Int: Did you know at the time, I mean, at Dunkerque, they took pretty well everybody off, but at Singapore, most of the infantry were left behind. Did you realise this was happening?

GA: Yes, we moved out, and we thought, “Right, we’ll get away under cover of darkness, there’ll be no problems.” Then we dropped anchor. We found out afterwards, the reason they didn’t go any further was because of the minefields. There was no escort that knew where the channels were, so we had to wait until daylight and pick a way through. There we stood until seven o’clock the next morning. Then we moved through and out into the open sea, and we were on deck. We’d had some water, but we still had nothing to eat. We were in a shocking state too, our clothes. They wouldn’t let us take the kit off, this warrant officer, so all the kit we’d got on was black from the rain that brought the oil that was burning badly. The oil tanks weren’t firing, it brought all the soot down, so you can imagine what a state we were in. We walked out on deck as soon as it was daylight and we stood up in the bows, and suddenly, I said, “Look here.” Everybody gave a yell; enemy aircraft — these three dive bombers were coming down at us.

Int: Did the boat have any defence?

GA: Yes, they’d got light anti-aircraft guns; no heavy stuff. I think they’d got a gun at the rear, but I don’t think they’d got a Boffers on, but I think we were in convoy with the HMS Durban Cruiser. She was with us and a couple of destroyers, and also quite a lot of smaller boats that had taken people on. The bulk of our party was on a couple of the smaller boats, the bulk of X Party.

Int: You joined all of these after you’d gone through the minefield had you? because you were on your own.

GA: Yes.

Int: Were they waiting for you then, at the other side of the minefield?

GA: I think they’d moved out the same as us, in the darkness, but we didn’t see them until the next morning, then they all came through and were with us, more or less.

Int: So these three dive-bombers were in sight.

GA: Yeah, they hit us, they hit the top deck and they killed one of the gunners. A bomb hit the top deck and went so far down; there was quite a lot killed up there. There was a lot of our lads killed up there too; our sergeant was killed up there. Strangely enough, I could never remember his name and I opened that identity card and I made a note in the back of that. Sergeant Galloway. He was an Irishman too. He was such a nice person, he was one of the lads, y’know, you could sit and chat with him, and I think he went too, and I’m certain that was him. Quite a few women up there too, they were killed. The thing that — it’s not too much troubled me, but, I thought, “How terrible.” One of our lads came down from the top, and we said, “How bad is it?” He said, “It’s a right mess up there.” He said, “There’s nothing left of ‘em, there’s just lumps of flesh and limbs.” They couldn’t do anything. All they could do was to swill it off and brush them over the side. I thought, “How awful that those lads’ parents will never know what happened to them or anything.”

That’s what happened, they just swilled them over the side, they couldn’t do anything else. There was nothing left. There were a lot wounded; they brought them down into the quarters where we were and we moved out, and got them under cover. They were badly wounded, terribly cut up.

Int: Was there anyone to look after people……………?

GA: Yeah, there were these Australian nurses aboard.

Int: Any doctors though?

GA: Yes, there were one or two medical orderlies and I should say, there’d probably be some doctors with the nurses. They were terribly gashed about.

Int: So where did you go?

GA: We’d been moved out and we went right under the bows. From then on, it hotted up. It was marvellous how they got away with it. There was, I think it was a Wing Commander. He faced the bridge. I think he was a Dutch skipper. The Wing Commander was watching these planes coming in, in formation. They hit us again with dive-bombers, and then they started this high level bombing. They hit the Durban where they knocked a gun turret out. I don’t think they hit any of the other ships.

Int: Could you see from your position in the bows?

GA: Not much at all. We were underneath, right in the doorway; we had to crouch right down to get in, but we were sat right in the doorway, my friend and I. There were quite a lot of people behind us, and we could see this officer stood shouting up to the skipper, and as the formation came in, you were watching the bomb doors open and release, and he was yelling either port or starboard, and he was swinging the boat as if it was a destroyer. Marvellous really, what he did. We only had those three hits.

Int: From the very first.

GA: Yeah, and it went on for nearly five hours. I honestly don’t know how we got — nobody does really, on that boat.

