MEN BACK FROM SINGAPORE

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24679, 24 September 1945, Page 6

MEN BACK FROM SINGAPORE

ARRIVAL OF THIRD AIRCRAFT GOOD RECOVERY IN HEALTH (P.A.) AUCKLAND. Sept. 23. The third Royal New Zealand Air Force Transport Command aircraft to bring freed personnel from Singapore arrived at Whenuapai on Saturday. There were 16 men in the party, eight of them being surviving members of the crew of the Union Steam Ship Company’s vessel Hauraki, which was captured by Japanese cruisers in July, 1942. Others were The names of the party were: P. J. Goodman (Roval Oak, Auckland), J. R. Graham (Newmarket), G. J. Grey (Wellington), E. McKinley (Epsom), J. H. Merritt (Napier), E. Waller (Mangere), L. A. Wigley (Australia), and a Rarotongan named Papbaua, all from the Hauraki, Dr. A. F. Mackay (Wellington), F. McEvoy (Dublin). N. M. Clark (Dunedin), T. N. Cummins (Kerikeri), J. P. Edwards (Paeroa), H. W. Hamilton (Christchurch), J. H. S. Jenkins (England), and R. Scott (Mission Bay). As was the case with the previous arrivals, the men had made a good recovery since their release from the prison camps where they had suffered long hardship, mainly through lack of food. All had gained from 20 to 301b in weight since the end of their internment, during which some had lost Up to four stone. The men of the Hauraki had spent two years at the Changi gaol and 14 1 months at the Sime road camp, at Singapore. Dr. Mackay was medical officer for a group of rubber plantations in the Federated Malay States from 1930 to the time of the Japanese invasion.. He was captured at Singapore. He seated that apart from the ordinary routine, face-slappings, he saw no atrocities committed at Changi or Sime road. “These were not every-day occurrences,” he added. “We had to bow to the brutes every time they passed and, if they did not like your looks they hit you on the face. Apart from starvation diet and the congested conditions in the camps, we civilians must have been lucky, as we escaped the treatment meted out elsewhere.” Dr. Mackay said that about 80 doctors were interned at Singapore, but apart from about half a dozen, who were responsible for hospital administration, all did coolie work. The men from the Hauraki said they were fortunate in that all had been placed in the same internment camps and were never separated. The recuperative powers of the younger members of the party, said Dr. Mackay, were remarkable. He did not think they would suffer any permanent ill effects of their experience. He had noticed no signs of neurosis. The complete recovery of the older civilians would take longer, and would largely depend on their state of health when taken prisoner and whether they had suffered illnesses during their internment.