Although Peter broke his pelvis in an accident down Silksworth Pit in 1939, he was passed as A1 fit for active service at the outbreak of World War II.
He joined the 242 Battery Royal Artillery and sailed for the Far East.
The Japanese in Java took Peter as a Prisoner. His journey to Japan on the ‘Hell Ship’ was the beginning of a long internment as a Prisoner of war.
‘We were completely naked on the docks, we were marched round in batches of 20; student nurses or doctors, and we had to bend over and a glass tube was put up your rectum and that was put into a glass jar, and we were marched onto another ship. We sailed from there, lay down in the hold all the time like; like a pigeon ducket.’
‘We had a lamp dangling down, and, so funny, and of course everyone had dysentery, and the lamp went out and this Geordies voice shouted out from the darkness.’
‘Ohh mate is that shit or water,’ well a titter went round, you know you were sitting with your thoughts, you didn’t know if you were going to get torpedoed by America subs, or British subs.’
‘When it died down an officers voice boomed out, ‘Now boys don’t let these Bastards see we are enjoying this cruise,’ so funny, it lifted our spirits, every body was weighed down.’
‘You couldn’t lie down or sit up straight, we were in the stern hold and there was another three holds in front of us and we were putting bodies over board every day.’
‘We got to Japan - went to Fukioka, when we got off there we hadn’t been washed for a few weeks.’
‘I think that was kept the ship afloat. They put us in this big shed. Very little to wear, it was getting on to winter. The next day we got on a train and we were there - working in drift mines.’
Peter like many other captives faced starvation and long hours of forced labour. He recalled that conditions were not much better for the Koreans.
He can remember saving one young Korean labourer, little more than a child who fell exhausted over a fire. Peter recalled how he cut his jacket from him and carried him out.
‘Next day, his father came to the pit and asked for my number, 71 in Japanese. He gave us a couple of cigarettes and thanked us, I saw the little lad again the day we found out war was over.’
‘The colonel handed over his sword to our commanding officer and we knew it was really over. Outside the camp the Javanese lad came running up and showed me the burn mark on his stomach. I’ve never forgotten him.’
Peter had no news from home. His mother had a card correctly addressed, returned to her marked “Unknown” and spent the rest of the war thinking he had perished. |
