GOOD NEWS FROM SINGAPORE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 214, 10 September 1945, Page 5

GOOD NEWS FROM SINGAPORE

WORD OF N.Z. PRISONERS BROADCAST GIVES DETAILS. Wellington, Sept. 8. “Headquarters Radio Singapore calling i\ew Zealand," was a message which, broadcast over the air last night, brought hope to many of the relatives ot New Zealanders who have been for so long the prisoners of the Japanese, reports "Tne Post.” News of the prisoners was given by ar. R.N.Z.A.F. observer who had visited the camps and hospitals on the island. The observer stated that 34 New Zealand prisoners had been found in the camp v.sited, but there were other camps in tho vicinity in which further New Zealanders would be found. The prisoners generally, despite their terrible sufferings, had maintained a wonderful spirit. The scenes in hospital were heartbreaking. The commentator had been asked to walk through the wards where the most serious cases of dysentery, tuberculos.s and starvation were housed in order that the men could see for themselves that our troops had really come at last. One could hardly believe that men so emaciated could live. All the New Zealanders were ‘•easonably well, and Australian Red Cross parcels had arrived with supplies which were desperately needed.

The announcer then introduced Flight-Lieutenant Ronald David Miliar, D.F.M., whose parents Jive at 160 Onepu Road, Lyall Bay. FligntLieutenant Milar, in the course of his talk, described the Burma-Siam railway on which prisoners were forced to work as an "epitome of Japanese cruelty." In the last weeks of captivity, he said, the prisoners had heard over the radio the news of the Potsdam Declaration and subsquent developments, but the Japanese had given no sign that the end was near till about 10 days before the liberation forces arrived; at that time the Japanese issued quantities of good food to the pr.soners in an attempt to minimise the results of the starvation diet and ill-treatment of the prisoners. Among the items of food issued was New Zealand butter, which had been in store since the fall of Singapore In 1942. EFFECTS OF TREATMENT. The years of hard labour on starvation diet had left their mark on many. One man had lost two inches in height. However, now that they were getting good food they were putting on an amaz.ng amount of weight. "I have put on 131 b. in the last 1U days," said the speaker. Some remarkable achievements of the prisoners included the making of 5000 brooms and 15,000 toothbrushes

from palm fronds and the provision from all sorts of odds and ends of machinery for their manufacture. Under conditions of extreme secrecy even to ther felow prisoners, some of the men made receiving sets.

One of the best of these belonged to Lieutenant Russell White, A.L.F. He would lie on his bed, one arm hanging languidly over the side. Actually, with that arm, he would be working the control knobs of the set, which was hidden under the head of his bed. The earphones were hidden in his pillow. The New Zealanders in the camp kept in touch. Each Sunday night they met in the cook-house and talked of the r people and homes. A New Zealand Prisopers-of-War and Internees’ Association was formed, the intention being that its members should keep in touch and help each other after the war. NOT FORGOTTEN. There ware many others I» the camp who thought of coming to New Zealand after the war, hut the New Zealanders could tell them little. Actually the New Zealanders were very depressed. The Australian Government over the air frequently reassured the Australians of its interest in their welfare, hut nothing similar had come from the New' Zealai d Government.

"IL was therefore a great joy when a New Zealand representative walked into the camp a few hours after the liberation and we knew that we had not been forgotten," he said. Later an announcer gave the names of some of the members of the crew of the Union Company’s freighter Hauraki, which was caught by two Japanese in lhe Indian Ocean on July 22, 1942. Other members of lhe crew, it was stated, had been sent to Japan.

Flight - Lieutenant Millar was awarded the D.F.M. in 1942 when he held tho rank of sergeant. The citation stated that he had carried out a large number of operational sorties over Europe and in the Western Desert, and paid tribute to his qualities as a navigator and bomb.:imer. He was horn in Pajmerston North in August, 1915, and was educated at the New Plymouth Boys' High. Schoo!.