We arrived in Singapore about the middle of September, where the Japanese said they would only take 50 seamen. I was one of the 50 to be taken off. The Japanese loaded us into a couple of trucks and took us across the island of Singapore to Seletar.
We were unloaded at the wharf and a Japanese naval officer got on to a stand and told us that we would be under the Japanese navy and we had to obey them. If not we would be punished. If we tried to escape we would be executed.
When we got aboard Tung Wo there was a bit of a mixed crew with a few Americans but we all got on OK. The living quarters were on the lower deck and it was not too bad. The six Japanese were on the upper deck. We had to try to get this vessel in working order.
The food was very poor - rice of poor quality, full of weevils, and a bit of fish. After a couple of days we asked the Japanese if we could have some meat. So the next morning at tenko [roll call] on the top deck we lined up and faced the raising of the Japanese ensign.
They made us bow as it was raised then the head Jap, who spoke good English, said that we had insulted the Japanese navy so we had to be punished. One of the Japanese appeared with a length of rope. Then we had to raise our arms. Then the Japanese, taking turns, gave each one of us three whacks across the backside.
But the food did get a little bit better. We got a few veges.
The Japanese had us doing all kinds of jobs. Sometimes we got the job of rowing them to the jetty. They would go to Singapore and come back drunk. That's when we would keep out of their way.
One of the Japanese was a bit older than the other guys. His name was Nonaka. He seemed to be the best of them. He used to give me the odd cigarette. He wanted to learn how to speak English so he picked on me.
That's how I got to learn a few Japanese words. That helped me from getting a few hidings. I taught him a few swear words.
We used to see Japanese warships come in to the straits.
We must have been on Tung Wo 'til about the middle of 1943, when they told us we were going to another camp.
The next place they took us was Lo Yang, further up the Johor Straits towards Changi. It was, I believe, an ex Royal Navy mine depot.
It had a number of barracks and a few houses. In fact it was a pretty good camp, but this time we had a lot of other POWs - mostly ex-navy guys. But the best thing was we had showers so we could keep clean.
But there was one problem. There were a lot more bloody Japanese. The food was just the same. What they wanted to do was get the depot in working order but we refused. They said no work no food. So we had no option.
They issued us with a fundoshi - a linen G-string - as the weather there was very hot and humid. That is what we wore most of the time. There must have been about 150 of us and the camp would have about 500 Japanese. This is where most of our problems were.
We had a guy who was put in charge of us. He was an ex-rubber plantation manager who could speak Japanese. We called him Tibby.
Lo Yang was right on the shoreline of the straits and there was a long jetty that the Japanese used as a place to supply goods to their navy. One of the jobs we got was to unload the goods to the warehouse. The bags of rice were very heavy.
The best part of it was when the Japanese would say "yasume". That meant a rest and if the Japanese in charge was not too bad he would let us have a swim.
On one side of the camp was a mangrove swamp and one day a couple of us spotted a very big lizard in the monsoon drain that ran around the camp. So we took off chasing the lizard and we caught it. It was over a metre long.
One of the Americans said "let's eat it" and it was just like a piece of chicken. That is not the only thing we ate, being hungry all the time we started to eat a few things like snails and other things.
There were a lot of the local people working in the camp but the Japanese tried to keep us away from them if possible. But we did get chances to get with them and they were very good giving us tobacco that we used to roll into cigarettes in newspaper. They also gave us some food but we had to be careful for the Japanese were very cruel to the locals.
We had some bad times with the Japanese. One of the things they used to do was to line us up into two rows facing one another and you would have to hit the guy in front of you. If the Japanese thought you were not hitting hard enough they would hit you to show how hard you should hit. They used to do this in front of the local people just to show who was boss.
There were mosquitoes. Having no mossie nets they were like dive bombers. One morning I woke up and I had bites all over my body and my face. I was not the only one. This was the start of a few of the guys getting malaria and I also got a fever.
They took us to Selerang. It was a former army place but part of it was used as a POW hospital. I cannot remember much of my time there. I think it must have been about three weeks. Our doctors were magnificent. They had very little medicine to work with but they did wonders.
As for myself, I did not have a bad fever but some of the other guys were in a bad way. This was the start of a few deaths, what with the lack of decent food and no medicines. We were starting to lose weight but the spirit was still very strong. We used to try to have a sing-song and bit of a concert. That helped a lot.
Another thing was no news of how the war was going bar what the Japanese told us - such as invading Australia and India.
Our time at Lo Yang was coming to an end. It would be in early October 1944 that we were told we were going to Changi Jail. They put 12,000 POWs in that area - 6000 inside the jail and the rest in huts around the jail. The jail was only built to hold 600 so we were a bit pushed for room. We were six bods in a cell that was only for one.
The merchant navy, Royal Navy and a few air force guys were all in block C, floor 3. The only good thing about it was we were not that close to the Japanese. The only time we saw them was on working parties.
But things were going to get a lot worse as time went on.
• Mr Barron's serialised account will continue in next week's Otago Daily Times Magazine section.
