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Featured, Rice and Shine, Sime Road Camp

Sime Road Camp

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By Sears Eldredge

1943:

It was December, 1943, when the Australian, British and Dutch/Indonesian POWs in “H” Force returned to Singapore from Up Country. Because of a housing shortage in Changi, most of these POWs were shuttled to Sime Road Camp. A fellow officer told Lt.-Col. Reginald Burton not to worry about this location: “It was a camp in the open country part of Singapore Island, next to a golf course. It was hutted camp,[1] with showers, lights, proper roads. It sounded like a paradise to me.”[i]

Backstory: 1941-42

Before the war, Sime Road Camp, on the outskirts of Singapore, had been the Headquarters of the British Royal Air Force and then, in early December 1941, it became the Combined Army and Air Force Operations Headquarters Malaya Command—General Percival’s H.Q. –during the brief battles for Malaya and Singapore.

After surrender, Sime Road became an Australian and British POW camp with British officer, Lt.-Col. Philip Toosey, in charge. At some point, a concert party was formed and an outdoor theatre, dubbed the “New Cathay Theatre” was built. The opening performance was on Christmas, 1942.

Program cover for New Cathay Theatre. William Wilder.
Courtesy Anthony Wilder.

Very little is known about the performers or the shows, and the only observation on their content is from Lt. Stephan Alexander: “Our new electricity supply was used to light camp concerts, at which the Aussies proved particularly uninhibited. (“Do you really love me, dear, or is that your revolver I can feel?”)”[2][ii] In early October, 1942, the POWs at Sime Road were sent Up Country to build two bridges over the River Kwai at Tamarkan in Thailand.

[1] Meaning there were wooden buildings.

[2] A direct steal from the American stage and screen star, Mae West.

[i] Burton, 130.

[ii] Alexander, 91.

Note that all the documents in this series of blogs reside in Sears A. Eldredge Archive in the De Witt Wallace Library at Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55105

Sear’s book, Captive Audiences/Captive Performers: Music and Theatre as Strategies for Survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway 1942-1945, was published by Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2014, as an open-access e-book and is available here: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/thdabooks/22

1944, Changi by the Sea, Changi POW Camp Concert Parties, Featured, Rice and Shine

Shocking Events

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By Sears Eldredge

On 28 and 29 April, the remainder of “H” and “F” Forces who had been in hospital Up Country arrived back in Singapore “looking tired and dirty after their long train journey.”[i] Some were in such poor shape at the start of the rail journey that they did not make it and were buried beside the tracks enroute.[ii] 

On the 29th, the POWs in Changi got word that they would be moving soon—to the Gaol. The civilian men, women, and children who had been interned in the Gaol since the surrender of Singapore, were moving to Sime Road Camp outside the city. “Heavy sick” British and Australian cases in Roberts Hospital would be sent to a new hospital at Kranji in the northern part of the island, while “light sick” patients would go to a small hospital being established outside Changi Gaol. With all these changes, it appears the production of Macbeth was cancelled.

Playbill for May ’44. On 1 May, the murder-mystery, Suspect, opened at the Little Theatre, which Huxtable thought “a very good drama indeed.”[1][iii] On 6 May there was a concert with Denis East (violin), Cyril Wycherley (piano) and Doug Peart (tenor), followed by one on 13 May 1944 by the A.I.F. Orchestra. These concerts were meant to lower the POWs’ anxieties about their upcoming move. For Australian Stan Arneil, it was, “[a] glorious night of music . . . It is so easy, via music, to fly back home, that the jolt of returning to hard facts is softened by the memory of a good night’s music.[iv] That same night Leslie Buckley’s musical comedy, I’ll Take You: A Musical Review produced by John Wood, opened at the A.I.F. Theatre. In light of everyone moving elsewhere, the title was significant. No one would be left behind.

This would be the last show produced in Changi POW Camp.

