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Sergeant
Cyril Ralph Ardron
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Cyril standing on right
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Cyril centre with cigarette
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Cyril and Evelyn on their wedding day 1947
(Newspaper Article)
WANTS TO STAY IN THE ARMY
After Three Years as a Jap prisoner
After ten years in the Far East, of which three years were spent in the privations of a Japanese prison camp, Sergeant Cyril Ralph Ardron is now enjoying hospital leave at his home in Ballards Way, East Croydon.
Joining the Cameronians Scottish Rifles in 1933, Sergeant Ardron was sent to India two years later, and with the outbreak of war was transferred to the Indian Army Corps of Clerks.
Captured in Java in March, 1942, he was taken to a camp in Garoet, Batavia with 3,000 to 4,000 other prisoners. It was after working on airfields in Ambon for twelve months in atrocious conditions that Sergeant Ardron became seriously ill with beri-beri. He then moved back to the so-called hospital in Java where he was released by British Forces a year later. Sergeant Ardron reckons that about 50 percent of his comrades did not survive the hardships of Ambon.
Now benefiting from hospital treatment, the sergeant is regaining his health steadily.
Despite his experiences , Sergeant Ardron wants to stay in the army and if his medical report is favourable he will make it his career.
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