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Overview
This is the story of a young man thrust into the Royal Navy in distant Hong Kong. With both drama and humor, he relates some of the situations in which he found himself—and provides a realistic account of what life was like for servicemen in prewar Hong Kong.
Prisoner of the Rising Sun describes the prelude to war from his point of view, and his part in the Battle for Hong Kong. There follows the story of what happened to him when taken prisoner, and life and death in prison camps in Hong Kong and Japan. It tells what it was like to be shipped to Japan in the hold of Japanese merchant men, in constant fear of being torpedoed.
In Japan, he and his fellow prisoners were used as slave labor. Treatment was harsh and brutal and although many of them died, the Japanese never broke the spirit of the survivors. The author explains how it felt to be a prisoner working in a Japanese factory when a major earthquake struck. He also relates what it was like to be on the receiving end of a B29 fire raid and what the Japanese did to downed American airmen. In August 1945, he saw the Japanese bow before loudspeakers and although he did not realize it then, he heard the Japanese Emperor announce the surrender of Japan. He also includes a heartfelt tribute to the efficiency and kindness of the American forces that got him out and on his way home.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781781598627 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pen & Sword Books Limited |
| Publication date: | 02/20/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 208 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
On the Road to Cathay
That I came to be in Hong Kong in December 1940 is the direct result of having a surname the first letter of which is at the end of the alphabet. When in July 1940, after three months' instruction, my class passed out of the naval training school as Ordinary Signalmen (Hostilities Only), we were told that we were to be divided into four groups, which were to be allocated to four naval bases: Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Lowestoft; allocation would be made by drawing first a location and then a name from hats held by our two petty officer instructors. When the allocation was finished we would be given thirty minutes during which anybody could exchange allocation if he found someone willing to change with him. At the end of the half hour all allocations became final and we were stuck with whatever port name we held in our hand.
I drew Lowestoft, which before the war had been a very active fishing port but now housed a variety of small craft, in particular minesweepers and coastal steamers. As soon as the draw was completed a classmate came up to me and asked if I would swap with him. He was married with two small children and lived in Lowestoft, but had drawn Portsmouth. As it happened that was near where my parents were living at the time so without thinking I agreed. As a result a few days later I was sent with fourteen classmates to Portsmouth barracks. Because of our limited ability as signalmen we were told at the training camp that we were destined for minesweepers and other small craft in the North Sea and elsewhere. But Portsmouth had different ideas for within a week of arrival in the grossly overcrowded pre-Victorian age barracks we were sent on thirty-six hours' embarkation leave and told that on our return we would be sent to the battleship HMS Warspite in the Mediterranean, 'for dispersal'. I did not foresee at the time that it would be the only leave I would have during my six years in the Navy – and even that was spoiled by enemy action. I went home to Southampton and my father, my sister and I took a tram down to the town pier, a favorite haunt of ours. We had no sooner arrived there than the air-raid sirens began their mournful wail and we had to dive into an air-raid shelter. We heard two explosions before the 'all clear" was sounded about a half hour after we had entered the shelter. When we emerged we saw that a pub some hundred yards away had been hit, and air-raid wardens and firemen were searching for casualties. A policeman told us that it had been a hit-and-run raid by a few Stuka dive-bombers. We returned home and I left at five o'clock the next morning in order to catch the train back to Portsmouth. Despite the early hour, as always, my mother was there to see me off.
I was glad to be getting out of the barracks where we had to live out of our kitbags (which we had to keep locked because theft was commonplace) and scramble every night to find a place to sling our hammocks. The barrack buildings were so antiquated that I am sure Nelson would have been familiar with them – the only concession to modernity since his day was the introduction of the electric light. When we returned from leave at seven o'clock that Sunday morning, we just hung around the barracks until noon before being sent to the mess hall for a midday meal having been told we would not be moving that day. Just as the meal finished, though, my name was called over the public address system telling me to report to the office of the Drafting Master at Arms. It took me quite a while to find where it was but when I finally got there I was told that because a regular signalman had failed to return from leave, and because mine was the last name alphabetically on the list of new boys, I was being sent in his place on a draft to 'HMS Sultan II'.
