 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
There were five in a gun crew, and of the five of us who were with that gun on the beach, I
never saw the other four again. One of them probably walked into the Japs. He was in a slit
trench with me during that first bombardment, and a shell that was lobbed at us exploded about
three feet away from the trench. Both of us had out heads up against the side of the trench, and
he must have taken more of the blast than I did, because he went half silly. He wanted to stand
up and get out of the trench. An hour or so later he did get out and wandered off. I never saw
him again. I didn't see the other three either. They must have been either killed by the shelling or
have walked into those Japs that night.'
Further landings were made by the Japanese on 10 February, and dive-bombing and machine-
gunning by Japanese aircraft continued during the day. Big fires raged in the north of the island,
and despite some allied counter-attacks and the forays of a few Hurricanes and salvos from
British naval vessels offshore, Japanese tanks crossed the repaired causeway, the Japanese
advance now being directed at Singapore city itself. The capture of two main reservoirs and the
cutting of the island's water supply, sealed Singapore's fate.
To prevent further loss of life, the island surrendered unconditionally on 15 February - just as
the Japanese whose numbers were about half those of the defending forces, were running out of
supplies. About 60,000 allied troops were made prisoner, including 32,000 Indians and 13,000
Australians, one of whom was 20-year-old Bill.
'An officer would come around and tell me and my gun crew: "We want you on such and such a
road, just in case any Jap tanks come through there." And we were switched around for a
couple of days from spot to spot. All we were doing was pushing from one road to another. We
didn't know what was going on, again. All we did was do what we were told.
'We ended up in the Botanical Gardens - that was our last spot. We heard that they were
talking about a surrender. And then the word just came around - lay down your arms. And that
was it.
'I threw my rifle in the lake -1 took the bolt out first. It's probably still there. It was only a
gesture, but I thought: They're not going to get it.
468
'Well, the officers came around and brought us in and formed us into a regiment again as far as
they could. They did it quite well. For a couple of nights we remained in the Botanical Gardens,
and then we were told we were going to march out to Changi. We didn't know where Changi
was, or what it was, and naturally it was a bit of a worry. You didn't know what was going to
happen or how the Japs were going to act. But there wasn't any real problem at that time. They
weren't looking for any extra trouble. We were marched off, keeping to our original regiments
or battalions as far as possible. Some were a bit mixed, but we were never mixed up with the
English very much. The Japs didn't have to organise us at all. We did all that. In fact the whole
thing was better organised than the war.
'At Changi roll-calls were held every morning for the Japanese, but we didn't see much of them
at all. Practically all of the administration of Changi was left to our officers and NCOS. We
were housed originally in Indian Army huts made of bamboo and rattan, but after about two
weeks we were moved into a proper building, the Indian Army barracks.
We didn't have to do a great deal. We sometimes had to pull a vehicle with ropes down to the
beach and fill 24 gallon drums with saltwater. These we then brought back to the cookhouses
for conversion into salt. We weren't issued with any salt. Some of the boys were ordered to
 |