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“The most humiliating experience of my life”
“On 15 February 1942 at about 4.30pm
General Percival called it off and surrendered.
“At that time my platoon were on the
forward slope of Mt Washington, the hill opposite our barracks. The Japs
had overrun the barracks, then being used as a hospital, and were down
in the valley, occupying a position around our swimming pool.
“For six weeks prior to this we had
fought and retreated our way south through the
rubber
plantations
and jungles of Malaya to the Causeway linking Malaya to
Singapore
and then across the island of Singapore itself. We were now uniquely
fighting and retreating through our own barracks, where we had lived for
the previous four years.
“At one stage I set up my platoon HQ in
the foyer of our cinema, knowing all our possessions were inside,
stacked in barrack boxes – so near yet so far.
“I found the buildings had been
evacuated so rapidly that there were drinks left on the tables, money
left in the till of the Officers Mess. In other buildings half-written
letters had been abandoned. Our clothing by this time was in a sad state
of dirt and sweat. I allowed two at a time to forage for clean gear.
“One man, whose name I can't remember,
who had been promoted to Sergeant during the action, was killed and we
buried him outside the Sergeants' Mess, which he had never been inside.
What irony.
“There were about 80 of us on that last
day of action, still in front of the Japs, the remnants of HQ and A
Company, with orders to hold that hill come what may. As we arrived to
take up our positions the Japs were hitting the place with mortars and
MAJ BARNES was among the wounded. He was carried off on a barrack table
as no stretchers were available.
“As we were out of touch with our rear
HQ, we had no knowledge that it was all over as far as we were concerned
and we were still firing on the Japs until just before darkness fell.
“Our fire power was enhanced by
discovering a
Vickers
machine gun in working order, with belts of ammunition, in a
broken down armoured car. This was fired for the last time by one of my
section commanders, CPL TOMMY PORTER at about 8.40pm.
“
I think that must have been the last
bit of defiance and the last gun to fire before dark that day, not
knowing that we had quit.
“It was some time after this that a
runner arrived from HQ to inform us of the surrender. We rendered the
gun useless, buried the ammunition and made our way back to Bn HQ. A
roll call was asked for by the CO and when a count was taken 147 men
were accounted for, out of the 850 men who had set off up country six
weeks before.
“I had received a shrapnel wound to my
right shoulder while dressing the wounds of one of my men, three days
previously. My right arm was out of action for the next 12 weeks.
“A discussion took place among the
survivors about escaping from the island. This was rejected as not
possible. We had to accept the fact that we were to become POWS of the
Japanese. After all our training, the regimental
Battle
honours of the past, we had come to this. The most
humiliating experience of my life.
“We were POWs of the Japanese”
“We marched 14 miles to the Changi area
of Singapore, which was to be our location for the next six months,
boxed in by barbed wire and guards on one side and the sea on the
other.
“As the wounds in my shoulder and leg
festered, I got into the sea daily to keep the wounds clean, successful
for me as they gradually healed.
“My health was deteriorating. My weight
dropped from 11st 6lbs to 9st 7lbs in a matter of a few
weeks.
“Our diet of rice was disinfected by
lime powder to kill the rice worms. This was unsuccessful, but turned
the rice yellow and had to be gulped down while pinching your nostrils
to cut out the smell.
“As the diet was mostly liquid, bowel
evacuation occurred once every ten days with nothing much to show, but
urinating seemed to be almost continuous.
“Stomach trouble started for me at this
time and continued through the years. Momentary blackouts were occurring
when bending down and tropical ringworm covered my back. My wounds,
although clean, were troublesome and my eyesight and hearing were being
affected.
“There were many wounded and Kitchener
Barracks, Changi, was being used as a hospital. It was crowded with
wounded men lying on the floor, with no space between them and an
overpowering smell of gangrene. There were many amputations and many
died. The ground near the hospital was designated for burials.
“My good friend of 10 years, ARTHUR
JORDAN, from
Walthamstow,
had suffered a leg wound on the last day of action. He had his leg
amputated and died. He was wrapped up in his sheet, a hole dug and
another good friend gone. Similar acts of this description were taking
place continuously, daily, the six months I was a POW in Singapore.”
-----------------
After spending his first six months as a POW in Changi in Singapore, Dad
was one of 1,000 men who endured five weeks on board the “hell-ship”
Fukkai Maru, landing at Fusan, in
South
Korea.
Next, a 24-hour train journey to Keijo for 6 weeks “training” under the
Japanese, finally arriving at Mukden in November 1942 in sub-zero
temperatures.
------------------
SURVIVAL was the name of the game for the duration as a POW – and for
the rest of life.
