(Below) General Sir Archibald Wavell, C-in-C Far East and Major General F K Simmons,

GOC Singapore Fortress inspect the soldiers of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders.

Imperial War Museum on the IWM Non Commercial Licence. © IWM (FE 375)

MALAYA

The Japanese were quickly in control of the sea and air within a week of the start of hostilities in Northern Malaya. They quickly overran the Thailand border and swept in crushing any beach defences. The Allies simply could not cope with the break neck speed that the Japanese were charging south. Several Air Bases were lost without them being put out of action and even worse they were left with fuel, the Air Bases were later put to good use and this would put Singapore within reach of the Japanese aircraft. In fact the Japanese charge South probably would have stalled if it wasn't for all the supplies recovered at Kuala Lumpur, nicknamed 'Churchill supplies'.

General Archibald P. Wavell was now put in overall charge and acknowledged that mistakes has been made, he set about amending this. The plan was to try and halt the Japanese advance or at least slow it down until reinforcements and equipment would arrive from the Middle East, but they were at least a month away. 48 Hurricanes would be arriving on HMS Indomitable but they wouldn't be arriving until the end of January.

As part of this strategy on the 12th January 1942 the Loyals were brought forward from the reserve at Singapore to aid the hard pressed Indian and Australian troops who were falling back through the region of Johore. Over the next fortnight they fought several desperate rearguard actions, notably north of Batu Pahat, to assist in the Allied withdrawal from the mainland. Many Loyals were cut off in the fighting but managed to evade the enemy and rejoin the Battalion.

The fighting around the road to Parit Sulong was particularly fierce. At one point the Japanese rounded up 110 Australian and 40 Indian Injured soldiers who were unable to retreat and escape. They were then tied together and then tortured throughout the day, some were beheaded and some covered in petrol and set alight, a sign of the brutality to come.

This main battle in Northern Johore would end in a costly defeat. The men on the ground fought bravely and well in parts but were badly let down by poor communications and decisions by the officers, the speed and flexibility of the Japanese attack once again over whelmed the static defences that relied on old fashioned firepower.

Wavell's plans to halt the Japanese paid a high price, out of the 4500 men thrown into the battle only 500 Australians and 400 Indians returned to fight on. The 45th Indian Brigade was completely wiped out.

Wavell sent a telegram on the 19th January reporting the situation on the ground, it provided grim reading. He stated the number of troops needed to defend Singapore island was probably greater than they had used to defend Johore. He warned that Singapore would not be held for long, the guns were setup to fire seawards with ammunition for that purpose (I.E. armour piercing rounds for warships). He concluded rather hopefully with the statement that he hoped Johore may be held until the next convoy arrives.

Churchill received the report on the 21st and was shocked, why were the defences so poor at the so called fortress of Singapore ?

The COS and the defence committee met to discuss what to do with the approaching reinforcements. As a military decision it made sense to divert the convoy to now cover Burma, the gateway into China. But Britain had a duty to defend it's colony, it's prestige would have been severely dented if it had just pulled out and Australia was putting real pressure to fight on, they were worried after the fall of Singapore they would be attacked themselves. So the decision was to fight on.

Below - Gillman Barracks where Alf & the Loyals lived and worked before the Japanese attacked Malaya and Singapore.

It would be where they would retreat to during the battle of Singapore.

SURRENDER OF SINGAPORE

Back on Singapore Island, 2nd Loyals held the reserved demolition on the causeway until it was blown on 31st January. Reinforcements were still arriving at Singapore, the very last unit being the 18th Reconnaissance Battalion aboard the Empress of Asia but on the 4th February ten miles out from Singapore the ship was attacked by Japanese dive-bombers and set ablaze. 18th Recce were ordered to abandon ship, losing all their arms and equipment.

On 8th February the Japanese crossed the causeway and landed on Singapore Island. Some counter-attacks were attempted, including one made at Bukit Timah on 11th February by the re-equipped 18th Recce, but in general the Japanese retained the initiative as the garrison fell back towards the suburbs of Singapore city.

Towards the end the exhausted and demoralised men of the defeated Armies were seen hanging around Singapore avoiding being sent back to fight. Some Australian units were even forcibly taking boats by gunpoint to try and escape. Controversy their General G Bennett escaped with a party of men on the 11th February, he would later make the excuse this was because he wanted to fight on, many others thought he should have stayed with his men.

The 2nd Battalion Loyals defended positions on Reformatory Road before starting a series of withdrawals starting on the 12th, which took them to Gillman Barracks, their former peacetime base. They endured a further two days of heavy pressure and on 15th February they made a final withdrawal to Mount Washington where the surviving Loyals were ordered to lay down their arms.

