1. Lts JACKSON, GUTCH and myself preferred to get away together
2. Within three weeks (after considerable warning, and work on the railway bridge at BAN KAU) I was separated from the other two, sent down sick with tropical ales [ails], and did not meet them again until the period had elapsed during which suitable supplies might possibly have been acquired and a new plan formed.
3. All three of us were forced to eat our store of original supplies in order to keep our health going in any supportable state, besides any other food we could find.
4. My own health, though not bad, was never again quite up to the mark.
5. The more we saw of the nature of the country further north, the more we were convinced that only a party organised from outside and supplied with elephant transport and with everything possible laid on (and the best of its kind) could get through. No external contact that I ever made with the Thais offered even a reasonable chance.
6. The Japs were prone to visit the sins of the few upon the many, and it would not be reasonable to cause any further degradation of the already deplorable condition of our troops, unless an escape scheme were absolutely watertight and could carry useful information to the Allies. It was for this reason, and the absence of opportunity . . . at any rate to my knowledge, no Escape Committees were functioning.

Lieut 1/Manch

Editor’ s Note

Appendices Four to Seven are transcriptions from original questionnaires that POWs were asked to complete on their return from Japanese or German camps. Most were completed in pencil, which has faded in the years since 1945. There was little standardisation of the spelling of place-names. Question 1. simply asked prisoners to list the camps in which they had spent time. Ellipses are used to show where the text has been either edited or else is unreadable.

APPENDIX FIVE:

From M.I.9 POW Questionnaire, 1945. National Archives (TNA), WO344/407/2 Lieutenant Donald Harry Webber – Comments on escape attempts (including his own) and risking life by leaving the camp for vital supplies

(g)Do you know of any attempts made by other people to escape? Give their Regimental particulars and full description of their experiences.

Believe LT T.P JONES, MALAY REGT, WAS MEMBER OF PARTY WHICH ATTEMPTED ESCAPES FROM CAMP IN N.THAILAND. BELIEVE NOBODY GOT THROUGH AND LT JONES DIED DURING ATTEMPT.

CAPT BRETHERTON & MAJOR RICHARDSON BOTH OF MALAY REGT, ESCAPED FROM GILLMAN BARRACKS, SINGAPORE, ABOUT 3 DAYS AFTER SURRENDER OF SINGAPORE. SINCE HEARD THAT THE[Y] REACHED BRITAIN.

4.SABOTAGE. DID YOU DO ANY SABOTAGE OR DESTRUCTION OF ENEMY FACTORY PLANT, WAR MATERIAL, COMMUNICATIONS. ETC. WHILE EMPLOYED IN WORKING PARTIES OR DURING ESCAPE? (GIVE DETAILS, PLACES AND NAMES)

NO

5.DID YOU OBSERVE ANY COURAGEOUS ACTS PERFORMED BY ALLIED PERSONNEL? (GIVE NAMES, PLACES, ETC.)