There
was always, it seemed, somewhere in the back of Dad's mind the idea that
he could not trust anything to last. Everything he had worked to achieve
– home, family, job – could be taken away from him at any moment and he
must be prepared to survive at the most basic of levels once again..
The particular circumstances of his own life leading up to becoming a
POW meant he did have extra reserves to call on to help him survive.
First he was ACCLIMATISED to the original tropical conditions, having
served in the
regular
Army
in the
Middle
East since the mid Thirties.
From 1 October 1936 he was on active service, guarding the International
Settlement at the start of the Sino-Japanese war. He served there for 18
months, before being ordered to
Singapore
on 29 March 1938.
The day after the Japanese declared war on 8 December 1941, Dad was
installed at Gillman Barracks there and within a few days was fighting
across country. First around the Tyersall area, then at Segamat and
Jemental and on to Yong Peng.
Around 19 January 1942 his platoon was ordered forward to help the
Norfolk Regiment under CAPTAIN STRATFORD, covering 63 miles to
the Causeway. Within a day Japanese light tanks had landed in the area,
50 men were lost and many wounded and withdrawal was effected to
Bidadari.
On
1 February
they were sent to Blakang Mati for two days rest after fighting
continuously for more than 50 days, then back to the Causeway and
fighting and retreating across Singapore. There were many casualties on
the
Ayer Rajah
Road and by
13
February they were back to their own Gillman
Barracks, which by now had been overrun by the Japanese.
Dad had also been in PEAK PHYSICAL CONDITION in the run up to the last
six weeks jungle fighting and then wounding just prior to being taken
prisoner. As a member of the triumphant Boxing Squad he remembered being
“treated like royalty”, fed the best steaks.
He was a winning member of his battalion's BOXING SQUAD. In June 1940 he
had won the Singapore ABA Middleweight Championship and also the Malay
States Inter-State title and was considering turning professional on
finishing his Army service.
He had been due to return home, having completed the seven years service
he had signed up for, on 9 September 1939. Six days earlier war was
declared against
Germany.
All leave was cancelled. Many boxing cups and medals were lost, along
with silk sarongs, scarves and cushion covers, intended as exotic
souvenirs for his family. A few years after his return home Dad
received £167. 3 shillings “compensation”.
His strict
boxing
training
also partly explained a POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE, determination and
persistence. All through life Dad believed will power could triumph over
everything, even terminal illness, in others and finally himself.
Like many men of
his generation, he took Kipling's If poem as a creed to live by.
CREATIVITY. His time as a POW was the start of literally “making the
best” of all circumstances and actual components in his life. In the
camp Dad fashioned an Army cap for himself, complete with a sewn red
rose for his Lancashire regiment's cap badge.
He also made a version of “Housey Housey” (bingo), presumably secretly
using equipment from the tools factory.. A broom handle was sliced up
into 90 segments, the edges of each circle somehow dyed red and the
centre marked with a number. A “board” was made from waterproof
sheeting, marked in 90 numbered squares. The POWs also made special
efforts to put on some sort of entertainment for themselves each of the
three Christmases in camp.
In later life Dad was continually learning new skills and passing them
on to others. He was naturally resourceful and versatile and was proud
to say he “could turn his hand to anything” and we were all brought up
to be self reliant.
Personal DISCIPLINE was vital in not losing hope and continuing to
believe, as Dad said he always did, that they would get back home again.
Army and boxing training had developed this and there was a strong sense
within the Loyals that they must maintain internal discipline within
their own group.
Dad and his particular mate SGT BILL WOOLHAM, another member of
the Boxing Squad, became the natural discipline enforcers within their
group.
“It was unfortunate but necessary for
strong action to be taken, if only to deter others from doing wrong.
Bill Woolham had to chastise with his fists one merchant with two mess
tins, saying one was for his friend who was sick. He didn't come with
that story again and of course nor did anyone else. A crude but
effective way of maintaining order among the comparatively few weak ones
among us.”
Always back to the shortage of food. Dad used to tell a story about how
desperate they were that they caught, cooked and ate wild dogs, found
roaming near the camp. This involved a huge amount of planning to
execute secretly from their guards and ran the risk of extreme
punishment if caught. As much as the food itself, this act of defiance
was a huge boost for morale.
ANGER AND RESISTANCE were key themes that appeared in Dad's stories. The
POWs derided their guards privately all the time, giving them nicknames
and the Japanese were always referred to with deliberate disrespect as
“the Japs”.
The POWS took every opportunity for sabotage. Dad remembered the glee
with which they continually buried tools in the wet cement of building
works in the factory they were working in. It was their proud boast not
to let any component leave the plant in full working order.
---------------------
“In clink without trial”
This is a pencilled entry by Dad in a scruffy notebook he had in Mukden,
significantly perhaps, the last thing he wrote in it until the final
event he described in great detail - liberation..