When in my innocence I inquired of the Drafting Master at Arms where or what Sultan II was, I was told in no uncertain terms not to ask silly * * * * * * * questions but to have my bag and hammock over at the heavy gun battery by 1700 hours. Not wishing to incur the Master's displeasure I said goodbye to my companions and did as I was told. At the heavy gun battery I joined ten other ratings and a petty officer, and discovered that Sultan II was the name of the Naval Base at Singapore. We went by train to London to overnight at the Union Jack Club and the next morning a bus took us to King's Cross Station where we boarded the boat train which took us to Liverpool Docks. There we embarked on the RMS Strathmore (a passenger liner belonging, I believe, to the Peninsular and Orient Line) as steerage-class passengers. We found ten other ratings already aboard, one of whom I was glad to see had been with me at the training school in Skegness. It soon became apparent that the ship was bound for Australia and that she was full of old people and two complete junior schools being evacuated down under. The ship sailed shortly after we boarded and moved out on a dull rainy August day into Liverpool Bay, and on to a very stormy, dark Irish Sea. The storm intensified as we sailed around Northern Ireland and worsened as we headed out into the Atlantic. It lasted four days and this being my first seagoing experience I was as sick as a dog. On the fifth day a boat drill was called and I had to rise from my sick bed (my bunk, in fact) and make my way up five flights of what I still called stairs but which I now know were ladders to the boat deck. There I leaned back against what I thought was the wall but was of course the bulkhead, and hoped to die, I felt so terrible. We were kept waiting by 'our' lifeboat for nearly half an hour, we being thirty-eight old people and two naval ratings, one of whom had never been to sea before. When at last an officer came round and explained that by allocating two naval types to each lifeboat, experienced seamen would be available in all the lifeboats, I could hardly refrain from laughing, despite my nausea. Worse was to come, however, for as we were dismissed and I turned away to go down below and continue the dying process, an old lady touched my collar for luck and said, 'You know, son, I have crossed the Atlantic twenty-two times and I have never known such a storm as the one we have just passed through. But I was not afraid – it makes us feel so safe to have you sailors on board.' I could not think of a suitable comment so I mumbled 'Thank you' and crawled away. It took me a long while to live down that incident.
The weather cleared on the sixth day out and so did my seasickness. I quite enjoyed the rest of the trip. The Strathmore was a ship of some 22,000 tons and because she was capable of cruising at 22 knots was designated an independently routed merchant vessel. This meant that she was fast enough to have a sporting chance of eluding submarines and therefore could proceed on her own as distinct from being part of a convoy, the speed of which is dictated by the slowest ship in it. We zigzagged all the way down the Atlantic and at dawn on the twenty-first day at sea, whilst I was on lookout duty, Table Mountain rose from the eastern horizon. It was a magnificent sight and as we approached the Cape and entered Cape Town harbour I thought what an attractive place this southern tip of Africa appeared to be. We were allowed ashore and the town lived up to my first impression. Having come from a land of blackouts and air raids, to me this brilliantly lit and ration-free city had something of a magical quality. Before the Strathmore sailed, four of our group were put ashore to await transport to the Simonstown naval base located to the east of Cape Town. The next port of call was Mombasa in Kenya, where shore leave was granted once again and I had my first experience of tropical heat in an African city. I did not like it very much, nor did I care for Mombasa having, I suppose, been spoilt by the charm of Cape Town. By comparison Mombasa seemed an impoverished place with little to commend it except that it did have restaurants in one of which some friends and I ordered roast chicken, something none of us had seen for ages at home. When it came after a very long wait, even that was disappointing for we each received a whole chicken about the size of a small pigeon. It was only when we left the restaurant that we discovered why we had had to wait so long for our meal to be served. Round the side of the building we saw two of the waiters with choppers in their hands chasing an uncooperative flock of the smallest white chickens we had ever seen. We had obviously partaken of some very fresh food.
