Agreed, & of course, many Britons also felt bitter about British leadership failure at Singapore.
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Agreed, & of course, many Britons also felt bitter about British leadership failure at Singapore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz
I think it's a on a railway station. The porcelain insulators will be part of the telegraph system. The railways had their own telegraph network, which was separate from the Post Office system.
The uniform looks South African war, or slightly later.
I have been actively involved in the extraction and full military honours to be carried out for the 250 Soldiers who were bayoneted by Japanese soldiers on the 14th February 1942 in Alexandra Hospital in Singapore.
They were then placed into a large pit which is today the hospital football pitch.
DNA is the stumbling block with all identifications, along with that old favourite inter Governmental politics..........but it raises hope where there was none.
I hope before I leave this earth all those killed and buried in that way on that fateful day can finally have their own marked grave.
I lived in Singapore for three years as a child when my father was in the Forces and it was a big thing in the sixties, but the tracing of NOK would have been horrendous back then.
I went back with three veterans and elements of 2 PARA in 2015 to honour two of our lads killed in 1965 at Plaman Mapu by Indonesian SF who attacked a border outpost, where we wanted to build a cairn in the jungle on the hillock, and called into Kranji Cemetery in Singapore on the way home, to give the lads full military honours and respect, from local UK units stil based there.
Thats the cemetery these soldeirs should have as a final resting place run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission so beautiful and so peaceful.
Gil Boyd and mr Clark , my uncles father was on the HMAS Perth which wen town with the USS Houston in the battle for Singapore he was last seen on a life boat but he never made it home . My mums uncle was not he artillery in Darwin ww2 and he wa sa real bushy he had some stories about Japanese pilots being eaten by crocs .my dads dad was in the 16th VDC in Townsville ww2 mainly coast watch duties .i guess the bike was a easy way to move large amounts of troops with out the motorized complement which had more chance of being bogged down .
Mark,
The Japanese efifciency on cycles was outstanding in the circumstances, down through the whole of Malaya, to sit in high points in Jahore Bahru to overlook the fortifications on the island of Singapore with the full knowledge of General Percivals Officers, and then to leave the causeway in tact was disgraceful. Once they realised ALL the artillery was on the other side of the island facing out to sea.......................the causeway was basically an invitation to capturing the massive prepared force in Singapore even easier. The Japanese were so understrength at that time, and the Commonwealth Forces should have simply anialated them!!
They were totally unprepared due primarily to the speed of their arrival on bikes in the wrong direction!!
Military medical staff also got bayoneted as well as a patient on the operating table. Have any remains of army nurses been found at Alexandra Hospital, Singapore?Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil Boyd
All staff and soldiers killed were serving military. The whole subject is very vague and many of the locations of the mass pit given by so called witnesses when they were alive, have still turned up very little, although a GPR search was done a few years ago, I am sure better technology will eventually find it in a very large area on the site.
Surgeons, Doctors and nurses were all killed too, and again the total has also been changed so many times, due primarily to Japanese occupation for three years after it.
The Japanese really didn’t care for taking prisoners and saw it as a disgrace in surrendering . I have copies of letters from my uncles dad who served on the HMAS Perth in the Mediterranean against the Italians and Germans and was part of the blockade in North Africa for the british and commonwealth troops also the evacuation of Crete . They respected the Germans and Italians but they where a formidable enemy , i feel that the British really thought that the Japanese where not a threat to them but they proved that wrong .
Many doctors and nurses where captured and some where lucky to survive IE weary Dunlop the surgeon he survived changi after being captured , then Vivian bullwinkle who is hte only nurse to survive the mass shooting by the Japanese on Bangka island .
Changi is still a desolate place, once a prison always a prison. The thousands that died in there during the 3 years of Japanese occupation of the island will never be forgotten.
Spent some time in and around there as RAF Changi was close by.
We were at RAF Seletar a much bigger camp split in half with all the facilities you would expect on an RAF camp!!!!
Like many countries, they wish we had stayed as a nation. I am sure with whats happening in the South China Seas we wish we had too.
Hongkong/Malaya/Singapore/Borneo/Brunei/Gan/Malta/Maseirah and so many more, all wish we had remained now the dust has settled.
We cared for a lot of people then, who struggle today to make ends meet!!
It really is...right there. You folks sure have/had some excellent and interesting postings. I remember discussing with my Scots Borderers exchange OC about his time as an 18yr old 2Lt in Hong Kong...with pics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil Boyd