The George Adams Interview — Part Eight

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: But they’d gone.

GA: But they’d moved out, oh yes, they’d gone.

Int: And he actually apologised to you.

GA: Oh yes, he apologised to us. His words were, “X party, I’m very sorry for what happened, I apologise to you.” With that, he walked out.

Int: About how many of you from X party were there because X party was the whole 150, but you were just a section of it were you?

GA: I should say there’d be roughly twenty of us; getting on that way because we’d got three posts on the hill, we’d got one at the top end of the drome on that track, and we’d got the guard room, so there’d be close on twenty of us, yeah, up there at the time.

Int: Right, so after this apology, what happened then?

GA: Well, the whole situation on the island, it was deteriorating rapidly. Things were going from bad to worse, they were breaking through all over, and we had instructions on the eleventh, that we were moving out. The demolition squad had been in on, I think it was about the ninth, and laid charges all over the place, to blow various places up. Some of our lads went up to the officers’ mess; they’d been instructed to go up there, smash all the liquor. They broke all the liquor bottles and everything up there, and we were fortunate; we’d been given a - I think it was a Chrysler, with a dicky seat.

Int: What’s a dicky seat, sorry, a Chrysler is a car, but……..

GA: Well, you know the boot on a normal car? Well the dicky seat — well, the boot used to open, instead of opening from the back to the front, the boot used to open from the rear window, backwards, and there was a seat in there, with which you could take two more passengers.

One of the flight sergeants had remained behind with the admin. officers, and he said he wouldn’t want it. It was his, we could have it. The defence officer had also issued instructions that the post office had to be open. There were still parcels there from Christmas, from Australia.

Int: This is the post office on the airfield.

GA: On the airfield, yeah, in the headquarters section. “Take them out, all the food you can get. We shall want it if we get a boat. Load it before we move off.” So this is what we did, we loaded up and moved out. We’d no problems at all. The only thing we saw was an Indian section of the army was moving up — crawling up across the drome actually. Well we moved out, but we’d no problems for quite a long time.

Int: Did you realise that the whole situation had gone to pot?

GA: Oh yes. I should have mentioned just before that, I think it was the tenth, the group captain had also notified us that they’d heard that the surrender was that afternoon, but it didn’t take place, it was refused. Percival refused that surrender, so it went from there and we realised that they wouldn’t go on much longer, because they were just bombing indiscriminately. We’d no aircraft to stop them. The situation was getting very bad down in Singapore City.

Int: Did you realise that you would have to get a boat to get off there yourselves, that it wouldn’t be a controlled evacuation, did you know what you were going to do?

GA: The only thing we knew was what the defence officer told us, that all technical personnel were going to try to get away, because they didn’t want to lose so many technical personnel. That was the only thing we knew. We didn’t know what was down at the docks, he didn’t know; no-one knew. We made a move towards Singapore, to the city.

Int: You’d got this Chrysler, and you’d got this food, no bother about taking this stuff, the food out?

GA: No, no trouble, we’d no trouble all the way down until……….

Int: You weren’t all in the car though.

GA: Oh no, there were two in front, we were sat on top of the food; two behind. Then there were one or two of the trucks with the other lads in, and vans, some of the headquarters staff were there, the group captain had stayed. He was coming out last of all with the officers. We’d got the defence officer and two of the admin. officers with us, and we didn’t run into any trouble until…………

Int: Were you still under military discipline then?

GA: Yes.

Int: So, you were a convoy and someone was in command.

GA: Yes

Int: At this stage, when you were going to the docks.

