Japan and South Korea agree WW2 comfort women deal
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Category Archives: News
Exhibition: The Art of Survival
The Art of Survival
Drawings by Fred Ransome Smith, prisoner of war 11 December 2015 – 28 February 2016 – See more at:
The launch of Fred Ransome Smiths Exhibition went really well and an interview he did with Channel 7 is shown below. Some of the artwork exhibited was produced when Fred was as a Lieutenant POW in camps on the Burma/Thai Railway, whilst others were drawn later from memory.
Fred was pleased with the exhibition as he was keen to get across the suffering and brutality that the POWs had to endure at the hands of the Japanese.
Fred, now 96, was a POW of the Japanese, having been captured at Singapore in February 1942 and then sent to work on the Thai-Burma Railway. During his three and half years of captivity he took the opportunity, at great personal risk, to draw incidences of the appalling treatment of his fellow POWs.
Fred joined up as a Lieutenant with the 5th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, and despite originally being destined for the Middle East, arrived in Singapore in late January 1942, which he described as being “in a bad shape when we arrived”. Fred was born in 1919, London and emigrated to Australia after the war where he continued his career in advertising. Following his retirement Fred lectured at La Trobe University in Bendigo, Victoria.
Changi digitisation project: Cambridge
Originally posted by the Southeast Asia Library Group: Changi digitisation project at Cambridge University Library
Cambridge University Library has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Resources Award to conserve, digitise and make freely available online the archives of two WWII civilian internment camps on Singapore – Changi and Sime Road. These form part of the Royal Commonwealth Society’s British Association of Malaysia and Singapore archives. The two-year grant commences in September 2015 and it is planned to launch the records in Cambridge Digital Library in August 2017.
The archives will be of immense interest to the families of internees, academic researchers, students and the general public, since few survivors ever spoke of their traumatic ordeal. The first stage of the project involves the meticulous conservation of the archives.
The archives contain invaluable primary sources for the reconstruction of the lives of Singapore’s civilian internees. They include official records compiled by the camps’ internal administration, which document personal data like an internee’s name, date entered camp, marital status, occupation, age, nationality, and camp address. Other sources shed light upon accommodation, camp discipline, relations with the Japanese authorities, work parties, diet, health and hygiene, recreation and leisure, the delivery of mail, and the repatriation of internees at the end of the war. Newspapers circulated within the male camp, such as the ‘Changi Guardian’, reported upon events, disseminated news of sporting, musical and theatrical societies, and published fiction, poetry and humour. These official records are complemented by the correspondence, diaries and memoirs of individual internees.
More information on the historical background and provenance of the archives can be found on the Cambridge University Library Special Collections webpage.
An article by Peng Han Lim on “Identifying and collecting primary sources of information to reconstruct the daily lives of the civilian internees at Changi Prison and Sime Road Camp 1942-45” is included in the SEALG Newsletter 2013.
Bill Pearson Obituary
Bill Pearson – Malaya 1942
Published in the Times Newspaper today 06 November 2015, the obituary of Bill Pearson, the last British survivor of the Malaya sabotage group.
Duncan Bannatyne
Former Dragons’ Den businessman Duncan Bannatyne views rare documents which shed light on his father’s experiences as a prisoner of war in the Far East. Presenters Sophie Raworth and Andy Torbet are also joined by a veteran who endured years of forced labour in the same prison camps as Duncan’s dad.
Duncans Father was FEPOW William Bannattyne, Pte, 2980214. At the end of the war he was held at the Fukuoka #17 Camp in Omuta, Kyushu, Japan, where he worked as a slave for the Mitsui Corporation Zinc Foundy.
IWM Research
New Book – Captive Memories
Captive Memories
By
Meg Parkes and Geoff Gill
Captive Memories, a new book by LSTM’s Honorary Fellow Meg Parkes and Emeritus Professor Geoff Gill, will launch next week at an event at the Liverpool Medical Institution. The book charts the history of LSTM’s longest running collaborative project involving Far East Prisoners of War (FEPOW).
At the end of WWII, even before the men returned to the UK following the end of hostilities with Japan, LSTM’s then Dean, Brian Maegraith addressed a large group of their families in Blackpool in early September 1945, answering questions about the kind of tropical diseases and infections that the men may return with. On their arrival back in the UK, the men went their own way, but in early post war months many, especially those living in the north if England, found their way to LSTM, beginning the unique scientific and medical collaboration which is now in its seventh decade.
From 1967 onwards LSTM became the primary centre to carry out Tropical Disease Investigations (TDIs) for FEPOW. By this time hundreds of men had been under the care of LSTM and in the mid-1970s Dr Geoff Gill became involved in their care until the last TDI was carried out in 1999. The relationship with LSTM did not end there and out of this enduring relationship came knowledge which improved the diagnosis and treatment of some tropical diseases.
In 2007 Meg began a social history project and recorded interviews with 66 former FEPOW as well as some of their wives and widows, the culmination of which is Captive Memories. It charts the history of these survivors, remembered six decades after their release. It is a touching and personal account of their captivity, survival and the struggles, both physical and psychological, faced on their release. Each person interviewed is quoted in the book which provides a fascinating history underpinned with eyewitness accounts and personal perspectives.
Price: £12.99
Imprint: Palatine Books
ISBN: 978-1-910837-00-9
Binding: paperback
Extent: 272 pages
Format: 243 x 169mm, with flaps
Illustrations: c40
BIC code: HBWQ
Category: history/war/medicine Audience: general and academic
Pub date: 28 May 2015
Author: Meg Parkes & Geoff Gill