These few words described his own worst horror – sentenced to solitary
confinement in the dark for an unspecified period, in a space so small
he had to crawl into it – punishment for refusing a Japanese command.
Dad did not know how long he would be kept there or if he would be
forgotten and left to die, the psychological torture on top of the
physical punishment a deliberate Japanese ploy.
The POWs were used to hard work and expected that as part of being a
prisoner of war. Even though the Japanese had not signed up to the
Geneva Convention and showed this daily
in their treatment of prisoners, some semblance of the sort of work it
was suitable to ask POWs to do had been maintained until this point.
By December 1943, the inadequate latrines in the camp were overflowing,
the stinking mess rising above ground level and beginning to flow out
towards the camp's parade ground. Usually local
Chinese people had taken away large amounts of waste material to
use as fertiliser, but it was now out of control.
The Japanese ordered the work detail Dad was leading to be taken off
usual factory duties to scoop out the deposits into boxes and carry it
away, out of the camp. Dad refused.
He said he thought they would kill him. But in a way he longer even
cared. He was just certain that neither he nor his men should be
humiliated to the extent of having literally to carry shit. At first he
was knocked down by the butt of the supervising guard' s sword. When he
still refused to work he was taken to Col Matsuda. Meanwhile the rest of
the men, as I understand it, were stood down and did not have to do this
work.
Dad said he had the impression that something the interpreter said saved
his life. Although the Japanese treated the POWs as less than human
because they had allowed themselves to be taken alive, contrary to the
Japanese code, they had a curious semi-respect when challenged on what
they considered a point of honour, as now.
MAJ ROBERT PEATY,
the senior British officer in the camp, wrote to Dad years later:
“I
remember “the Bull” saying to me one day “all the British POWs are very
correct” [Peaty also wrote the phrase in the original Japanese}. That
was a back-handed compliment if ever there was one.”
I
do not have Dad's own words here. He would never agree to record this
incident, one of the memories that particularly plagued him and
initiated his lifelong claustrophobia.
For the rest of his life he had to force himself to use lifts and the
Underground. Significantly bedroom doors were never completely shut in
our house.
Dad had to crawl into the dark and could only guess the passing of day
and night by the changing of the guards outside. He was on punishment
rations - water every day but rice only every other day. Like anyone in
solitary, he had to call on all his mental resources, singing and
reciting to himself every song and poem he could remember.
One day he spat out his water, which tasted strange, fearing that he was
being poisoned. Then he realised what the unusual flavour was –
chocolate – smuggled from somewhere and dissolved in the liquid. His
friends had not forgotten him.
I
believe it was during this stint of extra punishment that Dad came to
know one particular American POW very well. He was being held in the
“cell” next door.
Although they were unable to see or speak to each other, they exchanged
life stories - through Morse Code. They used a shoelace, which they
pulled back and forward between them at different speeds. This was
achieved laboriously in the dark, through the partition dividing them.
It seems likely Dad's new friend was WILLIAM
J JOY (Army No: 613243/ POW 207) from Somerville in
Massachusetts, two miles from
Boston. Dad “talked” about his family
and growing up in East London, England
and William “responded” with tales of his plans to run a farm in the mid
West. Dad's notebook records that his own internment turned out to be
for seven days, but recorded “Joy over 80 days without trial
Fukizawa”. Dad saw him emerge with a long beard, unable to stand
unaided and blinded by daylight.
One of Dad's treasured mementoes from this time is a metal water bottle,
inscribed with his name and regiment and prison number, scratched,
alongside s other words and drawings by Joy Boy Boston Mass.
613243. It records the dates of the fall of Singapore,
Corregidor, Bataan and Japan
quits 8-15-45 along with hopes
for Christmas Turkey in
Albuquerque and initially Golden
Gate in '48 plus a drawing of the sun setting over palm trees
and sea.
USA Reunions 1984
Dad made many American friends during the war and in the POW camps
especially. Over the years he heard news of some of them and in 1984
went with his daughter Maureen on a reunion trip to the USA.
Starting with relatives, Mum's cousin Rosalene and husband Jack
Gallagher, in Brooklyn, New York, they went on to meet up with US
veterans. He especially enjoyed time with fellow Mukdenite Jim Brown –
JAMES E BROWN (6914061) POW 333 on his ranch in
Indiana, talking over shared experiences
in the camp.
Dad was surprised to find that returning US servicemen were promoted for
time spent as POWs, rather than demoted as not on active service, as in
the UK. The GI Bill of Rights also awarded them funds to start a new
life, instead of the one-off payment of £79 given to returning British
POWs. US ex-POWs, like their British counterparts, were also lobbying
their Government for better provisions.