GA: Yes, the station warrant officer was with us, the defence officer was with us, we’d got our own N.C.O.’s. We didn’t run into any trouble until we got close to the headquarters, and then they were dive-bombing, a convoy and some buildings down the road. So we pulled up under some palm trees. The defence officer said, “We’d better all get out and get under cover in this — oh, a huge garden. The house was empty, everything was gone. “Take cover under there and we’ll see what happens.” They never touched us, strangely enough, they never transferred their affections to us, we were untouched. We stayed there for quite a while until these two admin. officers, they said, “Look,” they came to the admin. officer we were sat round, “let us take our car and go down to the docks, see what’s in, and we’ll come back and let you know the situation, then, if there’s a boat in, you can move down with us.” That was the last we saw of them. We waited about another hour.

Int: Do you think they’d have done it deliberately, I mean, just gone away?

GA: Well, that’s the feeling we got because we never saw them again until we did get down to the docks and they were on the boat.

Int: Were they normal R.A.F. officers?

GA: Yes, two of the admin. officers, as far as I know. The lads weren’t very pleased about that, there was some talk of chucking them over the side.

Int: So, you were in this big garden, and they didn’t come back. How long did you wait for them?

GA: Oh we must have waited at least, an hour, hour and a half. We thought we might have trouble getting down there. It’s not a very big island y’know, Singapore, and we were half the way down to the docks. We thought they might have a bit of trouble; we’ll give them some time. So, the next thing, he said, “We’d better move out.” He didn’t know, somehow, for some reason, he didn’t know the way from there, and the warrant officer took over, turned off the road and started leading us back towards onto the Salita Road, back up to the straits. We couldn’t work this out because we knew that area, we knew he was on the wrong road………….

Int: Did nobody tell him?

GA: I think the thought crossed our mind that he was going to get onto the main road, and then come round to the right, then come back down the main road into Singapore then onto this other main road, y’see. But when he started heading up further out, and then there was all this — suddenly there was a heck of a racket, machine guns, rifle fire and goodness knows what, and everything pulled up. He stopped and everyone else stopped, got out. The walking wounded were coming back, so, we decided to go and have a talk to him, the warrant officer. We had a word with these fellas who were walking back. “What’s the matter?” “DON’T GO DOWN THERE, WHATEVER YER DO, THERE’S A HECK OF A BATTLE DOWN THERE!!” So, we went over to the warrant officer. “Yer know yer on the wrong road don’t yer? Yer’ve been on the wrong road since yer turned left. Let’s get turned round and out of it.” He got very irate with us and we got very irate with him. Anyhow, they had to turn round, we turned round and off we went.

Int: The whole lot of you?

GA: Yeah, off we went back down this main road, into the city. That was in a right state, the city was; there were sirens going, bombers coming over, they were bombing all parts of the city.

Int: It was a silly mistake for him to make though, I mean, such a small island, do you think he was a bit panicky?

GA: I don’t know what had happened really, he just seemed to be lost, completely.

Int: Weren’t there road signs and things?

GA: Well, yes there were road signs and names of the little villages, and all this business, but he kept going, and that was it. It’s a strange thing, but we never saw the defence officer there, but he was somewhere in that section with us still, but he never came up and said anything. I don’t think HE knew his way round. When we got down to the docks, there was all hell let loose down there………….

Int: Weren’t the roads blocked with the bombing and everything?

GA: No, we managed to get through. There was a lot of wreckage, but we managed to get through quite easily.

Int: What about refugees, y’know, people just trying to get away, did they block the roads at all?

GA: No, ‘cos it was in the city, there was nowhere they could go. There was only the island and that was it, that was the full stop, once you got on the island. Everybody was under shelter, whatever they could get, and we got through fairly easily when we got down to the docks, but when we got down there, there was a right racket down there. We were fortunate again, they didn’t set on us in the area where we were. It was only a matter of, four hundred yards further down.

Int: This was bombing.

GA: Yes, it was bombing, and afterwards, we found out that they were also in range of shellfire, and they were shelling too, and we got away with that. We got out of this car. “Right, get the packs out.” We’d got grub in the packs, and everything, and we’d got so much kit in the packs, we’d got a kitbag with us, and we started to get things out, get the food out when this warrant officer rolled up.

Int: One of yours, or another one?

