Category Archives: POWs

27 Line Section is created – POWs 1

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In 1941 about 70 men of the Royal Corps of Signals gathered on Liverpool docks preparing to embark for service ‘somewhere’ abroad. They carried tropical gear. Some of the men were career soldiers and had survived Dunkirk. Their units had been disbanded and they had been sent to work at Harnham Camp near the South Coast, restoring lines in the much-bombed coastal city of Plymouth. They were perhaps hoping for a cushier posting after their grim experiences.

These Dunkirk men had been allocated to a newly created unit, 27 Line Section, under a newly created Captain, Barry Baker, all of twenty-five years old, married with a baby son. Barry should have been in France, but he was recovering from head injuries after being knocked off his motorcycle by a young Canadian driving on the wrong side of the road. Backing him up was a 40 year-old NCO, 2nd Lieutenant Sutherland Brown, a married Plant Manager from Malaya.

The bulk of 27 Line Section was made of Scottish Reservists mainly from Glasgow. Many worked in the post office but there were also bakers, electricians, butchers, bricklayers, waiters and many other trades. They ranged in age from nineteen to late thirties. Few if any had been abroad before, none, except possibly the Lance Sergeants, had seen active service.

In his memoirs Barry wrote:

The Glasgow party arrived, bringing most of their own lorries with them, and they seemed to fit in quite easily with the men I knew already at Harnham. We had a few days to sort out duties, stores, transport and drivers and then we were sent on detachment as a whole Section to carry out a most interesting job. This was a great bonus as it enabled us, me and the four sergeants, to get to know one another and to get the Glaswegians and the Southerners properly acquainted and working together without the nuisance of Company Parades or C.O.’s inspections.

These weeks together proved crucial in the years ahead. As Barry remembers:

The whole job lasted only a few weeks but by the end of it No. 27 Line Section had a firm personality and individuality of its own. Later in Malaya or up country in Siam, if any of our men were asked what Unit they came from they would not answer “Malaya Command Signals” or “Attached to 8th Australian Div”, or even “2 Group POW Camp”, but simply “27 Line Section”.

age and procrastination

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I have noticed an interesting effect of age. I no longer put off doing a major job properly. So in the garden, finding the protective mortar flaking off the lowest level of bricks in one area – which was in the same state four years ago when I was laying paving slabs there – I know that I must deal with it. I have this feeling with all heavy work in the garden; best to do it now, I may not feel like it in a year or so’s time, and best make a good lasting job of it.

This feeling spreads to other areas not necessarily involving physical strength. There is no longer anything to be gained by waiting for a better/quieter/more mature period in my life. While the tendency to cook up long term schemes and projects has not left me, perhaps I am finally learning to live in the moment.

I read that you should only touch a piece of paper once – meaning that when you open a letter you should answer and file it in one go. Looking at the pile of paper in the box that masquerades as my in-tray, I still have a way to go on that front.

Of course it may not be age at all. I have just finished reading an unpublished memoir of a WWII Far Eastern Prisoner of War (Dishonourable Guest, by W G Riley). Riley is a young Signalman who starts POW life in Changi, works on the Thailand-Burma Railroad, gets transported on the doomed Hokofu Maru troopship, and is one of the 23 Britons rescued in the dramatic Cabanatuan Raid at Luzon. I have read many POW memoirs in the course of the last three year’s research. Elements are the same, but each man’s story is unique. You would have to be very obtuse to reach the end of even one of these memoirs and not learn to appreciate the moment.

Riley made, in his son’s words, ‘anguished attempts to get the work published’. His whole life was affected, not only by his experience as a prisoner, but also by his need to get his  story written and known. It was never published as a book, but his son, Steve, had the second version of the text (the first was lost) typeset and printed 1988. This certainly puts the odd rejection by agents or publishers into perspective.

Luzon Raid – correction

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In the COFEPOW quarterly newsletter, there is a short piece about the memoirs of Signalman W G Riley, Dishonourable Guest. He was rescued on 30 January 1945 by Americans in the Cabanatuan, Luzon Raid. Checking in my newspaper cuttings from the period, I realise that it is this raid in which Thomas Potter was rescued not the later February one. The memoirs are available at the Imperial War Museum or, for a very small fee to COFEPOW, as a PDF via the author’s son. (If anyone wants these try the COFEPOW website http://www.cofepow.org.uk or get in touch with me).

