FOUR MEN ON A RAFT, THEN TWO DROWNED IN THE SEA – THAT LEFT MICKY AND ME

Where were we?  Oh, I remember.  Four of us floating about on a raft, as you may say, we were ‘all at sea’, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, awaiting a miracle to happen.  A funny thing about miracles, they are not around when you need one, yet at my old Sunday school, when I was a kid, we were taught that they were a common occurrence, like curing leprosy, walking on water, paralytics picking up their beds and walking away with them.  Wish that miracles did happen, they would save our country billions of pounds, and our present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, a lot of headaches.  On reflection, I suppose that the only one on our raft that was capable of doing any kind of miracle was Micky.  He did, as far as I was concerned, he saved my life.

We were so far gone at the end of that day, that evening, that night?  The memory plays tricks, and, of course, we were in such a state of exhaustion that the time did not register on our minds, at least not on mine, it was like a bad dream or a terrible nightmare, a series of terrible events.  The first to drown was the chap sitting behind me on the raft, who started to drink the seawater.  I tried to stop him drinking it, but he resisted and even convinced me that it would stop our bodies dehydrating.  I started to drink also, but Micky forcibly restrained me from doing it.  The chap who had started it had already jumped off the raft.  I must have blanked out at this time.   Remember the tale ‘The Lady of Shallot’, when a hand emerges from the lake, and clutches a sword which came from nowhere?  Apparently, in my confused state, that scene was repeated by the drowning man, his hand above the waves, the sword appeared and was clutched by the hand, and then the hand clutching the sword sank into the lake.  It seemed so natural at that time, as if it was an everyday happening.  That scene has haunted me for years, vivid nightmares, frequently at first, but much less intense and regular as the years passed.  Yet the memories still remain, as others – our brutal treatment in the prison camps, the torpedoed ship in which our captors intended our forty-eight hours and us to drown, on the raft.  It has taken years to dim the memories, but one can never completely eradicate the nightmare of those three years and eight months of Japanese hospitality. 

All the rest of that first day that we were adrift on the raft, Micky, the other two chaps and I, drifted about on the sea, towards the shore, out to sea again.  Soon exposure, hunger, and thirst dulled our senses.  Then the rains came, buckets of it hurtling down on our bare skins (we had discarded our sodden clothing long since – they were an encumbrance).  All the protection that we had were small strips of cloth around our dangly bits.  Such modesty!

The weather turned stormy, huge waves came lunging at the raft hitting our stomachs, dependant on which way the raft was facing at the time.  Ironically, we were in a shipping lane, but not one ship tried to save us – doubtless the Japanese had warned them all off.

I vaguely remember turning my head and looking at a rear corner of the raft, the other chap was lying across it, his head in the sea, lolling from side to side, his feet also.  I watched him, fascinated, my head moving in time with his.  I was beyond being shocked – that came later.  Micky took over, he gently pushed the dead man in to water, say “the old raft is getting waterlogged, Spooz.  He was a goner anyway”.  I can still visualise that scene after all this time, about fifty-eight years, sometimes in my dreams, and at times after a stroll down memory lane.  Throughout that night, it still rained heavily; the waves were, as they say in books, mountainous, hitting us again and again heavily on our stomachs, making us wince painfully, after the continual buffeting.  I suffer from it to this very day. 

