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Sheet 3 The camp in general also suffered to a lesser degree, but none complained, and all felt great pride at the way the three men took their punishment. A credit to the British Army. Their action being all the more creditable when we considered that it was to provide hungry and starving men with a decent meal that they received their punishment. At the beginning of February 1944, we journeyed again, this time to a place called Tanora. There were, now only twenty one of us left out of the original eighty two. It is difficult to describe the horrible nightmare that had been never ending from the time of our arrival at Rabaul on November 5th 1942, of the terrible agony suffered by our comrades, of the pitiful wasting away of others through malnutrition, each expecting to be the next victim to the added trials and tribulations that had become our lot, 61 men who would never again be our comrades in arms, 61 men whose deaths were unnecessary and avoidable. A short time afterwards on February 24th to be exact we made another move, it was to an island called Watum, which was a fairly small Island, approximately five miles by three miles and about six miles north west of Rabaul. The island was being used by Jap Companies and we were later split up into small parties and allotted so many to each Company. To some this arrangement was beneficial due to the fact that the temperament of the individual Coorps. Commander decided what sort of an existence the P.O.W's had, and one or two whilst not being kind heartedly disposed towards us did at least of fair treatment and made allowances for the sick etc.. On July 24th 1944 we all again congregated on the Island together and of course we were quite excited at meeting one another again and had many yarns to swop of experiences that had befallen us during our attachment to the different Corps during the six months we had been apart, to relate to each other our opinions of this Guard or Officer. But our joys were short lived, as late that afternoon we were again divided into smaller parties and sent to various other Companies on the Island. Again some were lucky and received fair treatment but others the exact opposite was meted out to them, a particularly bad case being the four men whose misfortune it was to be attached to No.2. Military Company, one was an officer and three Gunners, but of these only one survived, we found out later that the Corps. Commander being an ignorant and illiterate type had put a private soldier in charge of them and refused them any medical attention, the Soldier's ill treatment of the men was brutal to an extreme, he delighted in torturing them both mentally and physically and forced them to perform duties which he must have fully realised were only going to lead to one ends, he even went so far as to deprive them of their rations of food from the Corps Cookhouse on numerous occasions, and so after eight months of this treatment the first death on this island, that of Gnr.Hodgson, 9th Coast Regt. took place. Barely two months later our last officer Lt Mallett R.A. who had been a constant inspiration to us and a brave and valiant soldier, died of malnutrition. But still there was no softening up of the treatment which had been all along sanctioned by the Corps Commander. When I learned of the death of Lt. Mallett R.A. I was working only about a mile away and asked permission to go and bury him but this was promptly refused by the Jap Commander as was the request to bury Gnr. Hodgson and also Gnr. O'Connor who died on the 21st June.1945.
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