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Sheet 4 We carried on working on the Island doing mainly farm work growing such things as rice, tapioca and sweet potatoes, the hours were long and the work heavy but the food was beginning to come more plentiful as the Nips had cultivated a good portion of the land and were beginning to reap the benefits round about this time (June 1945). During these long dreary days we wondered if the end would ever come, we had no way of knowing how the war was progressing, no news of the outside world whatsoever penetrated through to us, we had received no wail during our P.O.W. days so far and we had never had the good fortune to receive a Red Cross parcel. The Japanese themselves always gave us any news which reflected in their favour, but never any other information, except for one N.C.O. who was in charge of us and was always as friendly as his position would allow him, he once told me that if the Island was attacked the arrangements were that the English P.O.W's must be killed, this information was not the kind of news we were aching to hear about of course, and I may add caused us as individuals more worry whenever we allowed ourselves to think of it. Any of the victories that the Japs cared to inform us about were so one sided that it had to be taken with a pinch of salt, it e. the sinking of hundreds of American ships in one convoy. On August l2th one of the Jap soldiers who had been very considerate with us due possibly to the fact he had been to London several as a seaman on a Japanese Liner told us that the U.S.S.R. had invaded Manchuria, it was only a few days afterwards that one of the Jap soldiers at the place where I was, cut his throat, an event which caused little grieving amongst us English, I found out that after nosing around for a bit, my final source of information being the same Jap as I have mentioned as regards to U.S.S.R. that we were FREE and all the Japs were prisoners, it would be impossible to fully describe the feeling of utter relief when the full impact of this information was felt by us it seemed to good to be true. We decided amongst ourselves that we would early on as if nothing had happened and wait for the news to come to us Officially, and on the following day we perceived a great change in the Japs they were now friendly towards us, and gave us as much good food as we could eat and on the evening of 18th August we were informed that the war had ended and that our countrymen were the Victors. The following day the 18 of us who were on the Island were brought together again and never have I seen joy and happiness so clearly expressed on men's faces as I saw that day, the feeling being felt twofold by two of our men of our party, for I feel sure that had it been our lot to remain captive for another month, neither of these two men would have survived to see this great day dawn, one was suffering seriously from Malaria, and the other with an Ulcer which measured about four inches in diameter. We remained on Watum Island till September the 7th then we were taken to the place that had once been Rabaul, little remained of what I remembered from our first visit there, next day we rejoiced at seeing a destroyer in the bay with a great R.N. Ensign fluttering at the mast. This was the Australian destroyer "VENDETTA" we later boarded her and everything possible was done for us by the Diggers, we travelled on her to Jacqiuniote Bay a Base in North New Britain, and remained there for a few days in hospital after which we travelled by plane to Lae in New Guinea. We remained in Lae and then by plane again we travelled to Australia, we called at Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and on to Melbourne. No matter where we went in Australia the Aussies received us with open arms, and open hearts, their only concern being to give us the finest time possible and we remained in that wonderful country until 2-11-45 and then aboard the H.M.T."ANDEES" we set sail for Blighty to arrive in Southampton December 3rd.
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