------------------
“A bond between us that will never be broken”
The closest bond of all was with members of his own regiment, 2nd
Bn The Loyals, whose regimental HQ is in Preston, Lancashire, where Dad
features in the regimental museum.
Dad faithfully recorded surviving Loyals once they reached Mukden:
McGrath / Nuttall / Neal / Feeny / Porter / Dickinson / Orme /
Whatmough / Mason / Burgis / Lee / Fuller / Woolham /
Hilton / Owen / Plummer / Church /
Heaton / Glass / Loftus / Gilbert / Minchell / Rimmer / Neary / Christie
/ Sumner / Duckworth / Thompson / Foley / Gallagher / Eady / Tobin /
Jolley / Johnson. (34) Alf Gooby killed bomb
8/12/44
Back home he kept his pledge to visit relatives of deceased Loyals from
the London area.
Surviving Far Eastern POWs, still abroad while the rest of Britain was
celebrating the end of war, had to wait half a century for their own
victory parade - on VJ Day 50th Anniversary
on 19 August 1995. By his side was his son Danny, who tried
valiantly to trace for him lost friend PADDY LYSTER, (2nd
Bn Loyals) from Dublin, who
Dad had planned to meet back home with a bottle of whisky, if war had
not broken out. Dad was particularly touched that day by members of the
crowds thronging round Buckingham Palace, who shook his hand, had
pictures taken with him, and thanked him for his efforts, 50 years ago.
He was also proud to attend a Queen's Garden Party at
Buckingham Palace. But it was a
different mood on 26 May 1998, when he and daughter Patricia were
among hundreds who lined up in Pall Mall, in a dignified silent protest,
turning their backs on visiting Japanese
Emperor Akihito, as he went past with the Queen who was honouring
him.
In the 1990s, in his seventies, Dad started travelling around the
country, proudly acting as Standard bearer for his Regiment on official
occasions. From the 1980s he had started finding and meeting up again
with old comrades. He kept up a prolonged correspondence with fellow
Mukdenite, ARTHUR CHRISTIE, concerning pensions for war widows
etc.
Of the eight members of the final AA platoon, which Dad led from May
1941, only he and
CPL TOMMY PORTER ended up in Mukden
together. They met regularly after the war and Dad also found and spent
time with fellow platoon member JOHN FITZSIMMONS (Fitz), who
incredibly survived a gunshot through his neck, even his vocal chords
remaining undamaged. He was sent to work in the Motoyama coal mines in
Japan, working 12-15 hour days in freezing conditions, many suffering
frostbite.
In 1985 Dad was reunited with long-time friend and Mukdenite, SGT
BILL WOOLHAM:
“How
very pleased I was to see you again. Because of times gone by, as raw
recruits at Fulwood, Preston for six months, at Tidworth for four years
and the boxing team, coming back from Aldershot
in '35 and '36 as Army Inter-Unit Team champions, with the King's
Shield. At Shanghai for 18 months, when
we fought the Russians, seeing our first spell of active service. Also
of Singapore in peacetime in '38, our
training in the gym with 16 oz gloves, knocking hell out of each other
in the ring and going out on the town together with the rest of the gang
when we weren't training.
“The
privation, starvation and horror of the prison camps. All this Bill, and
more, formed a bond between us and the rest of the lads that will never
be broken.”
"A
clever
boxer and fast on his feet”
A
proud member of his Regiment's Boxing Squad, many of Dad's victories
were achieved in the Middle East. Press verdicts on some of his triumphs
included:
“His
style that of a class man”
“one
of the prettiest boxers to watch, danced his way in and jabbed away”
His ABA Middleweight Championship victory on 6 June 1940 at the Happy
World stadium, was the first boxing match to be covered by the Singapore
broadcasting station.
He was fighting against friend and fellow serviceman Bill Woolham:
“the
verdict rightly and popularly went to Lee for his masterly display
against a much more experienced man. A grand fight.”
The Straits Times
ALBERT GEORGE LEE (59)
“There
were three Lees in the team (74) (49) and myself (59). We were not
related.”
1935 Winner of Southern Command and King's Shield.
Boxed at 2nd String Welterweight (Col Underwood DSO)
1935 June Qualified Army Boxing Instructor at Army School Physical
Training, Aldershot
1936 Feb Winner of Southern Command and King's Shield
1936 April Winner of Sassoon Cup
(Capt Schoales MM Boxing Officer / Lt Col J Hume DSO 1936)
1937 Army v Russian Regiment (Shanghai) Winner Welterweight
1940 Federated Malay States Inter-State
Middleweight Champion
Singapore
ABA Middleweight Champion
Malaya Command Services Middleweight Champion
Lowther
Grant Cup (Army v Navy) Individual Middleweight Champion
Tolley Cup Individual Middleweight Champion
13 cups and 4 medals lost in Singapore
plus 2 football medals and Lifesaving bronze
--------------------
“Dear Mum and Dad,
IT'S OVER! I'M FREE AND WELL!
