Cheer Up, Mate! by Alan Weeks

Author:Alan Weeks
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752496887
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Early 1943

The Far East

The year began with Japanese forces being overrun in Buna, Papua New Guinea. In Burma, Operation Cannibal sought to drive the Japanese from Chittagong towards Donbail but Allied prisoners on the Thai–Burma railway were enduring horrific conditions whilst being worked till they dropped.

Fun could be had: Don Maclean, an Aussie, and compatriots were building a ‘pack of cards’ bridge over a gully. They took every chance to try and drop something on their captors from on high. But the guards wanted fun, too. ‘More sing, more sing,’ they ordered, being fans of the Australian vocal efforts. ‘Icky, nee, nisio, nisio’ (‘one, two, pull, pull’) they chanted as they dragged up huge steel girders.

Suddenly, a guard ‘fell’ from the higher reaches of the half-built bridge. But a hand shot out and caught the guard by his collar.

‘Drop the bastard! Drop the bastard!’ the prisoners yelled.

‘I can’t,’ called back the ‘saviour’, ‘I pushed the bastard but the other bastards saw me.’

John Lever, a ground crew member of 84 Squadron, RAF, was also a prisoner – on Moji Island, Japan. On 23 January he lay in the darkness, trying to sleep after another day’s hard slog. Suddenly, he sat upright and called out to his fellow inmates, ‘I could murder a treacle pudding!’

‘Shut up, shut up!’ they screamed back. It was worse than torture.

A few days later a friendly guard slipped them a swede. But it was as hard as iron. They tried to smash it against a wall and stamp on it. Some bits did fly off it and they pounced on these like hungry wolves. The result was the raving trots.

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