From Mombasa the Strathmore headed across the Indian Ocean to Bombay. The day before land was reached the skies darkened with what the experienced travellers said were monsoon rains. It was hot and oppressive; even the sea looked like molten lead and the smells of the city wafted out to the ship. We docked quite close to the 'Gateway to India' monument and I remembered my father, a motor mechanic serving in the Army Service Corps, saying that he had seen it when he landed in Bombay twenty-five years earlier during the First World War. It made me think of him and his wartime experiences, and although I did not know it then, mine were to be very different. He went north from Bombay to serve for three years on what was then called the North-West Frontier. Then in 1919, during the Afghan War, he nursed the first-ever motorized convoy through the Khyber Pass. It comprised some forty-two American Liberty trucks which had solid tyres, crash gearboxes and side-valve engines which overheated badly at the higher altitudes. The Strathmore remained in port for two days and I went ashore twice. I found Bombay a smelly, noisy place but it was very colourful and for the most part cheerful, although I was appalled at the number of beggars that abounded and the abject poverty that was apparent in some areas. One of the few things I remember about it was a servicemen's club to which a kindly English police officer had directed some of us. It was staffed by volunteers and all the serving ladies were Parsee. They were very white skinned, wore long saris, held themselves very upright and seemed to glide about the room. They had poise and style the like of which I had not seen before nor have ever seen since.
Before leaving Bombay for Colombo, two more of our little group were put ashore, so we arrived a few days later in the Sinalese capital with only fifteen left, four of whom were immediately put ashore for onward passage to the naval base at Trincamolee, on the island's north-east coast. Among those to go was my friend from the training school. The rest of us were again allowed ashore and my only recollections of Colombo are that it was a more attractive city than Bombay but that it was home to the world's craziest taxi drivers. We sailed after a very brief stay and headed for Singapore where I now knew that the naval base there was called Sultan II and my destination, or so I thought at the time.
When the ship arrived in Singapore the eleven remaining members of our party (ten ratings and one petty officer) were told to fall in on the boat deck with our bags and hammocks. This we duly did whereupon a lieutenant commander and a couple of chief petty officers came aboard and, after welcoming us to Singapore, told us to take one pace forward as our names were called. Ten names were called in alphabetical order, and then the instruction was given to 'pick up your gear and proceed down the gangway.' After the ten had done this, they were followed by the boarding party, leaving me all alone wondering what was going to happen next. I wondered for a long time because three hours passed before the Lieutenant Commander came aboard again but did not appear to be looking for me – in fact he walked right past me. I began to think that I had been abandoned or that as a result of some faulty communication I was not officially here so no one had any claim on me. In this frame of mind I made what a more experienced naval rating would consider a serious error of judgment — I sought out the officer and asked him what was to happen to me. Clearly what I should have done was lie low in the hope the ship would depart for Australia before the naval authorities in Singapore realized that they had another raw recruit on their hands. But in those days I was young and innocent. The officer looked at me with a friendly smile, pulled a list out of his pocket and having consulted it said, 'Oh yes, you were last alphabetically on the list, you are not going to Sultan II but to HMS Tamar, the base ship in Hong Kong. I'll send a couple of chaps to help you get your gear over to the Elenga, the troopship that will take you to Hong Kong. I'm not sure when she will sail but you will be instructed by her skipper.' True to his word a couple of hefty sailors arrived within half an hour, and helped me carry my bag and hammock to the Elenga which was docked about a quarter of a mile away. The Elenga, which had been built at the turn of the century, was an Indian troopship and her troop decks were filled with Indian soldiers bound for the China Station. I was allocated to an upper-deck cabin with the Indian officers with whom I spent a very pleasant week on the journey north. Before the Elenga left Singapore, though, I experienced an act of kindness which I remember to this day. The ship's captain was an Englishman, a real old-fashioned sea dog; when I was settled in he sent for me and told me that he did not know when he would be instructed to sail. He was confident, though, that he would get plenty of notice so I was free to go ashore as much as I liked, provided I reported back to him at noon each day to see whether sailing instructions had been received. He then asked if I had any money and when I said that I had about ten shillings he said, 'That is not enough, take this – you may need it,' and handed me a pound note. I was both grateful and embarrassed at the same time, but he brushed away my thanks. Even today I recall the incident and am grateful for that stranger's act of kindness.