Love, from your long lost, but returning
Albert”
These words come from Dad's first letters to his family on liberation in
1945.
His first, censored, postcard to them in 1942, as a POW, had allowed him
only 20 words:
My health is good.
I am allowed to receive letters and parcels.
Take care of yourselves.
Love to all.
Albert
His teenage sister Rose responded promptly on 24 June 1942:
Dear Alb
Hope you receive this OK, if so please let us know,
as we are all worried about you.
Don't think we have forgotten you, only we couldn't
write before.
Cheerio. Love from all at home, Rose x x x x x x x
A
penciled note in Dad's handwriting on the front of the envelope shows
that it was
23 April 1945, nearly three years later, before he
received this loving message, which
would have done so much to cheer him amid the horrors of the camp.
Initially there was confusion over Dad's fate. For some months his
family were left believing him “missing presumed dead”. Once they knew
he was alive, his parents and sister Rose took turns to write weekly to
him from June 1942, most of which he did not receive, along with Red
Cross parcels, withheld by the Japanese, until the end of the war.
At first his family sent letters via the POW Information Bureau and then
the Red Cross, both in Tokyo. Then there
was confusion over place names, not knowing that Chosen, where
Dad's initial postcard came from, was not the name of a particular camp
but the Japanese word for Korea..
Once they found out he had been transferred to Mukden in November
1942, they sent letters to Hoten, Manchukuo [Hoten was the nearest town,
three miles NE of Mukden and Manchukuo the Japanese word for
Manchuria].
After two years of writing to him but not receiving a reply, they
learned, in April 1944, via a radio broadcast from Far Eastern POWs,
that he had not been receiving their letters and was equally anxious
about them, not knowing if they were surviving bombings at home.
His regiment in Preston passed on the details, correct apart from
misnaming him Alfred:
Sgt Alfred George Lee
(3854759) is anxious to hear from loved ones he has left behind.
From then on the family sent letters directly to Dad at camp, quoting
POW number1237.
Back in Mukden, in June 1943, Dad still had no word from home, more than
a year after writing. He sent a heartfelt, but censored, message to mark
his sister's 20th birthday, giving no indication of the
horrors at his end:
Dear Mum and Dad
Have received no letters yet. Last eight months been living here. Think
about you all the time. Pray that you are alright. My regards to old
friends. Deepest sympathy to Mrs Jordan
[mother of his friend Arthur who had
died at Changi}.
Writing on Rose's twentieth birthday, happy
returns. Food and treatment fair. Keep chin up and don't worry. Tell Alf
and Arthur carry on good work.
When war ends get stock of grub and stand by for my return. Cheer up.
Love, Albert
This
was received as a typed postcard, passed by the Japanese censor and
signed by Dad. It did not reach his family for eight months,
arriving the following January.
His family went on sending messages thousands of miles across the world,
every week, not knowing if Dad was still alive. These brief extracts
give a flavour of their thoughts:
July 1943: “Take care of yourself. You are always in our thoughts.
Love from all, Dad.”
August 1943: We have not received any mail from you. Ever in our
thoughts. Love, Rose”
October 1943: “No more news from you. Please write. Love from all,
Father.”
November 1943: “All the family are well and send love. Write soon,
Mother.”
January 1944: “Waiting your return. Think and pray constantly.
Love from everyone, Mother.”
February 1944: “Think about you always. Remembering your birthday.
Love, Rose”
July 1944: “Wish you a safe and speedy return. Love, Mother”.
Finally, at liberty to write freely, words poured out of Dad in pencil
written letters.
Typically he wrote of the relief of leaving the camp, of future plans,
concerns for the safety of those at home and humbly of being grateful to
still be alive and for his treatment in comparison with what had
befallen comrades shipped to labour camps in
Japan.
References to the horrors of the camps would only gradually emerge over
the years.
------------------
6 August 1945
Atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima
10 August 1945 Japanese surrender
19 August 1945 Letter Handwritten in pencil
From: 3854759 Sgt
A G Lee, 2nd Bn The Loyals, Mukden, Manchuria
Dear Mum and Dad
IT'S
OVER! I'M FREE AND WELL! At last the day we've waited for so long has
finally arrived. So suddenly for us here that I'm still finding it hard
to believe it's not a dream.
We were officially told on the 17th , although everybody was
up all night on the 16th, after a rumour about it was started
in the camp. In the afternoon of the 16th five American
airmen landed near the camp by parachute and were taken into custody by
the Jap soldiers, who did not know the war was over. They were released
the following day and entered camp and got in touch with our officers.
