Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway War, Culture and Society Series Editor: Stephen McVeigh, Associate Professor, Swansea University, UK Editorial Board Paul Preston, LSE, UK Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck, University of London, UK Debra Kelly, University of Westminster, UK Patricia Rae, Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada James J. Weingartner, Southern Illimois University, USA (Emeritus) Kurt Piehler, Florida State University, USA Ian Scott, University of Manchester, UK War, Culture and Society is a multi- and interdisciplinary series which encourages the parallel and complementary military historical and socio- cultural investigation of 20th and 21st- century war and conflict. Published Jewish Volunteers, the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War, Gerben Zaagsma (2017) Second World War British Military Camouflage: Designing Deception, Isla Forsyth (2017) Women, Warfare and Representation: American Servicewomen in the Twentieth Century, Emerald M. Archer (2017) Forthcoming The Franco- Algerian War through a Twenty- First Century Lens: Film and History, Nicole Beth Wallenbrock (2018) The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and American Civil War Memory, David J. Anderson (2018) The Irish Myth of the Second World War, Bernard Kelly (2019) Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway Narratives of History and Memory Lizzie Oliver Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 © Lizzie Oliver, 2018 Lizzie Oliver has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978- 1- 3500- 2412- 0 ePDF: 978- 1- 3500- 2413- 7 eBook: 978- 1- 3500- 2414- 4 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Oliver, Lizzie, author. Title: Prisoners of the Sumatra Railway : narratives of history and memory / Lizzie Oliver. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. | Series: War, culture and society Identifiers: LCCN 2017021724 | ISBN 9781350024120 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350024144 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945–Concentration camps–Indonesia–Sumatra. | Prisoners of war–Indonesia–Sumatra. | World War, 1939–1945–Personal narratives, British. | World War, 1939–1945–Prisoners and prisons, British. | World War, 1939–1945–Prisoners and prisons, Japanese. | Indonesia–History–Japanese occupation, 1942-1945. | Railroads–Indonesia–Sumatra. | BISAC: HISTORY / Asia / Japan. | HISTORY / Asia / Southeast Asia. | HISTORY / Military / World War II. | HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. Classification: LCC D805.I55 O45 2017 | DDC 940.54/725209232105981–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021724 Series: War, Culture and Society Series design: Clare Turner Cover image © Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. To Stanley, John and Rouse and for all your fellow men To be clean (really clean), to sleep between sheets, to get enough to eat, to get medical attention, to be free from louse, to be shaved, and to have a haircut, and best of all to be free. These things make life . . . an earthly paradise. Albert Simmonds on release from Sumatra, September 1945 Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface: The Man in the Photograph x Acknowledgements xviii Note on Text xx List of Abbreviations xxi Introduction 1 0.1 Interpreting Memories 3 0.2 Remembering Sumatra 7 1 Building the Sumatra Railway 9 1.1 Shipwreck and Forced Marches: Arriving at the Railway 11 1.1.1 The Atjeh Party 12 1.1.2 POW Transport Ship Sinkings 14 1.2 Building the Railway 22 1.2.1 The Romushas 26 1.3 The ‘Other’ Railway 29 2 Writing the Sumatra Railway 35 2.1 Diaries of Captivity 37 2.1.1 Self- Censorship and Exhaustion: Keeping a Diary in Camp 40 2.1.2 The ‘Mini- Memoir’ of Captivity 45 2.2 ‘Always Three Months Away’: Memoirs of a Railway Line 49 2.2.1 Authorizing the Memoir 51 2.2.2 Narrating the Non- Narrative 52 2.3 ‘A Life for Every Sleeper’: The Poem of Hell’s Railway 55 2.4 Lists and Libraries: Alternative Imaginaries of the POW 57 2.4.1 Camp Libraries 59 viii Contents 3 Guard Your Tongue 65 3.1 Learning a New Language 68 3.2 Code- Switching in Camp 73 3.3 Control and Resistance 75 3.4 Communicating the Untranslatable 78 3.4.1 The Kongsi 78 3.5 The Camp Interpreter 81 4 The Body of the Prisoner 87 4.1 Medical Treatment on the Sumatra Railway 88 4.1.1 The Hospital at Camp Two: John Wyatt 89 4.1.2 The Medic in Art: Patrick Kirkwood 92 4.2 Accepting the POW Body as One’s Own 97 4.3 ‘Nil Abnormal Detected’: The Haunting of the ‘FEPOW’ Body 100 5 Aftermath 105 5.1 Repatriation and Resettlement 108 5.1.1 The Claim for Compensation 111 5.1.2 Creating ‘the FEPOW’, Continuing the Kongsi 114 5.2 The Postmemory of ‘the FEPOW’ 116 5.2.1 The Charles Thrale Exhibition 119 5.2.2 Post- War Responses 122 5.2.3 Transgenerational Perceptions of ‘the FEPOW’ 123 5.3 The Postmemorial Archive 125 Afterword 131 Appendix: Research Resources 133 Notes 137 Selected Bibliography 159 Index 167 Illustrations Figures 1 Japanese paratroopers land in Sumatra, 1942. Courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. 10 2 Portion of the Sumatra Railway built by Allied Prisoners, 1945. Courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. 12 3 SS Junyo Maru, March 1933. Courtesy of Walter E. Frost and City of Vancouver Archives. 16 4 Huts at Pakan Baroe, 1945. Courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. 30 5 Albert Simmonds’s diary. Courtesy of David Burchell. 45 6 Message from H. Q. ALFSEA to all newly released Allied POWs, 1945. Courtesy of Michael Nellis. 66 7 Camp life in Medan, 1942. Stanley Russell. Courtesy of Museon. 93 8 Aerial shot of Pakan Baroe. Courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. 106 9 Inside living quarters at Pakan Baroe, 1945. Courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. 106 10 Aerial shot of Pakan Baroe as liberated POWs are airlifted from Sumatra, 1945. Courtesy of Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. 109 Map 1 Location of camps along the Sumatra Railway, 2015. Courtesy of Phyllis and Tim Pettitt. 23