Escape from Singapore — 6a. "Midge"s Story

This page is the beginning of the story told by the late "Midge" Warner, and prepared by Brian Napper. (For the context see 5. 50 Years on: a Small World!.)

Midge’s daughter Jennifer’s childhood memories of these events can be seen in 7. Jenny's story. The two stories can be cross-referenced by using the similar section headings.

My annotations are given in square brackets.

Introduction to Midge's Story

“Midge” was given her nickname initially by her husband Stanley, soon after they first met, as she was so much shorter than him (Midge being an endearment for Midget!). Then her family, and then other people took it up. When she got married her husband had already been working in Malaya for five years, in an office which supervised rubber estates. They got married in England in 1935. They sailed back to Malaya, and on the voyage she discovered she was pregnant — it was not just sea-sickness! So she arrived in a strange country, with an oppressively hot and humid climate, just married, pregnant, and not knowing anyone. They initially lived in a hotel, as they could not get a house. It was all very difficult to start with! They eventually moved in to a small old bungalow just before the baby was born. The only air-conditioning in those days was a fan in the ceiling, which delivered a hot draught! Jennifer was duly born, her only child. She had her in a very good hospital, and they had a Chinese Amah to look after her. Nine months after, they moved into a much nicer bungalow.

In early 1939 Midge came back to England with Jennifer, arriving in March, and staying with her mother near Wolverhampton. Her husband followed her later, on leave, arriving three days before the start of World War 2. They were due to sail back from Liverpool to Malaya in February 1940.

Midge takes up the story (please imagine a small but very sparky 90-year-old behind the words) . . .

Voyage Back to Malaya — February 1940

At that time boats were going down with the magnetic mines. My husband said “Now look, if you don’t want to come with me on the voyage back” — it was a month’s voyage — “you don’t need to come. You can stay at home in England and I’ll go back.” He had in the meantime, with a friend, tried to join up, but the Colonial Office wanted them to go back to Malaya because they wanted to get the rubber away from Malaya for the war — there was no synthetic rubber in those days. He wasn’t actually a rubber planter, but he was in an office supervising rubber estates for head offices in England. He did all the finance and also quite a bit of horticulture. So I said “Well no. We’ll stick together, and I’ll come out with you.”

We sailed from Liverpool. It was terrible; we didn’t know how we would get up to Liverpool because there were no trains running up North because of the atrocious weather. But we did manage to get there, and we got on board ship. We were scrutinised by a whole lot of people, and asked various questions. Then we up-anchored, and I thought “Oh good, we are on our way.” We went into the middle of the Mersey, dropped anchor, and stayed there for a week — waiting for a convoy! We had no contact with the shore. Of course once we had sailed we couldn’t tell anyone where we were. We didn’t know anything. The only news we got was of ships going down! The whole of the mouth of the Mersey was littered with wrecks that had gone down with magnetic mines. The only real bit of news we got was another boat coming in saying that the Irish Mail had gone down that day — all very cheering!

However we finally got into convoy and sailed away. We went Liverpool — Marseille — Port Said — Suez canal - Aden - Columbo — Penang — Singapore — in convoy probably up to Port Said, then on our own. The dangerous part was through the Mediterranean, but we had blackout all the way. It took four weeks to the day till we got back. Although the war had started, there really was only Italy and Germany in then. So only the Mediterranean was truly bad, and also going out of Liverpool, and some of the Atlantic. We had a cabin for the three of us. It was all very civilised — we had proper meals; war hadn’t really hit anybody in early 1940, and there were no shortages of food or anything. Our ship was the head of the convoy, so we gave the signals to the others. We had two different signals, one for air attack and one for submarines. So you had to sort the signals out, and think what you were going to do.