Percival held a meeting on the morning of the 15th, he was told that the army were close to running out of ammunition, also petrol and water were all running low. Counter attacking was discussed but all agreed the army was now in such a poor state it could not be done. Wavell sent a telegram to Percival authorising the surrender.

Alf's 2nd Battalion surrendered along with the rest of the Singapore garrison on 15th February 1942. Following the destruction of the 2nd Loyals with its surrender at Singapore, the battalion was reformed in Britain. The 10th Battalion, a hostilities-only battalion created in 1940, was re-designated as the new 2nd Battalion on 28th May 1942.

(Below) Lieutenant General Yamashita Tomoyuki and Lieutenant General Arthur Percival discuss surrender terms. Taken at the Ford Works Building near the Bukit Timah Road, Singapore, 15th February 1942.

Imperial War Museum on the IWM Non Commercial Licence. © IWM (HU 2770)

PRISONERS OF WAR

On the 15th February 1942 Singapore was finally taken and Alfred's unit was captured by the Japanese, the survivor’s including Alfred became prisoners for the rest of the war. Where POW's were taken & held is a complicated picture with prisoners moved about & camps being renamed etc. Many of the Allied captured at Singapore were initially held at the transit camps and then moved on. Over the next three and a half years the survivors of both battalions suffered severe beatings and many deaths at the hands of their brutal captors. Alfred can probably consider himself lucky as the 2nd Loyals were sent to Keijo, in Korea, while the men of 18th Recce were taken to Thailand to construct the notorious Burma Railway, many of them did not survive the war.

Alfred was initially reported as missing (see associated images - Missing List). He then resurfaces and listed as a POW , this was reported to War Office Casualty Section on the 7th December 1942 (see associated images - Previously Missing List). I expect it was a huge relief to Alf's parents Frederick and Harriett on finding out the news he was still alive.

Alfred was initially held at the Changi Jail complex in Singapore or more accurately the Selarang Barracks. The Japanese military detained about 3,000 civilians in Changi Prison, which was built to house only 600 prisoners but the Japanese used the British Army's Selarang Barracks, near the prison as a prisoner of war camp, holding some 50,000 Allied soldiers, predominantly British and Australian and from 1943 some Dutch civilians.

Below: You can see can see two rare photos of the men of the 2nd Loyals in captivity at Changi Gaol, on the left you can see the men of the 2nd Loyals queuing for their evening rice in October 1942. On the right the men of the 2nd Loyals in Changi Gaol “enjoying” their rice stew and “Douvers” while Prisoners of War in Singapore, October 1942. These photographs taken by the Reverend Lewis Headley.

A fellow POW on the ship was a Dick Swarbrick who left us a detail of the conditions on the ship
Transcribed by Dave Swarbrick- see below -

"And so, on Sunday 16th August of 1942, in company with approximately one thousand one hundred other English and Australian prisoners, Dick finally embarked on the Japanese cargo ship, the Fukai Maru. Dick and the others had actually been on the ship for four days before it sailed on the 20th; four days in hot and overcrowded conditions without even a sense of movement to distract the mind from the horrendous conditions. The ship’s holds were dirty and infested with vermin, which rendered rather pointless all the disinfecting and fumigating that had preceded the men’s arrival on board. On the Tuesday it rained heavily and all the men were kept in the holds with the hatch covers on. It must have been a relief when, at quarter past eight in the morning of Wednesday 19th August, the ship slipped its moorings and headed out to sea. Whatever lay in store, they were at least on the move.

At twelve noon on Saturday 22nd August the ship anchored off Cholon Sunyak on the Sunyak River. Here the ship joined a small convoy of six other ships, which sailed the following day at about two o’clock in the afternoon. That morning a number of boats had come alongside the Fukai Maru selling cigarettes, eggs, fruit and even beer, to the prisoners. The only problem was it had to be paid for in Japanese currency, so most of the men could buy little or nothing.

The ship’s next port of call was Takao, Formosa. The ship anchored in the harbour on the afternoon of Saturday 29th August. Dick and his fellow prisoners spent some two weeks working in the docks to load the Fukai Maru with its cargo of bauxite. The men had to load the cargo into lighters, either shovelling it or carrying it on their backs like sacks of coal. It then had to be unloaded from the lighters into the ship’s holds the same way. It was hard physical labour; the only consolation being that the men were fed better rations and had three meals a day. On most of the days that they were in harbour it rained, usually heavily; it was the beginning of the typhoon season. Finally the ship was fully loaded and set sail on Tuesday 15th September. The men were then housed on top of the cargo of bauxite for the duration of the next part of the voyage.

