To honour those who served their country

“In this their finest hour”

T/158048

Sergeant

Frederick Camp

1912/03/02 - Born Slaithwaite, Yorkshire

Son of William Camp and Clara (nee Sugden who died 1931) Camp

Occupation Chauffeur

1932/01/13 - Married Annie Johnston

1940/01/03 -  Enlisted Leeds

Royal Amy Service Corps

No. 43 Reserve (Motor Transport) Company

Service

1940/03/11 - Promoted to Lance Corporal

1940/02/29 -  Posted 226 Coy RASC,

1940/04/10 - Embarked N.W.E.F (North West Expeditionary Force, Norway)

1940/07/04 - Promoted to Corporal

1941/03/19 - Posted R.C.H.I.L. – Trooped on WS7/7B1/7C/7X, Duchess of York

1941/05/15 - Disembarked Singapore.  Attached to Singapore Fortress.  28 Line of Command Bde Coy.  43rd Reserve Motor Transport Co. RASC, Para Road School, Kuala Lumpur.

1941/06/01 - Promoted to Sergeant

1942/03/30 - WO 417/40, Casualty List No. 784. Reported ‘Missing’.

1943/09/08 - WO 417/65, Casualty List No. 1233. Previously posted Missing, Casualty List No. 784, 15/02/1942. Now reported a ‘Prisoner of War’.

1944/04/04 - WO417/73, Correction to entry on Casualty List No's. 1233 and 784. Rank should read War Substantive Corporal (acting Sergeant). Reported a ‘Prisoner of War’.

Japanese PoW

1942/02/15 - Captured Singapore

PoW No. II 161

Japanese Index Card - Side One

Japanese Index Card - Side Two

1943/04/28 - Transported overland to Thailand with ‘F’ Force, train 11.

The 74th train to Thailand.

The route in cattle trucks to Thailand:-

Day 2 - Kuala Lumpur (0300 hrs), had rice and dried fish at Ipoh (1600 hrs).

Day 3 - Reached Pai (0200 hrs), arrived Haadyi (1700 hrs).

Day 4 - Water in cattle trucks very short, heat stifling in trucks all day.

Day 5 - Reached Ban Pong.

The PoWs were ordered off the Cattle trucks on arrival and after a walk of nearly a mile to a transit camp where they were then informed they would be marching North West  along the railway route in 14 mile stages. Many of the PoWs tried to sell their possessions to the Thais but not at a good price as the Thais knew the the PoWs from ‘F’ Force were already in bad shape and could not carry their baggage for long.

After two days of walking through the night, as it was too hot in the daylight sun, they reached the small town of Kanchanaburi. Many who tried to carry their possessions left them at this staging camp.

Walking at night caused many problems as the track was uneven with bamboo shots cutting into their feet, in time tropical ulcers would form.

Reached Songkurai, many of the PoWs had dropped out along the route.

New PoW No. 2687.

Camps included:-

1943/05/23 - Arrived Songkurai No 2 Camp.  Hat No. II 313.

1943/09/02 - Transported to Tanbaya Hospital, Ward 4, Beri-Beri, from Songkurai Camp 2.

1943/11/23 - Transferred to Kanchanaburi.

‘F’ Force had the most deaths on the Thailand Burma Railway.

‘F’ Force Summery

1943/12/20 - Transported back overland to Singapore.

Commander Col. E. Holmes.

Changi Camp.

Admitted to Roberts Hospital:-

1944/03/18, 1944/12/22, 1945/02/05 with Malaria B.T(R).

1945/08/04, P.U.O (Pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO), also known as ‘fever of unknown origin’ (FUO), is a grouping of many unrelated medical conditions that share the feature of persistent unexplained fever).

1945/11/02 - Liberated Singapore.

General Seishiro Itagaki, Japanese Commander of Singapore, would not accept the surrender. Plus it gave him time to cover up all Japanese Atrocities in Singapore. The allied naval landing force 'Operation Tiderace' were delayed as it was still understood the Japanese would dispose of all the PoWs in Singapore if they landed. Mountbatten ordered British paratroopers into Singapore to protect the camps. To many of the PoWs in Singapore, those red berets of the paratroopers were the first signs that the war had ended. All this delayed organising the PoWs. It wasn't till the 12th September that Lord Mountbatten accepted the Japanese surrender at the Municipal Building. Hospital cases were the first to leave Singapore 1945/09/10 on the HMHS Koroa. They were soon followed by Repatriation ships which started reaching the UK about the 15th of October 1945. Why many of the liberated PoWs on these ships had November on their Japanese Index cards, I don't know as in other areas of the Far East, PoWs were marked as Liberated at their PoW camps with the correct date. Unless General Seishiro Itagaki did not make the cards available when the camps were liberated.