We are now under the administration of our own officers, although the
Japs are still patrolling the outside of the camp until the Russians
arrive and they are expected tomorrow.
The five Americans are looking after our welfare and American planes are
here with supplies, although at the moment they will not be unloaded
until they get the OK from the Russians. They are making purchases
locally and we are now living on good food again.
I
am unable to express my feelings in words, but you can imagine how happy
I am after waiting all this time.
Our people took over and issued the letter for us, that we were in camp,
and I got some cards from you, the latest dated 1 August 1944, over a
year old, so write as soon as possible and let me know if you are safe
and well.
I
am well but a little on the thin side, being 147 lbs the last time I was
weighed, which is a couple of weeks ago. Now I am on good food again I
expect to put on weight rapidly and by the time I get home I should be
back to normal.
Since we have been
here we have been working in a machine tool factory, about a half a mile
from the camp, starting at 7am and quitting at 6pm. At 10 o'clock on the
15th the Japs brought us back to camp and that's when the
rumours started, although nobody was convinced until the official
announcement on the 17th.
It still seems unbelievable that it has ended so peacefully for us when
we were expecting to be mixed up in the action again before the end
came. I'm afraid the prisoners in
Japan have not been so fortunate as us, for they say a
lot of them have been killed.
On 7 December 1944 a couple of of stray bombs landed in the camp and
killed 19 and injured 45. These were our only casualties during the time
we have been here. We all think we have been lucky, after hearing
stories of what happened to
prisoners
of war in
Germany
and other camps under the Japs.
I
will keep you informed of my whereabouts by writing as opportunity
allows. Let everyone that is interested know that I am safe and well and
write as soon as possible, as I am busting to know how you have been
going on all this time. Excuse the paper, pencil etc as at present there
is no proper stationery in camp.
Hope to be on my way soon and perhaps I'll be home in a few weeks. It
still doesn't seem possible after all this time of semi-starvation and
anxiety but now its HAPPY DAYS.
Send some photographs when you write, if possible. Cannot write to
anyone else yet as I'm only allowed one letter at present, also have
nobody's addresses.
Love from your long lost, but returning, Albert
---------------
15
September 1945 Telegram To Mr Lee, Stratford, London E15
AT
MUKDEN ALL WELL WRITING HOPE TO LEAVE SOON LEE
---------------
16
September 1945 Letter handwritten in pencil
From: 3854759 A
Lee 2nd Bn the Loyal Regt (British Army)
Ex POW Aboard USS
Colbert
Dear
Mum and Dad
This is to let you know I am at last on the way. A few days after the
six Americans landed by parachute, 15 more Americans landed by plane,
with orders to get us out and on our way as fast as possible.
MAJ HENNESSEY, who was in charge, and the remainder of what they call a
“process team” worked hard and did a good job under difficult
conditions. There was confusion when the Japs quit and the Russian Army
came in to occupy the town. Also the movement of Jap and Korean refugees
caused a strain on the already disorganised railway and the airfields
weren't large enough for the big planes.
In spite of this many sick, including British, were flown out before we
left by train on the 10th of this month.
The
Americans are taking us by this boat to
Okinawa,
where we will arrive tomorrow morning.
I
am in good health and have put on 17lbs since the war ended. I hope you
are all well at home and also hope to hear from you soon. Love Albert
26
September Airmail letter card Handwritten in pencil Liberated POW UK
Dear
Mum and Dad
Just to let you know I am still on my way. Left Mukden 11 September for
Port Dairen. Went aboard the USS Colbert (1,000 tons) and sailed at dawn
on 13th, arrived at Okinawa on the 16th, but put
to sea again. On 17th struck floating mine which put hole
amidships 30ft by 20ft and almost broke ship in two. Killed two US
sailors (engine room) and seriously injured US Marine (ex POW) who died
later. Towed back to Okinawa, where we arrived on 19th and
taken to Allied Ex-POW Receiving Camp. Took everyone off USS Colbert and
sunk her.
On 21st left Okinawa by plane (B24) at
8am and arrived in
Manila
(800 miles) by midday. Rode another plane from Clark Field to
Nielson
Field
and taken by truck to Allied ex-POW Reclamation camp, arriving 6.15pm.
This is still present location but warned today we will leave at
1pm.
Possible route home via
San
Francisco –
New York.
Probable time 40 to 50 days.
Had
no news of you since liberation. Last letter while prisoner dated August
'44. Long to know how you all are. Please cable or write.
Getting plenty of food and sunlight here. Fit as ever but still little
underweight. Found gymnasium and had first spar in ring in nearly four
years. Better than expected. I'll write again as soon as I hear anything
further.