The Invasion of Malaya — December 1941

So we eventually got back to Malaya. Of course it was lovely there because there was no war — no food shortages, no rationing -- for two years. We always suspected the Japs. We never quite trusted them; they had got their eyes on Malaya because it was a very wealthy little country, with tin and rubber. My husband had belonged to the Federated Malay States Volunteer Force. He was called up about a fortnight before the Japs attacked. They were obviously getting ready. We thought we had plenty of troops, but we hadn’t really. They came in at Khota Bahru on the North East coast [Dec. 8th 1941]. Just before they attacked, two big battleships were sent out, the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse", I think, and both were sunk by the Japs. We were so pleased at first, we thought at least we had got some sea defence now. They were there about two days and then the Japs sank both of them, with terrific loss of life.

My husband being called up, I was left alone with the servants. When the Japs attacked, I actually heard them go over that night. They attacked Singapore [by air] that night. There were two Japanese envoys in America talking about things, so nobody thought they would attack while he was there, but they did. They came over [to Malaya] at night; they flew over K.L. down to Singapore, and bombed Singapore. I heard it was all lit up. At the same time they attacked Pearl Harbour. I heard them go over that night. I heard all the planes going and I thought “I wonder what that is in the middle of the night?” And of course when I got up the next morning I heard the news that they had bombed Singapore and war was declared. They landed on the North East coast of Malaya, near Khota Bahru I think it was, and from that day on they came steadily down the country, just through the jungle. We had troops, but there weren’t really enough there. And our troops weren’t properly geared. The Japs commandeered bicycles off all the Asiatics and just rode down on these bicycles in their shorts, and lived off the land, which our troops couldn’t of course. And they came steadily down.

My husband was in camp in K.L., but I used to go and see him, when I could get the petrol. By that time I was working in an office, because during that summer, 1941, they asked anyone who could do a job to help, because a lot of the young men had gone and most of those left had joined the Volunteer forces, and they went away to camp for training. So they were very short of people. I went to work in my husband’s office. So I was working then [when the invasion came], and went on working. Gradually all the estates went, as the Japs got them, and the refugees were coming down, women and children first, then the men, because the Japs came down so quickly.

Leaving Kuala Lumpur — January 1942

When the Japs were 15 miles from K.L. my husband got compassionate leave and came home to see me. He said “Look you have to go at once; they are only 15 miles away.” I didn’t want to go, partly because I felt like a rat deserting a sinking ship, and all my servants had stayed with me. A lot of people’s servants had got frightened and gone off. I had a cook and a boy and a gardener and a Syce, who drove the car. Jennifer’s Amah was the only one who lived with us in the house — well, she slept in the house and looked after Jennifer. I said “I don’t want to go, I can’t go.” but he said “Yes you must.” Well, I had been trying to pack a few things, but we had been bombed and I had to sort of give up, and crawl under the bed — not that that would have done much good! I changed my mind every day as to what to take. I mean, faced with a houseful of things it’s awfully difficult, and I didn’t bring any of the right things. In the end what I took was food in case we were besieged in Singapore and had no food.

The thing I regret most is losing photographs and letters and things like that. Well, material possessions, you are sad about them, because there were all my wedding presents I had taken out. It was horrible losing everything. I rather treasure possessions. In the end you can replace material possessions, well you hope you can!

Before I left the servants I had said to them “Look I am only going temporarily; it won’t be for long. I’ll be back.” My husband went back to the bungalow the day K.L. fell actually [January 11th 1942], and the servants were still there. They had tried to look after it, but it had been looted, and a lot of things smashed and stolen. He gave them what bit of money he had, which wasn’t much, and said to them “Take anything you want and clear out because if you are found in a British home it will be all the worse for you. Go back to your native people and take anything you want with you.” So that’s what happened to them. I tried after the war to find out what happened to Jennifer’s Amah, because she was really quite a friend. But I could never find out what happened to her. I think something dreadful must have happened, because she would have gone to my husband’s office after the war and asked them if I was trying to get in touch with her. I don’t think she survived the war.

