LUCKY PRISONERS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 74, 25 September 1945, Page 9

LUCKY PRISONERS

A SPECIAL CAMP

SIAMESE CO-OPERATION

(R.N.Z.A.F. Official War Correspondent.) SOUTH-EAST ASIA AREA, Sept. 23. Warrant Officer L. A. Barr, of 64 Prices Street, Onehunga, Auckland, was one of 32 of the luckiest prisoners in the Japanese war. He lived in a special camp in Bangkok guarded only by Siamese soldiers.

The existence of the camp was not widely known and although the Japanese tried often to get the prisoners into their hands the Siamese refused. So long as the prisoners were discreet in their movements they were allowed considerable latitude. They often crawled through a fence into the British civilian internment camp and enjoyed dancing, concerts, and quiz programmes. They played cricket every Sunday. The food was ample. The Siamese authorities held prisoners who came directly into their hands, mainly aircrews shot down when bombing railway targets and other Japanese supply lines. Warrant Officer Barr was pilot of an R.A.F. Liberator shot down while attacking the Bangkok-Chiengmai railway line last October. * SMUGGLED TO BANGKOK. He and four others baled out from the aircraft and were quickly put under guard by civil police. Japanese soldiery arrived with a demand that they be handed over; but while the Siamese police were objecting to this, another R.A.F. bomber came over and the Japs scattered. The Siamese hid the prisoners in houses and then smuggled them 350 miles to Bangkok, where they were taken to military headquarters and then interned. The Japanese objected, and when more R.A.F. prisoners arrived, the Siamese put them in a separate compound next to the, civilians who looked after them very well indeed. They were sent a bottle of rum and a bottle of brandy by Australians, and so long as they did it surreptiously they were able to visit the civilians every night. The Siamese consideration was never abused by attempts to go into Bangkok itself since the prisoners would then have been seized by the Japanese. Prisoners needing medical attention were taken to the fullyequipped Bangkok hospital.