In the event I was unable to make use of my new-found wealth because the moment I stepped outside the dockyard gate dressed in my tropical white shorts I was arrested by the naval shore patrol! Apparently naval ratings on shore leave had to wear Number 6 uniforms (white tunic and bell bottoms trimmed with blue piping). I explained that as an 'hostilities only' rating I had not been issued with a Number 6 suit, the closest thing to it that I possessed being an off-white calico 'duck' suit (intended for use in combat so that wounds could be readily spotted. As the war progressed and set-piece, large-scale battles between opposing fleets became a thing of the past, the use of duck suits was dropped and none were issued to later recruits.). After some discussion among the members of the shore patrol and a telephone call to naval HQ I was released and told I could come ashore if I changed into my duck suit. This I duly did but with temperatures in the 90s and humidity at 90 plus per cent, walking around in a heavy, course, calico duck suit was not very comfortable. There were few air-conditioned oasis in Singapore in those days open to the lower forms of animal life of which as an Ordinary Signalman I was a part, and so my exploration of Singapore was somewhat limited. On my return to the Elenga I was not sorry to learn that we were to sail the next day.
The old Elenga was transporting men of the Rajput and Punjabi regiments on her main decks with their officers housed in cabins on the upper deck, one of which I was allocated. She was no ocean greyhound and it took her a week to reach Hong Kong. As far as I was concerned, however, the longer the better for life on board was very pleasant. I had no duties to perform and I spent most of my time playing bridge with the Indian officers, some of whom were graduates of English universities; most of them spoke better English than I did. The diet in the mess, though, was very Indian – everything was curried including the breakfast bacon and eggs. I was somewhat apprehensive about my next move into the real regular Navy which I suspected would not suffer amateurs gladly. When we eventually docked in Kowloon my apprehension was justified for there, standing on the dock, was the largest, most formidable-looking Master at Arms I had ever seen. He was at least 6 foot 2 in height with a 44-inch waist and was dressed in immaculate whites. The gold of his cap badge glistened in the sun and a rainbow of medal ribbons adorned his massive chest, but it was the face that drew the attention. Carved out of the finest teak, the hooded eyes, the prominent nose and lantern jaw seemed the very essence of law and order, and the embodiment of all authority. He was accompanied by two members of the naval shore patrol. The latter came aboard and found me (the great man did not climb gangways to find junior ratings) and helped me down with my bag and hammock. Then they stood me to attention before 'God'. He looked down on me but said nothing — he did not have to for what is there for a professional sailor with decades of service to say to an amateur; if I could read anything in his eyes it was a look of pity. Abruptly, in a voice that came from deep within his huge frame, he snapped, 'Get him aboard,' the holiday cruise was over and I was back in the King's Navy!
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Prisoner of the Rising Sun"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Stanley Wort.
Excerpted by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Maps,
Preface,
Acknowledgements,
Chapter 1 - On the Road to Cathay,
Chapter 2 - On Life in the King's Navy,
Chapter 3 - On Coming of Age,
Chapter 4 - On the Battle for Hong Kong,
Chapter 5 - On Becoming a POW,
Chapter 6 - On Mice and Men and Malnutrition,
Chapter 7 - On Travel,
Chapter 8 - On Public Hygiene,
Chapter 9 - On Camps and Coolies,
Chapter 10 - On News and Newspapers,
Chapter 11 - On Commerce and Courage,
Chapter 12 - On Earthquakes and Attitudes,
Chapter 13 - On Bombing and Barbarism,
Chapter 14 - On the End Game,
Chapter 15 - On the Way Home,
Epilogue,
Postscript,
Appendix,
Index,
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