Peter Follett recounts the experiences of his uncle, Clifford Smith, who was captured by the Japanese in 1942.
RAF radio operator Clifford Bedford Smith arrived in the Far East in early 1942. On 6 February his ship docked in Singapore, which was already under attack by Japanese forces, and took on board several hundred evacuees. It then sailed for Batavia (now Jakarta) in Java. Here, more than 1,000 RAF airmen were landed. Java was also under air attack and the Japanese landed there on the 28 February 1942. On 8 March, 31-year-old Cliff was captured at Tasik Malaja, Java.
Cliff Smith. Family archive
Back in Cardiff, Cliff’s wife Marjorie initially had no idea where he was or whether he was alive or dead. She went to London and worked for the Red Cross in the hope that she could get advance information on Cliff. It was two years before she had confirmation that he was alive and a prisoner. Japan had not signed the Geneva Convention, therefore would not allow the Red Cross to visit POW Camps.
A Japanese soldier in northern Java, February 1942. Cliff was captured the following month. ©IWM
Over the next two and a half years, Cliff was held in six different prison camps in Java. At one, Maospati Aerodrome, Cliff was part of a team packing Allied machinery destined for Japan. Despite the deadly consequences if caught, the team made sure to damage parts of the machinery to render them useless.
In July 1944, Cliff was taken to Singapore then on to Sumatra. The Japanese occupied Sumatra and were worried that the Allies would attack on the west coast, in which case they would need to move troops and supplies quickly from the east to the west coast. They also needed to move coal from the west to east coast for shipping to Japan.
A railway was therefore required between Pakanbaru and Muaro, a distance of 140 miles. The route would run through dense jungle, swamp and mountainous terrain. At the halfway point it would cross the equator.
To achieve this they needed manpower, and 5,000 prisoners of war were moved to Sumatra from across Indonesia. The majority were Dutch, but 350 were RAF. 100,000 romusha (Indonesians forced to work for the Japanese) were also conscripted. The POWs were malnourished and had been starved, beaten, tortured and subjected to hard labour for over two years when they started to build the railway. More than 2,000 POWs were drowned whilst being shipped to Sumatra, their ships were torpedoed by allied submarines.
During the construction of the railway they worked from dawn to dusk with very little food. Dysentery, malaria, beriberi and tropical ulcers were rife. The Japanese supplied no medicines or drugs. Cliff once said that that when he was too ill to work on the railway he had to stay in the camp and dig graves.
The railway was completed on 15 August 1945, the day the war ended. It was therefore used to bring the surviving POWs and romusha back to the east coast.
After that, the Dutch colonisers had no interest in the railway, the Indonesians were more interested in getting rid of the Dutch, and the Allies just wanted to get home. Within weeks the jungle reclaimed it.
Its construction had cost the lives of 700 British, Dutch, Australian, American and New Zealand POWs, plus about 80,000 romusha. This works out at 600 deaths per mile of track.
Two British PoWs work on the land at a prison camp, supervised by a Japanese guard. ©IWM
Luckily, Cliff was one of the survivors. On his release in September 1945 he was flown to Singapore, then sailed to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to recuperate before being sent back to the UK.
On arriving, all RAF POWs were sent to a large hospital at RAF Cosford for medical assessment. While there, Cliff discovered he had been promoted to Sergeant during his incarceration by the Japanese.
When Marjorie was notified that Cliff was at Cosford, she immediately made her way to find him. She later told the story that as she arrived she saw a man on the other side of the road walking towards her. ‘That’s what Cliff will look like when he is an old man,’ she thought, until she suddenly realised it was Cliff.
Cliff arrived home in Barry sometime in October 1945 to find that his father had died four months earlier. Two months after he returned his mother also passed away.
After his discharge from the RAF on 30 July 1946, Cliff resumed his work with the Sun Life Insurance Co. Marjorie related that when he went back to work he would come home, have his evening meal, and go straight to bed. Each weekend he would stay in bed, only getting up for his meals. He was weak and had no stamina, it was two years before he regained his strength and resumed a normal life.
It was about this time Cliff bought a car, but soon had to give up driving because of poor eyesight. The malnutrition he had endured in captivity had affected the vision in the centre of his eyes, he also had repeated bouts of malaria for the rest of his life.
Cliff died in Bournemouth on 3 November 1988 aged 78.
Former prisoners of the Japanese are evacuated from Pakanbaru POW Camp, Sumatra 15 September 1945. Public Domain