Back and forth went the raft, night turned to day, with no abatement in the weather, or the waves, which were still punishing our stomachs, the temperature rose during the night.  Mick and I sat close together, it is funny (not ha-ha funny), but our skins touching together at the shoulders seemed to impart a warmth through the whole of our bodies.  It was a long day, for all that I remember of it.  We were pretty well gone by then.  I recollect dawn breaking, the sun shining through the clouds, the rain still teeming down, the waves still behaving badly.  A piece of flotsam floated by the raft - it turned out to be a soggy piece of cardboard.  In the mental state that I was in, it seemed that Micky performed an Olympic dive into the sea, swam ten miles from the raft and back with the flotsam, and with superhuman strength, ripped it in two and said “Here, Spooz, half for you and half for me.  Actually, I suppose he slipped into the sea, reached and grabbed the cardboard, then divided it between us.  So there we both sat under the pouring rain, the waves bashing the hell out of us, holding pieces of soggy cardboard over our heads.  Then I had a flash of sanity!  The thought shot through my tired mind “What a pair of p---s!  Here we are, soaking wet, waves playing volley ball on our stomachs, yet we sit, holding these stupid bits of cardboard over us for protection”.  I suppose I must have completely blanked out at this time.  In my delirious state, I imagined that I had flung the cardboard as far as I could up into the air (about two inches, I suppose).  It seemed to climb up a sunray, then changed to a perfect black non-soggy square shape.  It gyrated very slowly, it’s corners very pronounced as each one turned towards me, climbed at a slow but constant speed toward the sun.  I thought, it that hits the sun, there will be a f------ great explosion – it did! There was!  I woke up in heaven, an old, angelic Chinese, sans wings, dressed in traditional Chinese peasant’s clothes, black trousers, black blouse, her grey hair plaited in the customary pigtail.  She was feeding me a warm sweet liquid from a china bowl, with a china spoon.  Then I blanked out again.  It must have been a long time later that a loud voice woke me up.  It was the pub-trained singer, Mr Micky Myles, who was seated at a table at the corner of the hut, which we were in, with four of the Chinese rescuers who had taken us from the sea.  It seemed that Micky had held my head above the water all through part of our second day, and the following night, until we were saved in the early hours of the morning by a Chinese fishing boat, after having spent forty-eight hours on the raft. That miracle had occurred after all.  Now our rescuers appeared to be blind drunk.  Mick was trying to teach them (all, or at least, few of them had, I supposed never seen or heard a Scot in their lives) to sing “Ah belong to Glesga, dear old Glesga toon”.  The Chinese gents appeared to be enjoying it, but seemed to be singing one of their own Chinese songs.  I did not see the kindly angelic elderly lady again, but, after all these years, in my mind, I can still see your benign, sympathetic face.  No doubt you have long gone, but, wherever you may be, bless you, and thank you for your kindness to me.  I hope that whatever powers may exist, have rewarded you for your compassion toward a fellow being.

Later on we were joined by more of the rescued, also in bad condition, in fact one of them was on the point of death, and rambling incoherently. The following day, we were gathered in one of the huts, seated on the floor against a wall, when there was a patter of feet, and suddenly some Japanese sailors rushed in, with fixed bayonets, which they pointed towards us.  We attempted to get to our feet, but, in our weakened condition, it was a very slow process.  The Japanese sailors, seeing our efforts, sheathed their bayonets at a command from one of their senior ranks, pulled out cigarettes, and handed them around to us.  There was quite a bit of coughing and choking, as we had not had cigarettes for a long time.  After we had finished coughing, choking and smoking, the Japanese sailors carried us to the shore, put us aboard their rowboats and onto their ship.

We were taken to an island at which they were based, treated quite well, given good food, and accommodated in what we assumed to be a judo room, fitted with soft flooring on which we were to sleep.  A young cadet officer was posted over us as a guard.  During the night, the dying man was very thirsty, and the young guard had a silver jug of milk, apparently his own rations.  He indicated that I give the milk to the dying man.  I fed the poor chap, but soon after that, he died.