Hope you are well. Won't be long now. Love Alb
--------------------
Leaving Manila on 27 September aboard the
USS Robert
Lee
Howse (17,200 tons), they crossed the
International Date Line,
in rough seas on 7 October, arriving San Francisco on 15 October.
What a contrast to the “hell-ship” voyage three years earlier. Dad noted
that by 18 October he had put on 24lbs, now weighing 172 lbs. A daily on
-board newspaper, The Porthole, kept them up to date with events
around the world. While the Troops Mess was showing films starring
Henry Fonda,
Errol Flynn,
Rita Hayworth
and
Lucille
Ball.
Then by train to
Halifax
in Canada, returning to England on the
Queen
Elizabeth, which was still a troopship,
on 5 November 1945, where they were welcomed home, after a two month
trip, with tea and a bun, courtesy of the Salvation Army.
-------------------
SINGAPORE
PILGRIMAGE 5 -15 Sept 1995
Fifty years after liberation from Mukden, Dad finally returned to the
Middle East.
He attended a Service of Remembrance at
Kranji War
Cemetery
and was pleased to be able to pay his respects to fallen comrades,
especially
East
London
friend PTE ARTHUR JORDAN (3854953), died 31 March 1942,
buried there.
He also visited Changi Museum and the Singapore Memorial, which
commemorated fellow Loyal and Mukdenite CPL ALF W GOOBY(3855139),
who died 10 December 1944 and was buried in Sai Wan Cemetery. Also the
other
Albert Lee
– CPL ALBERT LEE (3854674), who died 17 February 1942.
Although his tour did not go as far as Mukden, Dad went to Sentosa
Island, where his visit included the museum, which displayed a wax
reproduction of the surrender to the Japanese, by Lieut Gen Percival,
General Officer
commanding HQ
Malaya
Command.
--------------------
“All
I need is a punch-bag, a punch ball, a skipping rope and somewhere to do
groundwork”
This was Dad's lifetime prescription for staying healthy. What makes it
remarkable is that he was still practising what he preached at the time
of writing this - two weeks before his 77th birthday.
He went on:
“After a while, by forcing myself to ride in lifts and using the
Underground, walking the streets etc I shook off most of my hang-ups and
with my knowledge of boxing training, started to get back to fitness.
Now, two or three times a week I do an hour's workout and feel in pretty
good shape.”
Dad arrived home on 5 November 1945, looking fit and well after the long
sea voyage, good food and company and most of all freedom. Living with
his parents in
Stratford,
he worked hard at appearing “normal”. Like most returning POWs, his
biggest scars were internal.
The nightmares,
nightly at first, continued intermittently for half a century, right up
to his death. At first, when he woke in the night he would write out
pages and pages of memories.- horror and anger – which gave him some
temporary relief. Then he tore up them up and destroyed them.
He believed that such experiences, which would today be labelled as
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
were signs of weakness he must overcome alone and keep private. It would
be years before he would start to talk about the war years.
He met TERESA, MARGARET, ELIZABETH MORGAN from
Northern
Ireland, on
Christmas
Eve
1948 and. they went on to run The Golden
Galleon restaurant in
Bexhill,
Sussex, together with his older brother Alf.
Albert and Teresa were married at
St Anthony of Padua RC Church in Rye, Sussex on
21 October 1950.
He brought up all four children in her Roman Catholic faith, although he
did not convert himself: PATRICIA ROSEMARY (b1951), MAUREEN
ANNE ( b1958), DANNY GEORGE (b1965) and ALBERT JOSEPH
(b1967).
After living in rented accommodation in Sussex and later Kent, the
first family home
was in Deal, Kent from 1954 to 1961. Following a year in
Warrenpoint,
Northern Ireland, they settled in Goodmayes, Ilford, in Essex, which
continued as the family home until 2000.
Dad had returned to post-war England and his family with his Army record
declaring he was of “exemplary character”. Now, at nearly 30, he had to
start his adult life in “civvy street” and provide for himself and his
own family.
He originally applied to join the police force and later for teaching
training but was already running the restaurant in order to gain an
income, before either possibility materialised. A highly intelligent and
resourceful man, he had left school at 14 due to family circumstances
and extended his formal education in the Army.
Later he spent many years as a salesman, for some time Area Manager for
Invicta Motors in Kent. He was a
gentle man, not a hustler, more a combination of
evangelist and social worker, truly believing in the better life he was
offering customers. He won many sales competitions, always determined to
do better and to continue learning and improving..
And he was always teaching. First as a swimming instructor in Brighton
and then training salesmen in Kent in the 1950s. He set up a driving
school the year the family lived in
Ireland,
with one of his wife's brothers Paddy and taught PT at a boys' school
there. He later gave driving lessons part-time as a qualified instructor
and eventually taught each of his four children to drive.
