These Valiant Men

S. Ient Victor

Description

Don't read this book if you want facts and figures about circumstances in World War II. Don't read this book if you want the details about a battle or the strategy used in leading up to a particular period in the war. But read this book if you want to know about the ordinary guys who were caught up in the global war during the 1940s, many of them young men, just finding their way in life, and who saw a career in the Services as adventure and travel. Little did they know what was to befall them in 1941!Read this book if you're interested in understanding how, by accident and luck, I was able to piece together the circumstances surrounding my father's capture and imprisonment. By investigating the lives of other servicemen who ended up in POW camps in Japan I've been able to tell my father's story. Each one of the chapters is a journey through time for those men as they approached the war, what happened to them in the war and what happened to them after the war.

Sujets

• Histoire
• East Asia
• World War II
• Far East
• Lisbon
• Hong Kong

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 22 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838597351
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Victor S. Ient

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Cover image: Hong Kong: Remembrance Day 1930 (from Harold Bates’s memorabilia collection).

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Dedication
This book is dedicated to all of those who served to preserve our freedom and liberties during World War II in the Far East.

A poem by a prisoner of war:
Barbed Wire! Barbed Wire! Barbed Wire!
To the North, South, West and East
Will it always hold me captive
Without hope or joy or peace
Must I ever curve this eager flame
That burns within my chest
Or know once more the joy of home
With pleasant hours of rest
Such questions to my mind do crowd
When deep in thought I sit
But ever with it comes the cry
It won’t be long, don’t quit
And so it goes from day to day
A never changing scene
But someday soon I will leave it all
As though it were a dream.
Unknown – from http://www.merkki.com/poetry.htm
Contents
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
Acknowledgements and Thanks
Author’s Note
Chapter 1 – World War II in the Far East
British History of Hong Kong
Japanese Empire Expands
The British View of the Japanese
Keep the British Flag Flying
Further Research about the Battle for Hong Kong
The Phases of the Battle for Hong Kong
The Garrison at Fortress Hong Kong
New Canadian Battalions Arrive
Phases of the Battle in December 1941
Shamshuipo POW Camp, Hong Kong
Third Draft: From Shamshuipo to the Japanese Mainland
War Diary of Chief Signal Officer, China Command, Hong Kong 1941
Chapter 2 – Albert Ient
About Albert (Vic) Ient
London
The Army – in England
Malta
Romance in Malta
Egypt
Posting to the Far East
Hong Kong
Japanese Attack on Hong Kong
Christmas Day 1941 – the Fall of Hong Kong
Prisoner of War
Japanese Prison Camp
End of WWII
Albert Ient Leaves POW Camp
Albert Ient Returns to England in October 1945
Toby and the Boys Return to England in June 1945
Aldershot – from 1946 On
Medals
Epitaph
Chapter 3 – Maynard Skinner
Joining the Army
Hong Kong
Capitulation
Imprisonment – Shamshuipo
Lisbon Maru
Japan – Osaka Prisoner of War Camp
Homeward Bound
Chapter 4 – Harold Bates and Monty Truscott
Monty Talks about Joining the Army and Hong Kong before the War
1938 – The Build-Up to War
Harold Tells the Story of Captain Ford of the Royal Scots and Flight Lieutenant White of the RAF
Monty Talks about the Battle for Hong Kong
Monty – the Terrible Voyage on the Lisbon Maru
Monty – on the Journey to Japan and POW Camp at Osaka
Harold – on the Journey from Hong Kong, via Formosa, to POW Camp in Nagoya and Toyama
Morale
Stealing the Salmon and Loot Bags!
Chapter 5 – William (Bill) Alfred Butler
Leaving School
Catterick Camp
Off to North Africa!
Alexandria
Scarborough and Bulford
1937 – The Journey to Hong Kong
Hong Kong – 1937
The Battle and Fall of Hong Kong – 1941
The Fall of Hong Kong
The Lisbon Maru
To Japan and the POW Camp
End of the War in Japan
Allied Relief from the Air
Relief of Other POW Camps
The Long Journey Home
Flight from Japan to the Philippines
Journey Home
Aboard the Marine Shark
New York and the Queen Mary
Home at Last!
Chapter 6 – Terence (Flash) Kelly
Terence Kelly – FEPOW (Far East Prisoner of War, 1942–45)
About Terence
Meeting Terence Kelly
Capture
Internment and Journey from Java to Japan
Hiroshima Camp 5
The Camp’s Working Life
Punishment
Malnutrition
Prisoner of War Letters
Red Cross Parcels
American Bombing
Atomic Bomb – Hiroshima
Conditions Get Worse
The End of the War
The British Navy Arrive in the Innoshima Sea
Returning Home – First Through Japan
Journey from Japan to Australia
Chapter 7 – Philip (Chick) Henderson
Philip (Chick) Henderson Tells His Story
Questions for Chick
Vote of Thanks
Sunderland
My Father
My Mother
Scouts and Boxing
Old Money
On the Sea Shore
School and Swimming
Rugby and High Tea
Knives and Forks
The RAF and the War
My Girlfriend Was Still Waiting for Me!
Demob and Getting a Job
My Career in the Housing Department
Going back to Japan?
Pleased to Get Away
Welcomed in Sydney
Very Lucky
Chapter 8 – Wilfred Batty
Wilf Batty by his son Adrian Batty: Pre-War Years
Joining the RAF
Journey to the Far East
Java – Capture and Imprisonment
By Hellship to Japan
Habu POW Camp, Japan
The Tide of War Turns
Wilf Writes Home as a Free Man!
Going Home
Home at Last
Chapter 9 – Visits to the Far East
1999 – Visit to Hong Kong
2009 – Singapore
2010 – Visit to Japan
Postscript
Endnotes
Foreword
The window is almost closed. Very few of the wartime generation are left as I write this, and by the time you read it they may all be gone. None will be left to answer our questions, tell their stories, or share an experience that – in truth – we could never really grasp.
All that remains are notes and diaries, remembered conversations (for those of us fortunate enough to speak to them) and a few faded photographs and documents. So it is left to books like this to serve as memorials to a generation who did their bit, and more, to stop the spread of fascism in the East. Many lost their lives in the conflict, and none came home unchanged. Few spoke much about what they did, never seeing themselves or their comrades as heroes; they just got on with life when they returned, worked, raised families, carried on. But they never forgot.
They stayed in touch with each other, valuing the opportunity to talk with those who shared experiences which neither their children nor today’s generations could ever quite understand.
Two very different experiences link the men described in this book. The first was service in the Hong Kong Signal Company when the Colony was invaded by Japan in December 1941, along with service with the RAF in what was the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia and Singapore, and the second was internment in POW camps in the Japanese homeland.
They were lucky to survive the first, a battle in which 10 per cent of the defenders died, lucky to survive transportation across the seas to Japan (the draft prior to theirs was torpedoed and a thousand men died) and lucky to survive the diseases and docks of Innoshima. Some prisoners of war even endured all that but perished after liberation, dying on their way home. The eight men described here were more fortunate: they lived, they came home. But they never forgot.
Dr Tony Banham
Hong Kong, May 2019