The following day, we were taken out to a lush grass lawn.  It was sunny, and we sat down on the grass and were given a sumptuous meal, soon after which, a short Japanese soldier with Charlie Chaplin feet and a Hitler moustache came from the building carrying a big parcel, a wide grin on his face.  He placed the bundle on the ground, opened it, then motioned that we help ourselves to the contents – cigarettes!  We grabbed them and were soon puffing clouds of smoke into the air, and coughing like mad.  Rested, hunger satisfied, an after-lunch smoke, we were content.  Then they brought out the cameras and took photographs of our group, no doubt for propaganda purposes.  A few days later we were brought back to reality – the army reclaimed us.  Back we went to the slapping, punching and brutality, with a vengeance.  We were taken to the mainland of China, to a place named Woosung, near Shanghai.  There we found other POWs from the torpedoed ship, all in bad shape.  We were soon put to work, first of all burying drums of aviation fuel for the Japanese air force.  When this was finished, we were told that we would have to clean used artillery shells in order to remove cordite from them.  Our Sergeant in charge, by the name of Dick Overy, a tough soldier and staunch patriot, ordered us not to clean the shells as it was war work, and as such, forbidden under the Geneva Treaty, to which the Japanese were not signatories.  The Japanese Sergeant, who seemed to be Dick’s oriental counterpart, told him to order us to clean the shells. Dick Overy refused, whereupon the Jap slapped him around the face.  We who knew Mr Overy of old awaited his reaction – it soon came – the veins in his neck became engorged with blood, his face reddened, the right fist clenched tightly and swung upwards, hitting the Jap smack on the button.  He staggered back about ten yards, hit the side of a building and slowly sank to the ground.  He looked at Overy, dazed, and with what seemed to me, a glint of admiration in his eyes.  Meanwhile, the Japanese troops were making for our governor, intent on making him pay.  Some of them had their bayonets fixed, but the Jap Sergeant waved them away, regained his feet and soundly slapped Dick Overy’s face. This time there was no retaliation.  Whilst all this was going on, another squad of troops, fully armed, had marched round and stood facing us in line.   The Japanese interpreter repeated the order “You clean shells?  If not, you can be shot!” (Rhymes doesn’t it?)  The answer was a unanimous “No” – hesitantly, I must admit.  The interpreter reported our answer to the senior officer, who had just appeared on the scene and who incidentally, spoke the better English of the two.  He shouted an order to the armed troops, on which they levelled their loaded rifles at us.  We were standing against a whitewashed stone wall – an appropriate setting for an execution.  I tightly shut my eyes, gripped the hands of the chaps on either side of me, and, with my heart thumping madly, awaited the impact of a bullet in the chest.  Another order rang out, this was it!  Nothing had happened, we were still alive.  After what seemed an eternity, I opened the old blinkers; the troops had ordered their arms.  The interpreter once again asked, “You clean shells?”  Again a (not very convincing) “No!”  Slaps all round, rifles raised again in our direct, the whole mixture as before, but the threat not carried out.  This was repeated about four times, each time we grew less tense than before.  Eventually the Japs gave up, giving more slaps all round and cutting our meagre food ration down still further.  This affected the sick men amongst us, who were in a bad state already, so reluctantly Dick Overy said “Alright, clean their f------ shells, it is done under duress”.  So, for the rest of our stay we cleaned their f------ shells.

As we have not heard of Micky lately, I must recount this story of his activities in this camp.  When we arrived, we were given Japanese troop cast-offs as clothing and prison garb, tattered and torn.  There was a contingent of United States marines already in the camp, US Peking legation guard, and as such were classed as non-combatants.  They had arrived at the camp in full uniform, and as Peking is extremely cold in the winter, their clothing was suited to the conditions – fur hats, fur gloves, heavy boots, etc.,  Micky was not long in the camp before he wangled his way into a Yankee card school – I do not know how he got the entrance fee, but a short time later, Mick was going about in full U.S. army gear, much to our envy, and one yank in Japanese shoddy clothes, much to the irritation of his comrades.  That was Private Michael Myles, 2^nd Battalion, The Royal Scots (The Royal Regt.)

Towards the end of our stay in Woosung, there was an air raid by what we assumed to be carrier-based American P.51 fighter aircraft, and this indicated to us that the American fleet was in the vicinity.  We had heard rumours that the Americans had taken several Japanese islands and won several strategic sea battles, and were island hopping, weakening the Japanese sea power.  This gave us grounds for optimism.  The Nips were infuriated by the air raid, threatening to shoot everybody in sight, with the usual slapping, punching etc.,  The capture of Japanese islands by the U.S. forces not only deprived the Japs of the islands, but gave the U.S.A. bases from which the allies could launch air attacks against Japan, and also indicated that the Yank navy had control of the Pacific.