In spite of
health problems, Dad prided himself on working hard and carried on until
he was nearly 80. The stomach problems which started in the camps,
eventually led to a hemorrhage in 1958, when an undiagnosed duodenal
ulcer burst, requiring removal of two thirds of his intestines.
Following hospitalization for pernicious anaemia in 1969, when Dad was
in his fifties, he was diagnosed with a Vitamin B12 deficiency and
needed regular injections for the rest of his life. Later gall bladder
problems were unresolved when an
NHS
operation was delayed.
Dad died of cancer on 15 February 2000 – 58 years to the day after being
captured on the Fall of Singapore. He held on to make sure he had passed
midnight of the previous day to match Teresa, who had died at midnight
at the end of their 32nd wedding anniversary on 21
October 1982, aged 62.
He was surprised and pleased to have lived to see the 21st
century. At the time of his death he was survived by all four of his
grown-up children and one granddaughter, daughter of Maureen, NICOLA
STEPHENS, b1986.
He was buried in
City of London Cemetery, Manor Park, East London in a joint grave with
beloved wife Teresa and the same cemetery as his parents, Alfred and
Florence. They have all, sadly, been joined by his youngest son Albert
Joseph, who shared his birthday and who died in a road accident on 18
September 2001, aged 34.
--------------------
As a decent,
honest, responsible husband and father in the 1950s Dad walked put of
several jobs – always on a matter of principle, often in defence of a
colleague unfairly treated. His experiences as a POW had sharpened his
sense of injustice.
A
reserve of pent up anger inside him, from all the years when he could
not speak up fully without risking death or reprisals on others, would
flash at such times and although he did not do so he often had a strong
desire to hit out physically at unfairnesses in the world.
Throughout his life, a tiny item on television or in the newspapers
could spark those feelings. Then Dad would withdraw into himself,
silent, depressed, until he would rouse himself with another family
project.
Food was
obviously never wasted. Dad also had a horror of any Japanese goods
coming into the home. He avoided all electrical equipment, cars etc
manufactured in Japan.
After what
he had been through, petty illnesses or complaints were not tolerated
and “mind over matter” was the regime in our household. Having had to
play mind games with himself to survive as a POW, Dad would tackle
impossible tasks and drive himself hard, never able to allow himself to
“give in” as he had taught himself not to for so many years as a young
man. Like many men of his generation, Kipling's poem If was the
creed he lived by.
Those same experiences had enlarged his compassion for genuine
suffering. He always bought from struggling salesmen at the door and
became a friend to long-time customers in distress. But although kind
and friendly, later social relationships could never match up to that
intense period in his life when “friendship” meant Army mates and fellow
POWs risking their lives for each other.
Dad's whole world was his home and family. Ever resourceful, he took up
DIY, worked on car repairs himself and even produced a home-made table
tennis table. In later years he enjoyed taking the family on camping and
caravan trips, organised with military precision and particularly loved
all opportunities to be by the sea, even buying a dingy for family
holidays at Brighlingsea, on the Essex coast..
He loved music, especially the ballads of
Nat King Cole and bought and tried to teach himself the accordion in
middle age. The odd glass of whisky at a family get-together would have
him singing the songs he knew from his East London childhood – Any
Old Iron, The Lunatic Song and his father's favourite
Boiled Beef and Carrots.
The final order from Commander in Chief of
the Far East, Gen Wavell, on 14 Feb 1942 was:
“The island must be held until the last
man and the last round of ammunition has gone .”
From his boyhood
boxing days in East London, through active service in the Army and as a
POW, and later in civvy Street, right up to campaigns for pensions for
war widows, a financial award for POWs and an apology from the Japanese
- none of which he lived to see in his own lifetime - Albert Lee
continued fighting on to the end.
--------------------
“This comes with a huge apology to Sgt
Albert George Lee – to Dad – that his story was not properly made public
during his lifetime.
“Dad's POW experiences are part of our
family history. In 1951, in his sleep, he nearly accidentally strangled
Mum, heavily pregnant with me, thinking his hands were round the throat
of a Japanese guard, in his usual nightmare of escaping from the camp.
“Finding a way to make lives of our own,
while making space to do justice to the overwhelming experiences of the
troubled survivors in our families, sometimes takes many years.
Hopefully talking out some of the most painful memories was of some
help.
“Dad would be proud to know that he and
his fellows who suffered and triumphed at Mukden, are not forgotten. And
especially that this Museum, in honouring men who may not appear in any
official history of the
Second
World War,
will help give future generations, of all nationalities, a truer picture
of what really happened, in the hope that it will never be repeated.”
PATRICIA LEE on behalf of the
Lee Family January 2010
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