War in Japan

 Rob Forsyth

Prisoners of War

During the War in Japan many thousands of POWs suffered horrendously while employed as slave labour on the Burma Railway and many other places and had seen their fellow POWs tortured and killed. On release from their camps and after a period to recover health and some normality, they were trooped home. Before they left they were given the order reproduced below (courtesy of Don Anderson whose father was a PoW) which instructed them in no circumstances to recount their experiences in order to protect their families and friends. Clearly no one had thought through the implications of bottling things up on the mental health of the ex-PoWs themselves.

This was much like WWI when soldiers returning from the front could not or would not expose their families to the horrors of trench and gas warfare. 

One would like to think that the founding of the Royal British Legion Clubs provided an outlet for ex-service people to share and offload some of that mental burden. Nonetheless this order, which is not widely known about, must have caused a lot of mental harm.

Sergeant Ernest Edward (Jockey) Callow (1912-87) Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. 

He travelled to South Africa in the same convoy as his brother Denis but his ship carried on to Singapore where he was made a PoW when it was captured by the Japanese. He was subsequently part of the forced labour that built the infamous Burma railway

Driver Henry Sorrell (1911-1944) 18th Divisional Signals, Royal Corps of Signals.

He died on 12 September 1944 age 33. He was captured in Thailand and was being transported in an unmarked Japanese Hell Ship, the MV Rakuyo Maru, when it was torpedoed by the USS Sealion and sank; 1,159 Allied Prisoners of War died. The Japanese transported PoWs in unmarked ships. The prisoners were usually being moved to be used as slave labour and the warships had no means of identifying which vessels were actually carrying PoWs.

He is remembered on column 46 of the Singapore Memorial.

click on image for full size 

Others who served 

Nine other Deddington men served. I have used the familiar first names they are known by. They are all recorded in A Parish At War in the section on WWII and some have an expanded story indicated by a blue link.

Sid Berry (Royal Navy - also p.59)
Bill Bignold (Army - p.61)
Les Burton (Army -p.61)
Ron Canning (Royal Air Force - also p.65)
Sam Keyes (Army - also p.12 of the later Supplement to PatW)
Les Legerton (Army - also p.63)
Len Plumbe  (Royal Air Force - also p.67)
Harold Pratt (Royal Air Force - p.67)