The air raid was one of many; it appeared to us that the U.S. controlled the air also.  Soon after the air raid by the P.51s, we were told that we were going to go to a new camp.   We were very apprehensive about this, as there had been a rumour around the camp that if the allies landed troops in Japan, the Japs would kill all P.O.Ws.  After our treatment by them, we were inclined to believe the rumour, especially after some of the Jap troops indicated to us, by signs, that we would be for the high jump, as they say.  I have since been told, after our relief from captivity, that the rumours were prevalent in some of the other prison camps.  Where there is smoke, there is fire.

AND NOW THE END MUST BE NEAR………

Soon after the air raid, we were loaded into decrepit railway wagons, the occupants of each wagon were split into two groups, and each group penned in by barbed wire.  So it was hey-ho for the open railroad, our ultimate destination, we were told, was Japan, by way of China.  Then onto Korea and across the straits of Japan to our new prison camp.  Little did we know that we would be digging fox holes along the China part of the journey for the Jap defensive positions, as they did not know at which point the U.S.A., with their initiative and predominance of the sea and air, would strike if they attached the Chinese mainland at all.  At certain times, we would disembark, defecate, and dig – in that order.  At times we were employed in other tasks, such as unloading timber from railway wagons.    This brings to mind another Micky incident.  Rumour had it that a U.S. civilian prisoner had been repatriated, via a neutral country, to his homeland.  (By the way, Micky was well-known to the Japanese, but his surname, Myles, seemed to be hard for them to pronounce, and the nearest they could get to it was the name of that internationally famous rodent, Micky Mouse, except that the Japanese equivalent to mouse was “moussoo”,  so Micky Moussoo he was to the Japs).  Where were we?  Ah, yes, the rumour of the repatriate.  Mick would never let a good rumour go begging – the rumour being that the repatriated man was mentally unstable.  Obviously psychological disturbance seemed as good as a ticket home to Micky.   We had unloaded rough timber from a wagon, and made a huge mound of it on the ground.  We were then lined up to be counted, and one of us was missing.  Guess who!   Yes, Mr M. Myles.  We were counted, discounted, uncounted, but, no, there was definitely one short on the count.  Cries of “Micky Mousoo” rent the air.  The officer in charge was informed.  “Micky Moussoo? Hey, Micky Moussoo!”  Again a recount, same result, one short.  The local Japanese gendarmerie were called in, the head of which rode a white stallion, the badge, it seemed, of Japanese high rank.  A group of officers and non-combatants surrounded the bloke on the white horse, gesticulating like mad.  The mounted officer looked puzzled, and quizzed the name “Micky Moussoo?  Horrywood Micky Moussoo?” surprised to find that the celebrated cartoon character was now a Prisoner of War, but eventually it sunk it.  While this was going on, there was a movement from the base of the timber, and Micky emerged, looking dazed, a drop of blood trickling down his face from a slight cut on his forehead (no doubt self-inflicted).  “Where am I?  What has happened to Glesga?  Who are these people?”  The Japanese rushed at Mick, who feigned surprise.  He was taken from us and isolated for questioning.  We did see Michael again, although until the war had virtually finished.  He was a survivor, our Mick

Eventually, after much more digging etc., we arrived in Japan, and were rushed to the rail station in Tokyo.  This coincided with the civilians finishing work.  They chased us through the station, enraged at the severe bombing from the air by U.S. aircraft.  Carpet bombing had made a mess of Tokyo, razing large areas to the ground.  The Japanese troops guarded us, albeit with kicks, punches and slaps, no doubt to satisfy the civilians.  Eventually, we got onto the rail station platform and waited, amid a hail of stones and bricks from the enraged crowd.  The train arrived, and we were herded into the carriages.  The blinds were pulled down, and the train moved, much to our relief.