I’ll Take You

Removal of the POWs to Changi Gaol and its immediate environs, and to Kranji, commenced in early May. By the 14th, Wilkinson observed, “Theatres and churches all knocked down in this area [Area 1] ready to be transferred [to Gaol]. More officers and men moved to Jail today. Weather exceptionally hot.”[v] Looking at all the commotion around him, Murray Griffin wrote, “Can you imagine the work involved in moving some ten thousand people with their furniture and belongings, their hospitals, workshops, churches, theatres — and all by manpower.”[vi]

On 31st May, 1944, Stan Arneil wrote in his diary:

Today we, so far, will be moving to the gaol. It is a simply glorious morning and the Straits of Singapore look all the more delightful for the fact that we are leaving them.[vii]

Author note:

It’s not possible to follow the POWs directly from Changi POW Camp to Changi Gaol without first checking out the entertainment activity in Sime Road Camp, as many of the prominent musical and theatrical producers and entertainers in the Gaol come from this camp.

RICE AND SHINE WILL CONTINUE IN OUR UPCOMING “SIME ROAD CAMP” BLOG SERIES.

[1] He went on to note that “A young Lieutenant, John White (British Army)—who had been the Princess in Aladdin—was one of the female impersonators: a few weeks later his sore lips and mouth extended suddenly to the throat and he died within a few days.” Huxtable, Diary, 154.

[i] Nelson, 135.

[ii] G’s Greyhounds, 334-335]

[iii] Huxtable, 153.

[iv] Arneil, 13 May ’44.

[v] Wilkinson, Diary. 14 May ’44.

[vi] Griffin, 71.

[vii] Arneil, 31 May 1944.

Note that all the documents in this series of blogs reside in Sears A. Eldredge Archive in the De Witt Wallace Library at Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55105

Sear’s book, Captive Audiences/Captive Performers: Music and Theatre as Strategies for Survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway 1942-1945, was published by Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2014, as an open-access e-book and is available here: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/thdabooks/22

VJ75

Liberation of Sime Road Camp Singapore – Freddy’s Story

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Excerpts from internees’ recollections of liberation from Changi/Sime Road camps, Singapore

Composed by Dr Bernice Archer

Freddy Bloom, young woman recently married to military doctor in Singapore before Allies surrendered. Freddy interned in Changi/ Sime Road while husband Philip was interned in Changi POW camp.

(source:  Freddy Bloom: Dear Philip – A Diary of Captivity Changi 1942-45, Epilogue to a diary). (The Bodley Head Ltd.) Used with kind permission of Ginny Kanka.

There never was an official notice that our war was over. Peace trickled in gradually. Some of our ‘hosts’ faded away. Those who stayed rarely appeared and one or two actually tried to ingratiate themselves with us. Red Cross stores were released. Letters that were held up were distributed. Then one beautiful day a small squad of super-men in red berets came to the camp. They were some of Mountbatten’s commandos. Each seemed ten feet tall, tanned, bursting with strength and unlike anything we had seen in years…….

We were told to stay where we were but this did not suit me. So one day in the last week of August Katherine (her friend) and I put on our best dresses that we had saved for just such an occasion. We crawled under the wire and out of the camp.

With studied ‘sang froid’ as if it was the most natural thing in the world we hailed a taxi and told him to drive us to Changi POW camp.

At Changi gates the man on duty, whose mouth had opened in disbelief when we appeared, controlled himself long enough to tell us the hospital was at the end of the avenue.

The long walk became memorable. Men in shorts were working or lounging everywhere. As we made our way, first one and then another would come up to us, look hard and then shake our hands saying ‘First white women in three and a half years’.

The first time it was touching. The second and third time just a little less so. After we had shaken hands for the umpteenth time it was hard to control our mirth. Each said exactly the same words in exactly the same way. We knew we must not let them down. Since we ‘were’ the first white women in three and a half years we had to behave appropriately but it was difficult to assess just what appropriate was. Not giggles for sure.

Now there I was standing at the end of Philip’s camp bed…. then he came in and put his arms round me. I buried my head in his chest and sobbed all over him……….

VJ75

Liberation of Sime Road Camp Singapore – Mary’s Story

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Excerpts from internees’ recollections of liberation from Changi/Sime Road camps, Singapore

Composed by Dr Bernice Archer

Mary Thomas a young woman in Changi/Sime Road Camps Singapore

Interview with Dr. Bernice Archer and excerpt from her book (In the Shadow of the Rising Sun. Maruzen Asia 1983). Used with kind permission of Mary’s niece Margaret Thomas.