Int: This was mainly high level bombing.

GA: High level, yeah. One lot came down, and I’ll always remember that, there was a terrific roar as it hit the water, the boat lifted right out and you could hardly hear the engines. All the blokes at the back started to panic. I don’t know why we did it, but Curly and I, we shoved our legs across the doorway and said, “Get back, get back! We’re still afloat.” And we were. They’d dropped way out, you know.

Int: Were there many close misses?
GA: Yeah, quite a few, but that was the closest.

Int: Did the dive bombers not have another go?

GA: They never had another go at us. They knocked one dive bomber down.

Int: So, they hit you the three times actual attack they made on you.

GA: The dive-bombers, yeah. This Wing Commander did a marvellous job, and the skipper. He dodged the bombs as they were falling. At about one o’clock, it stopped.

Then they started hunting round for food.

Int: Pretty well everybody, you mean.

GA: Yes, asking everyone what food had they got. They were going to have a communal affair you see, they’d got to. We hadn’t got anything. I think that’s when we mentioned we had it, but nothing happened. They got so much together, and if they’d got corned beef cans — you can peel them off round the middle, you know, and you can pull them apart, small ones. If yer’d got one of those, you were made, you could get yer food in that. If you hadn’t, you had to have it in yer hand, you see. You only got a scoop full, that’s all yer got.

Int: What was it that you got from this?

GA: Hotted up bully beef, and tinned potatoes, whatever there was.

Int: Was there much?

GA: No, yer’d perhaps fill one of these little tins.

Int: So not enough to fill you up.

GA: No, nothing like that. They did their best with what they’d got.

Int: Now, would the amount of food you had (before you boarded the boat) have made a difference on the boat, or would it have been just swallowed up really with the rest?

GA: The amount of food we had, because we’d got — we’d come down in, four or five vans and trucks and cars — it would have made quite a bit of difference because we’d loaded up well. The bigger trucks had got quite a lot on, we’d piled it in. It would have made some difference, yeah.

I always remember, when we were underneath the bows there, we’d given up. “Well, we’re not going to get out of this.” It crossed my mind, this, and I said to Curly, “We’ll not get out of this.” I said, “They can’t keep missing like this.” I said, “The only thing that worries me is that our parents’ll not know, they’ll never know where we went.” That’s how we sort of accepted it.

Int: You weren’t scared then.

GA: No, I think we’d reached a stage where we couldn’t be scared any longer. We reached a stage where it was a foregone conclusion, sort of. I don’t remember being scared at that period. That was the only thing that worried me; Curly was the same, that our parents’d never know what had happened and where. That was the only thing that disturbed me.

Int: So this was on the twelfth.

GA: Yeah.

Int: And the lull had been again about one o’clock on the twelfth.

GA: Yes.

Int: How long did the lull last for this time?

GA: Right through, we never saw anything again. We came down through the islands. We fully expected getting something round by the Straits, we got nothing.

Int: Was this ship in good shape?

GA: Oh yes, in pretty good shape, yes.

Int: The bombing hadn’t — although it’d been hit — they’d done a lot of damage to people but not so much to the ship.

GA: Well it had had it, it was a mess, but not in the vital parts, so we were OK. We pulled into Tanjung Pry, which was the harbour for Batavia, on the evening of the thirteenth. Now, the strange part about it was, that was Friday the thirteenth and you know how everyone has a dread of Friday the thirteenth, well we never saw a thing. We went right through that day.

Int: So, you got on the boat on the eleventh, sailed on the twelfth, you got the dive bombing in the morning, followed by the high altitude bombing, and then on the twelfth at one o’clock the bombing stopped. So all the rest of the twelfth and all of the thirteenth, you were clear for two days.

GA: Not a thing, yet the thirteenth was the period when the Japanese fleet caught quite a few of the boats with nurses aboard, and other people aboard, and sunk them, and they also bayoneted the nurses on the beaches, in Sumatra. But we didn’t know a thing about that. When we read about it afterwards, we thought, “Well, we were on the twelfth and thirteenth and we never saw a thing.” How we missed their navy, I don’t know.

Pt 10: A7543109

Pr-BR

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