Our Evacuation from K.L. to Singapore

The man whose firm we worked for had rung up an estate named Batang Malacca, about half way down the peninsular and asked if they would take Jennifer and me temporarily. My Syce drove me down, but he went back because he was going to take his family back to his native Malay village. My Syce left the car, which I couldn’t drive. They were an elderly couple [where we stayed]. They had been there in the first world war and they were still out there. They hadn’t retired when they should have done because of the shortage of men. They had no children. When they were on leave in England they would stay with her sister, who had young children. She hated it, because the children were naughty. So when she knew she was getting a child to stay with her she was upset. But by the end of the week -- we had to leave after a week because the Japs were coming through the jungle again behind us — she cried when Jennifer left because she had got quite attached to her.

We were there in that very remote place really, and that night the British troops came down onto the adjoining estate, and the colonel came in to see us to ask us about one or two things. He said “Look they are very close; they are coming through the jungle.” Then Jennifer called downstairs to me and he said “Is that a child?” and I said “Yes” and he said “Get out at once with her because there is no time to lose.” Well I didn’t know what to do. The people who were managing the estate that we were staying at were going to get away, but they couldn’t leave immediately because he wanted to see that his labour force had enough rice to keep them going, and they also had to burn all the stocks of rubber, which made the most terrible, awful, smoke and smell! So we rang round to see if we could find anyone who would drive the car, and it happened that on an estate not far away there was a Free Frenchman who had driven somebody badly injured down from K.L., and was going to take him further down the peninsular. But the man was so ill he had to stop off at this other estate. The Free Frenchman wanted to get back to Singapore [and did not have his own car], so he said he’d drive us down. He came round early next morning, and of course it was a long journey.

We drove all day, and several times we had to get out of our car and get under cover somewhere on the side, either a bit of jungle or a rubber estate or something, because the planes were overhead bombing. It was a horrible journey. The whole week we were in Batang Malacca all we heard was traffic going South, getting away from the Japs. We did meet some Australian troops coming up to fight the Japs, as we were going down. This Free Frenchman said he spoke a few languages, which he certainly seemed to, because he spoke to Indian troops in what was their own language. Jennifer spoke fluent Chinese, which was very unusual, because she had a very quick ear — and Malay, and English. She never got them muddled. Her English was the worst of the three! She’s forgotten it all now, more’s the pity.

We had a bit of money, and I did have a cheque book, but I think the banks were a bit cautious about cheques then — it was mostly cash. Petrol was rationed. On the way down we stopped to get some petrol and the Chinaman who owned the petrol station said we couldn’t have it unless we‘d got the coupons, which I hadn’t — I hadn’t got the next lot of coupons. We argued and argued, and in the end the Free Frenchman knocked him out and stole the petrol! While we were doing this a great friend of ours, who was going down to Singapore to take his wife, drove past. He didn’t stop; he just waved his hand!

At Singapore

When we got to Singapore this Frenchman took me to his home, which he was sharing with another Frenchman. They said they would give us a room to sleep in and we’d be alright. I thought “We can’t stay here with these two.”

I rang up the only person I could think of in Singapore, a name I had heard of through the firm that we worked for. I rang him up, and I said “Do you know what has happened to any of the older members of the firm” and he said “Yes, I can give you the name of one of the directors who is down in Singapore.” So he gave me his telephone number and I rang him up. He said “Where are you?” and I said “I’m in Singapore” and he said “Where?” and I said “I don’t know. I’m with two Frenchman.” He said “Well look; I’ll come and get you; find out where you are.” So I found out the address from the men, and he said “I will come and get you, and see if I can find you a room in the Adelphi hotel.” So he came and got me, much to my relief, and took me to the Adelphi. I got one of the last rooms in there, which was horrible. I really think it was partly in the servant’s quarters, because the hotel was flooded with refugees. The bathroom was primitive, not really very nice. . . .

[A description of the brief stay in beleaguered Singapore seems to be missing. But after a couple of weeks they were able to leave Singapore on the “Empress of Japan”.]

The story continues as page 6b. "Midge"s Story.

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