On the evening of 15th August 1945 an extraordinary rumour began to circulate in the camp. It concerned the collapse of Japan and some unheard-of catastrophe. We dared not trust the rumours, we had heard too many. However, the food fatigue brought our breakfast, not rice gruel this time but fried cakes of rice with a V for Victory stamped on each one… At the meeting in the afternoon we heard that Japan had actually surrendered and that there was a new weapon, the atom bomb, by which the surrender had been won. But inexpressibly relieved and delighted as we were to hear of victory at last, we could not help having a sense of awe and horror at the means of winning.

As the days went by our position remained ambiguous. The Japanese were obviously in an uncertain frame of mind but still in control of the camp.

We learned later that though Japan had capitulated General Itagaki, commanding in Malaya, had not decided whether to join in the surrender or to continue fighting on his own.

This continued for a fortnight. We only knew what his decision was when four British paratroops, Red Devils in berets and battledress suddenly appeared in camp.

The last ten days in the camp were so crowded with events and new sensations that they were almost exhausting. Visitors flocked into the camp. First there were POWs from Changi and other military camps. We had plenty of food chocolate distributed by the Red Cross and British sailors and bread baked by the cooks of H.M.S.Sussex and sent to the camp every day.

We had proper soap again, flannels, toothbrushes and combs. It was like recovering from an illness and having a perpetual Christmas party.

On the afternoon of 11 September we went to the Thanksgiving service at St Andrews Cathedral. That evening two friends and I had our first civilised meal for more than three and a half years, in the officers’ Mess of the Punjabi Regiment…. It was a wonderful evening partly from the sheer pleasure and excitement of actually dining out like civilised people again.

The evening after the surrender ceremony Lord Louis Mountbatten visited the camp to explain the difficulties which had delayed repatriation.

On Tuesday 18th September I left the camp with twenty – two other women and three children to go on board the Nieuw Holland. The journey home, our first real encounter with the outside word, was something which could never be forgotten.

We landed at Liverpool on 16th October in a fog

It took a long time after repatriation for a sort of amazement at people’s gentle manners and kindly ways to pass off. We marvelled at the way Britons had been hideously bombed and rationed and had borne for 6 exhausting years the burden of a tremendous war. We felt we had come back to a very wonderful nation.

VJ75

Liberation of Sime Road Camp Singapore – Daphne and Jennifer’s Stories

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Excerpts from internees’ recollections of liberation from Changi/Sime Road camps, Singapore

Composed by Dr Bernice Archer

Daphne Davidson a young mother in Changi and Sime Road internment camps

(Collected by the British Red Cross Museum)

It was not until 18th  August 1945 that the peace rumours could not be ignored.

On 28th liberator planes flew over the camp and dropped leaflets and on 30th the British parachutists arrived. Strangely enough my memories of the last days are clouded in a haze of happiness. I knew my husband was alive – so many wives were mourning for those who would never come back. The Burma Death railway took a hateful toll of our fighting men.

My husband and baby and I left Singapore for England, freedom and feeding. What the future held we did not know – it was enough to be together again.

Jennifer’s story

(Jennifer Martin, nee Davidson, Daphne’s daughter a young baby in Changi and Sime Road)

I remember playing in the garden of the Raffles Hotel where we were lodged while families were reunited and messages sent to relatives in the U.K. We were very fortunate my father had spent many months suffering the deprivation and disease while working on the Burmese Death railway but he was alive and came back to us. So many husbands and fathers did not return.

Soon we were on the ‘Monowai’ the first ship to leave for home. I remember staring in wonder at the cabin we were given and the sheets, smooth, clean and white on the bunks. At Port Said we docked and were taken to a large hanger with long tables covered in clothes and all the things we would need provided by the Red Cross. Everything from underwear to winter coats for men, women and children of all sizes. We were all kitted out for the winter weather ahead.

Liverpool on October 11th 1945, then the train to Edinburgh to meet my grandmother and aunt Rena, the delights of Scottish food, a house and garden, shops, Christmas, snow and snowballs.