GA: The one, yes, one of ours, the one who was leading us off the wrong way. He rolled up. “What yer think yer doin’?” He was in a terrible state, almost shouting, almost hysterical. “We’re getting this grub out, we’ll want it on board.” There was a boat there, a biggish boat. It was an ex-refrigeration boat. We would want the food on board, we knew there wouldn’t be anything, and he immediately — ooh, he was screaming, “Leave it there, leave it where it is, get on the boat, get on the boat.” We said, “Look, we want this food!” Then he drew his revolver and waved it at us. “Get on the boat!” We still defied him. “Let’s get this food out first.” “I’ll shoot you, I’ll shoot you.” I said, “He means it, he means that.” “I do, I do!” He’d really blown his top then. So I said, “Leave it.” So we left the grub there and got on the boat.

Int: So, why was he so irate about it?

GA: Well, first of all, we’d had a go at him for leading us off in the wrong direction, also, he was panicking over this bombing and shelling further down the docks there, and I think he was another one who’d just reached the end of his tether, I think that’s what had happened.

Int: Was there any reason not to take the food?

GA: No, we’d been instructed to pick the food up from the post office. The defence officer said, “Look, you’ll want that on the boat, so……………”

Int: So was there a rush to leave?

GA: No.

Int: Did it leave as soon as you got on, for instance?

GA: No.

Int: So, he was making again, a fuss about nothing.

GA: Yes, about nothing.

Int: So, when you went on, was there anything to stop you getting on board, I mean, were there any checks as to who you were?

GA: It’s strange that you should ask this. No-one took our names, there were no names taken of people coming aboard. They only knew that we were a technical party, that had been explained to them apparently because we got on without any problems. There were no, “Who are you? What are you doin’?” We were in a party with N.C.O.’s, officer, and they must have been instructed that this was happening. The technical personnel, as many as they could get, had to be got off the island.

Int: So, if an infantry platoon had rolled up, they wouldn’t have got on board.

GA: No, not then, not at that period, but there was a tragedy there. We didn’t find out about it until after we got on the boat. Three Australians had deserted and the Harbour Master who was a military man, because the military had taken over then, he questioned them, and they shot him, and got aboard. They forced their way aboard and I don’t know what happened because we never saw them, but we knew — the first thing we knew about it was when we got into Java. It was before we docked that night. We were out in the roadsteads, waiting to dock, there were two Australian nurses and two Australian N.C.O.’s who must have been instructed; I think they were engineers, they must have been ‘cos they had been instructed to come aboard and they were talking about it. They said, “There’s three of our Australian people on who shot the Harbour Master and forced their way aboard.” Since then, I’ve read about this in books too.

REEL 7:

Int: What was the name of the ship you boarded?

GA: The Empire Star. I think it was a ‘Blue Funnel’ line, quite a big boat, I think it was ten thousand tons.

Int: How full was it and who was aboard?

GA: Well, most of the people aboard were technical personnel and also, quite a lot of civilians.

Int: Were they all R.A.F. technical personnel, or were they………….?

GA: No, if I remember rightly, there were some army personnel and Australian army, and nurses.

Int: And a fair number?

GA: Yes.

Int: Was the ship not a temptation for Japanese bombing?

GA: Yes, oh yes! This is why we couldn’t understand it, why we weren’t getting some of it as well. They’d left us alone, it was marvellous really. It was hard lines for the people further down the docks, but we were never touched.

Int: Were they boarding boats as well, the people further down?

GA: Yes; smaller boats than this, this was about the biggest that was in and we never had any problem there.

Int: So, you got on board and there was no real check other than you were a party.

GA: That’s right.

Int: Where were you put on board?

GA: Well, you just found your way around and you got where you could get, y’know, anywhere really.

Int: Where did you choose to get?

GA: We got fairly well up the deck; we weren’t bothered about going down below too far.

Pt 9: A7543028

Pr-BR

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