Prisoners adrift in the Pacific

Press, 15 March 1980, Page 17

Prisoners adrift in the Pacific

Return from the River Kwai. By Joan and Clay Blair. MacDonald and Janes, 1979. 314 pp. Notes, bibliography and index. $22.95. (Reviewed by Keith C. Hooper) Today, through the medium of television, the world is aware of the plight of the “boat-people” cast adrift on the South China Sea, but in-. 1944 when a similar 'fate overtook 2000 British and Australian prisoners of war little was known of the incident. Partly this was deliberate Allied policy, but there were many other events of a more triumphant nature to engage public attention. Yet, like the “boat-people” the prisoners displayed amazing qualities of endurance, as they floated aimlessly, free, but without any particular destination, deprived, lacking provisions, and at the mercy of the elements. These men had already borne much being the fittest survivors from the labour squads which had built the “Railway of Death.” No strangers to suffering, they had been crammed into stifling cargo holds for shipment to Japan. However, by 1944 the American submarine patrols were exacting a heavv toll from the Japanese merchant navy’; the two ships which carried the prisoners were both torpedoed and sunk. The crew commandeered all the life boats, so the bewildered prisoners jumped into the sea, using whatever wreckage was to hand for support. Covered in oil from a surrounding slick, jarred by shock waves from depth charges, without fresh water, some managed to cling to their makeshift rafts for five days and nights before being rescued. By careful research of source documents and interviews Joan and Clay Blair have compiled a fascinating story of human survival, soon to be made into a film. The book is constructed round a series of personal anecdotes and biographies, so that the whole saga is described from the

viewpoint of some 20 participants. Advancing the plot in this way allows the reader to identify with at least some of the men concerned and follow their fate. Thus this wartime drama becomes a much more personal and human tale, rather than one which deals in armies, fleets, or other large groups of men. At first under the auspices of a relatively humane Japanese officer, the prisoners believed the transfer to Japan would improve their lot.

But hopes dwindled as they waited in austere transit camps for suitable shipping. Nevertheless, at all times the Australians and British kept to separate groups and maintained a mutual resentment. The Blairs make clear their research reveals the Australians to have been better survivors: more aggressive and less willing to accept orders, they obtained more from their officers and the Japanese than the British. For example, before embarking the prisoners had collected tobacco, scattered from a bombed warehouse, but the Japanese forbade its possession on board, an order which the British obeyed and the Australians ignored. Later in the cargo holds, the British were forced to scrounge “smokes” from their more carefree allies.

Persuading the men into the heat of the cargo holds had not been easy with the Australians proving the most obstinate, insisting on a topside rotation system before submitting to pressure. Later when their ship was sinking, the British complied with an officer’s command to stay below until k was known what had happened, while on another ship in similar circumstances, the Australians had swarmed On deck, and none of them went down with the ship. Once in the water a nightmare ordeal began for all: the Japanese pushed the prisoners away from their lifeboats, the prisoners drowned Japanese swimmers, and those in the

sea were covered in oil, which blinded their eyes and forced its way into their lungs. Desperately thirsty some swallowed sea water, a process, survivors said, that quickly led to madness and death. The next day the Japanese escort frigates went round picking up their own people and pushing away their forme'' captives, though eventually some were allowed aboard to be bea-ten by the crews before being thrown below. Lucky to be alive, they knew their future looked bleak and they had trained themselves to ignore the past. Many were sick or injured.with broken limbs, a condition for which there was no consideration or assistance.

The remainder drifted for days and nights until finally spotted by an American submarine, just in time, as a heavy sea was running. Joined by a sister vessel, the submarines, lacking space, picked up as many as they could before turning away, ignoring . the many plaintive shouts of “over here” which followed their departure. The rescued, however, were given every attention, and the book provides interesting photographs of survivors in the water and aboard the submarines. Their story was to shock the Allied civil and military authorities, who for some time pondered whether to keep the news from the public. The Blairs have put together a dramatic story which reveals the different facets of human nature under stress: some wished to die, some gave up and died, others simply felt they would live, many were determined to survive. At times the narrative wanders from the main action, dwelling on the former careers Of the submariners or the lives of the French civilians in Saigon, but to their credit the authors have caught the thoughts and feelings of the prisoners to tell a moving tale. Though the Japanese do not emerge well from this book, it is a story which will generate sympathy for any group adrift at sea.