About Dr Tony Banham
Tony is the founder of the Hong Kong War Diary Project, which studies and documents the 1941 defence of Hong Kong, the defenders, their families, and the fates of all until liberation. His published books are considered to be examples of some of the best research on the Hong Kong experience during the Second World War.
His published books include:
Not the Slightest Chance (Hong Kong University Press, 2003) ISBN 962-209-615-8
The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru (Hong Kong University Press, 2006) ISBN 962-209-771-5
We Shall Suffer There (Hong Kong University Press, 2009) ISBN 978-962-209-960-9
Reduced to a Symbolical Scale (Hong Kong University Press, 2017) ISBN 978-988-839-087-8
Tony graduated from Herefordshire University, England, with a degree in computer science. At the age of 30 his business career took him to Hong Kong, which is now his permanent home. He received his PhD in history from the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), Canberra, Australia.
Introduction
This book is set in the Far East during World War II and describes the lives and experiences of eight servicemen including my father. Five of them were based in Hong Kong in the run-up to the outbreak of war in the Far East at the end of 1941. These five, including my father, were all signalmen in the Hong Kong Signal Company and fought in the brief but fierce Battle for Hong Kong, which started on 8 December 1941 and finished with the British surrender on Christmas Day, 25 December 1941. The signalmen’s accounts include the story of the fall of Hong Kong, life in the prisoner of war camp in Hong Kong, the terrible journey to Japan and their imprisonment in prison camps there.
This book also tells the story of three other servicemen, members of the RAF, who were captured in Java, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in February 1942. They have been included because all three were