The Road to Mandalay

Ooh It’s a Corner

Ooh It’s a Corner

Well-known member
On 15 February 1942 the Commowealth Garrison at Singapore surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army 130000 Allied soldiers were captured. For them the worst was yet to come these brave but unfortunate men were to spend the rest of the war enduring starvation , brutality and torture at the hands of their captors who have never apologised for the atrocities they committed at Changi Prison , during the building of the Thai - Burma Railway and other prison camps throughout South East Asia. Many never returned home whilst thousands were permanently scarred mentally and physically for the rest of their lives . The Burma Star Association was very active in Blackpool and veterans met for reunions until 2008.
May they all Rest in Peace
 
I write this in Singapore, not a mention of it today that I have seen anywhere apart from the UK Times.
 
My father was in Burma and he had the Burma Star but he never spoke about the war, and my Mum said it had scarred him mentally.
 
They were sold down the river by their field commander/general who surrendered them over shamelessly.

My Auntie runs a care home and speaks of the veterans they would have in back in the day (unfortunately not many left now), they couldn't go near their feet as they still suffered from PTSD from the torture that was inflicted on that part of the body - a speciality of Imperial Japan.
 
Evil Bastards certainly sums up what they were like in WW2. I have read a few books about the Japs and their way of dealing with 'inferior' soldiers and civilians and I've added a couple of quotes from books I have read about their treatment of captives for those who are still unaware of their propensity to mete out unnecessary torture of captives.

Those with a faint heart should not read the rest.

A dozen Australian soldiers were found stripped and tied to between posts, their penises had been cut off and sown to their lips by the foreskins, a note was left with them saying 'they died very slowly.'

"Over a million had died or were painfully dying in their gruesome camps. Many were beaten, beheaded, and bayoneted, sometimes when tied between posts.

"Japanization" of "inferior" Asians included slapping faces in public and murdering citizens: some ten million (mostly civilian) Chinese alone. The conquerors provided "an almost spellbinding spectacle of brutality and death," as a historian recently put it. In 1937, the best Tokyo newspapers reported a "friendly competition" between two officers to be first to behead 150 Chinese with their swords."

Unfortunately it would appear that certain far eastern cultures continue to practice torture in various forms.
 
Raging_Bull said:
Exactly, 130,000 men just surrender? I'd rather go fighting and fall with a bullet in my head than let those evil bastards get their hands on me.
Click to expand...
It reminds me of that saying Raging (It's better to Die Standing, than Live on your Knees)
 
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There was a chap in Layton Institute who was severely scarred from his experience over there. You knew he had been through hell but bore his demons with quiet dignity. Loved talking to him about life in general but stayed well clear of that experience!
 
My cousin married a girl who lived on Hornby Rd. Her brother was in the Far East at that time and obviously was captured.
My memories are somewhat vague, but I know that he never came back, His mother still believed he was alive until the day she died.
His name is on Blackpool Cenotaph.
 
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