 We arrived at our ultimate destination, a small coal-mining village named Hakodate, on the island of Honshu.  Needless to say there was no ‘welcome in the valley’. 0n arrival, we were issued with mining tools and marched through the village to jeers from the villagers.  We were set to work in the mine, only two of us, Welsh miners, having had previous experience of mining work.  Reaching the coal face involved walking, or rather sliding, down a slippery tunnel about five hundred yards long, at the sides of which hung high powered electric cables from which a lot of the insulation was bared.  At the coalface we met our foreman, or ‘Honcho’ in Japanese.  He was too old for military service, and looked too bloody old for mining.  He spoke no English, had no teeth, which did not help, and he did not like us one bit.  I assumed that he would not be an ideal I instructor.  This was made evident whenever we planted explosives to blow the coalface.  He steered clear of us on those occasions.  Mind you, we also did not hang around to watch when it happened, in view of our inexperience.  However, after a few months, we would have done credit to Huw Morgan of “How Green Was My Valley”.  We sustained no major casualties for all our inexperience of mining, but no thanks to our ‘Honcho’.  Of course there was a few minor casualties.  For instance little Willy Mitchell dropped his jacket into the hole which served as our toilet.  He attempted to slither down the sloping sides of the hole, and one of the chaps said “Leave it Willy, it will stink to high heaven even if you do reach it”.

But Willy still tried to reach the jacket.  “Give it up Willy!” “No,” said Willy “my sandwiches are in the bloody pocket, and I am f------ hungry”.  Needless to say, he did not get his jacket back, or his grub.  I suppose the food must be rotten by now.

August the 15^th, 1945, arrived.  Coincidentally, my 28^th birthday.  I told my mates.   “Perhaps the war will finish today”, said one.  I replied “No, nothing happens on my f------ birthday, I just get one year older”.  How wrong I was.  We had not long to go before our work for the day was finished, when the ‘Honcho’ told us to assemble at the pithead.  The rumour was that there was an epidemic of some sort in the village, although that made no sense, so something was afoot.  As we marched through the village, one observant optimist pointed that the streetlights were on, and the hopes and spirits of the most pessimistic were raised.  When we arrived at the camp, the Jap guards were gathered around the radio, listening to a speech being broadcast by their Emperor.  The guards were solemn and some were near to tears.

The news was filtered to us slowly, but as we had more than an inkling, the import of it made us cautious, as we had no idea how the Japanese troops were going to react.  To our relief, they seemed to act quite normally, luckily for us, particularly in view of their threats as to our disposal if the allies had invaded Japan.  It seemed the atomic bomb saved our bacon.  Some of our men were given rifles, but I doubt if they were loaded, as, until things had settled, and everyone was used to the changed situation, anything could have happened, but things went fairly smoothly.

After a few days, we were allowed to go to the village.  The population did not seem to be too hostile.  They were more, in fact, curious, and after a while they even smiled at us.  Of course, being away from the towns and cities, they had no bombing, and consequently were not so embittered against us.

I must relate this little episode re Micky, who had been released from close custody by this time, went to the village one day.  On his return to camp, which was no longer our prison, he was followed by, guess what, a duck!  It was led by Mick, attached to a piece of string, quacking merrily, and most surprising of all, the duck sat at the end of Mick’s bunk, eating of all things, an egg, and seemed to be enjoying it. That was the last I saw of Micky ‘Mouse’ and his friend ‘Donald’ Duck, as a few days after, we were released and went to our separate destinations.  Mick to his wife in Hong Kong, me to the U.K.

This tale is nearly complete, except that I arrived home, eventually married.  We had four children – grandchildren 8, so far, and 3 great-grandchildren, and who sit around, looking bored whenever I mention the war, with expressions that say “here he goes again”.

I have never seen Mick again, but have been told that he was thrown out of Hong Kong.  I don’t know if it was true or not, but with him it was credible.  Micky, a loveable rogue, a con man, a man with many faces, a face that one could trust, yet a calculating face, like “what’s in it for me?”, but he saved my life.  I owe him fifty-seven years of married life to a good lady, who was taken from us recently.  I owe him four children all of whom have been a great solace, help and comfort to me, although grieving themselves, for the loss of a loving wife, mother and grandmother.

Thanks Mick.