The ship sailed up the West Coast of Formosa and joined a small convoy at the Pescadores, which then sailed north. The ships then doubled back apparently following a report of American submarine activity in the area. Then on the 17th September they headed off into the China Sea. Conditions aboard the old and rusting 3,821 ton Fukai Maru were far from ideal. It had been a cargo ship, a tramp steamer, and it had already seen better days. The men were divided between two holds, 550 men in each. Wooden shelving had been placed on top of the cargo in each hold, making two tiers each with about a metre of space. There was not room to stand or even kneel; it was sit, lie or crawl. The men stripped off their clothes, sweated and made the best of it. At first the weather continued to be extremely hot, many of the men suffered from heat rash and beriberi was all too common. Meals, if such they could be called, were twice a day at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. The mainstay was rice, steamed using steam from the boilers, and a thin soup made with flour, water, a few onions and 14 tins of Irish stew – 14 tins between 1,100 men.

As the Fukai Maru steamed north towards Korea the weather deteriorated and the sea became increasingly rough. As they headed into the South China Sea the ship pitched and tossed for hours on end; a good many of the men now fell prey to seasickness. In order to accommodate the thousand men on board several outrigger style latrines had been rigged on the decks; these were washed overboard as the ship ploughed through the tail end of a typhoon. Conditions in the overcrowded holds now worsened considerably as the men suffered from seasickness, diarrhoea and dysentery. It also got distinctly colder. On Tuesday 22nd September the ship finally reached its destination, Fusan in Korea. Although the men had initially believed that they were heading for Japan, the majority of them were destined to see out the rest of the War in Korea.

The ship docked, the holds were fumigated and the men subjected to a medical examination by a team of Japanese doctors. More than twenty men were found to have contracted dysentery and most of the others were suffering from beriberi and acute diarrhoea. The serious dysentery cases were taken ashore immediately to the local military hospital. The men then spent the next day, Wednesday 23rd September, stuck in the same holds, going nowhere and not knowing what was in store for them. It was the next day before the men were finally ordered to disembark. The Fukai Maru sailed away and continued to ply its trade in the area for another year or so. It was torpedoed, carrying Japanese troops, off Palau on the 13th December 1943."

- S - http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/richard_swarbricks_war/html/fukai_maru.htm

FUSAN VICTORY PARADE

You can read below about the 'Fusan Victory Parade' that the men were forced to make after the ship arrived in Korea.

This is taken & adapted from 'https://www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2002/degroen.asp'

After the ship docked it appears that the Japanese guard split the prisoners into two groups, assigning the Loyals, the AIF and all field officers to Keijo prisoner of war camp, and the 122nd Field Regiment and personnel from other corps to Jinsen camp. A further day’s delay on board ensured that the disembarkation of the prisoners coincided with the Japanese autumn equinox festival on 24 September. As in Takao, the entire local population, clad in their holiday finery had been commandeered to line the streets as compulsory spectators of the victory parade.

No sooner had the Fukkai Maru tied up at Fusan dock than Japanese journalists and photographers swarmed aboard to interview selected prisoners about the Malayan campaign. As the captives filed down the gangplanks, their boots and hands were sprayed with disinfectant. On the dock, Kempeitai officers and customs officials subjected them to a double search, confiscating gold rings, packs of cards and cameras but sometimes missing more incriminating items, like Capt Des Brennan’s Malay kris and a British prisoner’s compass and makeshift brass knife. (Another British prisoner of war managed to discard a large handgun prior to being searched.) Like several of his mates, Bill Gray from the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion had filled his pack with unlabelled tins of M&V "liberated" from the hold under the ‘tween-decks planking where the purser had stashed them for sale later in Japan. His booty exposed, he anxiously awaited punishment for theft. Instead, the Kempeitai NCO who found them accused him of hiding "bombs" in his kit. To Bill’s amazement and relief, he was permitted to keep them after proving that the tins contained food by opening one. His delight soon turned to woe, however, when he and his fellows were formed up into lines of four abreast and forced to march with full kit for three and a half hours around the streets of Fusan.