Luzon Raid

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I see on the WordPress site http://pacificparatrooper.wordpress.com several mentions of Luzon and a raid to rescue internees in February 1945. Some of the POWs rescued were Brits, one of them was Signalman Thomas Potter of the Royal Corps of Signals, 27 Line Section. Potter was one of the men in my father’s section and after being repatriated was interviewed by the war office and also by my mother, who was trying to get news of all the men in 27 Line Section. I have put together a book about my parents and the wives and mothers of the men in 27 Line Section from the many letters I have. I am interested in making contact people who might have relatives from 27 Line Section or know of any other internees rescued in the same raid and still with us.

Dealing with writing criticism

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I love the randomness of existence; so Monday morning there was a knock on the door and a great lorry craned a large bag of sand onto our driveway. The snow cover and the icicles everywhere make laying brick paths unwise. Instead I managed to send an email to an agent, who felt like the right person for my Prisoner of War non-fiction book – though the firm is closed for submissions, so I have probably just annoyed him. I also finally posted a submission to an agent for my fiction book Border Line.

An interesting post on How I Handle Rejection on Shannon’s blog http://shannonathompson.com made me reflect on how I handle both rejection and praise. I went to a recent email from a friend who had read Border Line critically for me and realised that I had lapped up the praise and not paid enough attention to the criticism. I had dealt with the post-it notes on the manuscript, but not really listened to a more fundamental worry in the covering email. So I spent a happy few hours – and I mean happy – addressing the problem. It is so much easier when someone has kindly identified the sticky patch or the unreal person. When you are writing you tend to have your nose up against the leaves and the shape of the trees get lost.

My mood underwent some yo-yo transformations as I tried to alter the picture for the (imaginary) cover of Border Line on my website. I learnt, as I always do on these occasions, a lot about how not to work in iWeb, but finally I got it sorted. Then, having published the new version, I was maddened to find that one page uploaded the new version, but another stuck to the old. Much trial and error later, I could get the new pages correct only of I used the www. before my address. Today it works properly. There are some gnomes working hard behind the scenes and I just don’t quite speak their language.

miscellaneous day

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Yesterday was a weird day. We were expecting bad weather yet the sun was shining bright, so I scrambled into gardening clothes and went mad in the garden, mending the hose that takes water from one rain butt to another, clearing paths and finding the edges of them. EG had set a fine example a week ago clearing all the moss from the side path. I kept expecting the sun to disappear, but it was so warm I went coatless.

In the afternoon we went to the funeral of our 92 year-old neighbour. She was a feisty and determined lady. She lived alone in the house her father built, and insisted on maintaining standards as she thought fit. When we came to live next door – more than thirty years ago – I lived in dread of her. She went in for unparalleled frankness and had many things to say about our house and garden, but over the years we became friends and she was always kind and generous to the children. Latterly she became a great supporter of my writing and would lend her copies of my books to all her friends – insisting that they read them.  She was lucky in having devoted friends, on whom she made great demands, who made it possible for her to stay in her own home to the end of her life.

After the funeral, as the bad weather still held off, I rushed into the garden and started work on the brick paths and beds in the area near the new drive-to-be. I had forgotten how much I enjoy the exhaustion of labour. I positively relish moving earth around and realising designs that had started out as pencil on paper. I think the two maples will look great in their re-made beds.

Later in the day, a lovely email from the researcher of the magazine on Far Eastern Prisoners of War to say that my article was OK. Much relieved. Apart from corrections, I did no writing yesterday.

To finish off the day I took myself off to a Lindy Hop session. This was mad. It takes place in the basement of a pub with limited floor room. Tonight there were suddenly about 15 newcomers. A crazy, lively and very noisy session, but not much room to dance.

coincidence

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On the TV last evening a program about a right-wing group at the beginning of the WWII. The consequences of their treasonable behaviour are linked to the rounding up of all ‘enemy’ aliens and their internment. At the same time I am reading the sad story of the Arandora Star (Maria Serena Balestracci), torpedoed on its way to Canada while carrying 2000 or so German and Italian internees, many of whom lost their lives. These internees were for the most part harmless individuals well-integrated into British life. They had been given very little time to leave home, with minimal goodbyes and often even the arresting officer thought they would be back the next day. Such unnecessary suffering, lives torn apart pointlessly, it is maddening how often humans create misery for each other.

FEPOW article

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Yesterday I sent the first draft of an article to the Researching FEPOW History group for their magazine. I found it very difficult to stick within the 2000 word limit. I realised this was because I was trying to tell the whole story of the book. I rewrote it telling only the story of finding the materials with samples of the letters. I hope this is what they had in mind. There is so much material. I did not give the book a title in the Article in case when/if it gets to publication they change it. At the moment it is Writing to a Ghost: Letters to the River Kwai 1941-45