The victory parade was supervised by scores of red-capped, red-booted Japanese Kempeitai officers and followed closely by the press corps who "snapped every wilting or fainting soldier". Lieutenant Terada, adjutant at Keijo, and the detested "mad major" Okuda from Jinsen camp accompanied the parade. Okuda was on horseback during the march and, according to AIF Lt Hugh Frazer, "appeared to derive great enjoyment from stepping his horse almost on the heels of the rear men and having the animal snort and slaver over their shoulders." Many prisoners noted that the festively clad Korean population appeared cowed, sullen and apathetic if momentarily curious about the tartan kilts of the few Highlanders in the column and the slouch hats and colour patches of the AIF. The Japanese in the crowd, recognizable among the Koreans by their distinctive dress, were more inclined to jeer. In response to the jeering, the British sang "There’ll always be an England".

Eventually at 4.30pm, the parade halted at Fusan railway station where bento boxes containing the best food the prisoners had encountered since the fall of Singapore were issued for the overnight journey to camps at Keijo [Seoul] and Jinsen [Inchon]. Guarded by armed sentries and still accompanied by press representatives who continued to ask questions and take photographs, the party was ushered aboard surprisingly modern and comfortable third class rail carriages. The next day when the two roughly equal groups reached their separate destinations, they were again paraded publicly en route to their camps, the first party through the streets of the capital Keijo [Seoul], the second through Jinsen [Inchon], Keijo’s important west-coast port some thirty miles distant on the mouth of the Han River.

It may be that as a consequence, conditions in the Korean camps, and especially at Keijo, were significantly better than in most other Japanese controlled camps. This more benign regimen included better food, adequate accommodation, access to Red Cross parcels, delivery of mail (albeit slow), fewer atrocities and well-stage-managed annual inspections by International Red Cross Committee [IRCC] teams. Keijo, and to a lesser extent Jinsen and Mukden, were manipulated by the Japanese as "show" camps, open to the IRCC, to demonstrate to the Allied powers Japanese chivalry towards prisoners.

CHOSEN - KOREA

The sites in Chosen include the main camp at Keijo (Seoul) which provided labour for the Korean Army Warehouse, Camp 1B -Jinsen (Inchon) which provided labour for the Port Maintenance / Monopoly Bureau and camp 1-D at Konan which provided labour for the Nippon Chisso, Konan Plant. The 2nd Loyal regiment were taken to Keijo in Seoul.

JAPAN : HIROSHIMA CAMP

Alf was transported to the mainland of Japan from Korea towards the end of the War. At this point i do not know the ship used. More labour was needed in the mainland of Japan and as the allies closed in around the Japanese more men were transported to the mainland or at least the men who were healthy and economically close enough to Japan were transported. Alfred was transported to and held at the Hiroshima 8b Motoyama camp and was incarcerated there for the rest of the war. This particular camp supplied the workforce for the local coal mines, the mine was in the nearby hills in Okinoyama, a suburb of Ube. Each person were required to dig 1.5 tons of coal per day, injuries were a common occurrence.

NECCESSARY EVIL

Nazi Germany had surrendered on May 8th 1945 but the Japanese were still refusing to accept the Allies demands for unconditional surrender, the U.S. had firebombed many Japanese cities but they still had refused to sign any agreement.

On August 6th, the U.S. dropped a uranium gun-type (Little Boy) bomb on Hiroshima, the American President Harry S. Truman warned Japan to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth." and called for Japan's complete surrender.

Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion-type (Fat Man) bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki. Roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.

On August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies. On September 2, it signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II.

Below - Picture of two allied soldiers after being freed from Japanese captivity from the Yokohama Camp.

FREEDOM

As Japan realised that it was losing the war the infamous order to annihilate all prisoners in the event of Allied invasion, and remove all evidence, was given. Not all Japanese camp commanders adhered to these instructions from Tokyo, but there are numerous examples where they were. At Sandakan, in British North Borneo, 2434 Australian and British POWs were systematically killed; there were only six survivors, all escapees. Luckly the camp commanders at the Hiroshima did not follow this particular order. The American Air Force were dropping supplies at this time but even this became quite dangerous situation in itself with property damaged and several people killed by the heavy drums being dropped from the planes.

Photo of Ohama Air Drop 1945-09-08

Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita (The Tiger of Malaya).

Nicknamed the Tiger of Malaya after his accomplishment of conquering Malaya and Singapore in just 70 days. He was put on trial in Manila after the war and was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1946.

*if you want to read more about the fall of Singapore and the battle in Malaya you can read Brian Farrell's excellent book 'The Defence and Fall of Singapore'

Further information:

Alfred and Margaret left Southampton, England for New York on the 19th December 1946 on the ship John Ericcsson, they were living in Taylor Street, Middleborough at the time and Alfred was working as a conductor.