Repatriation

Departure from Singapore unknown.

  1945/11/25 - Arrived UK (S.S. Mauritania left Bombay. 1945/11/10, Port Said. 1945/11/19. 1945/11/25, arriving Liverpool).

1945/12/13 Medical at Leeds.

1946/05/27 - Discharged.

1946/05/08 - WO417/102, Casualty List No. 2029. Previously reported on Casualty List No. 1233 (Corrected by Casualty List No. 1411) as Prisoner of War now Not Prisoner of War. Previous Theatre of War, Malaya.

Post War

By Margaret Walton - Frederick’s Daughter

Dad arrived home after being overseas for over four and a half years, no doubt looking forward to a warm welcome from his wife and two boys.  This was not to be.  His first port of call was the school in Bramley, Leeds where his two boys (aged 12 & 10) attended.  My brother recalls that it was break time and they were both on the playground and saw this soldier talking to the Headteacher not knowing who he was.  After break they were both summoned to the Headteacher’s office where they were re-united.  Due to what he found, with the aid of the Army, less than a year after returning home he was divorced and unusually for that time, was granted charge of his sons.

Fortunately dad was able to return to his former job as a chauffeur/gardener - the two things that he enjoyed the most and in December 1947 he and mum married, the start of a new tomorrow.  My birth in 1949 completed the family.  Dad changed jobs, moving into the tyre trade, working his way in a comparatively short time to management and to go with this position we had to have a telephone.  The only calls we seemed to make was in the winter to Headingley to see if the Leeds Rugby League match was on or not, he being an avid supporter.  We were lucky that during these years he always had a car supplied with his job, and being a very proud Yorkshireman, we could be found on many weekends and bank holidays somewhere up in the Yorkshire Dales. 

He became very involved with the local community, setting up a Tenants Association, helping raise money to purchase and build a community centre, which they achieved.  He ran a bingo session every Monday evening the profits going towards the running of the centre.  Being a keen gardener, he with a neighbour, set up in the grounds of the centre a shed where on a Sunday morning they would sell fertilizers, seeds, canes etc. anything that the local gardener may need, at much reduced rates.  He was instrumental in setting up the local Annual Flower & Vegetable show, which included baking and arts and crafts, embarrassingly, our family seemed to win most of the trophies.  In the summer, he was very much involved with organising our local carnival, which started with a procession lead by the queen and her retinue followed by decorated lorries which toured around the area, ending up in Bramley Fall Park, the gala commenced with the crowning of the queen, and had all the usual attractions in an arena with side stalls etc.   Whatever he was involved in he always seemed to be the Chairman, the leader, the instigator.  The various committees insisted in meeting at our house as they knew that mum would provide supper which always included freshly baked cakes and pastries but they also knew that if they arrived between 6.45-7pm they would be made welcome but had to sit quietly and wait for the Archers to finish on the Light programme before the meetings could commence.

Sometime in the early 1960’s dad was made redundant which gave him the push to do what he always wanted to do i.e. to be his own boss.  This meant giving up all that he had been involved as he bought a corner shop that sold groceries, sweets and tobacco which was open twelve hours a day.  He later sold it when the large supermarkets started to appear, going on to buy successive fish & chip shops, working well into pension age.  Luckily he remained very healthy until aged 60 when he was diagnosed with type two diabetes, and in later years was treated for various Cancers. 

Like his peers, he didn’t talk of the atrocities that he’d endured, but would keep you entertained all evening telling funny stories about that time.  There were odd things that he mentioned such as carrying a soldier on his back with both their packs through the jungle in the monsoon rain, (‘F’ Force march); being at a camp where they had a record player with only one record, Beethoven’s piano concerto ‘The Emperor’ (a copy of which my brothers bought for him;) sitting by the side of the railway smoking a cigarette finding that the Japanese guard who sat nearby spoke excellent English, he having been educated in England.  Having travelled all the way down from Tanbaya Hospital in Thailand to Kan’buri by train, crossing the bridge that he once helped build at Songkurai, the one thing that stuck vividly in his memory that he did tell me about when I was quite young, was of a long bridge that hugged the vertical cliffs, about a mile in length with the River Kwai just below. It was of course Wampo Viaduct. 

He didn’t join any of the FEPOW groups and wouldn’t send for his medals.  The one thing that stayed with him through his life was his bitter hatred of the Japanese; so much so, he was one of those POW’s who on Emperor Hirohito’s visit to London turned his back on him.  He always watched the Remembrance Service from the Royal Albert Hall and when it came to the Drum Head Service he always mentioned the fact that the member of the clergy who took the service was a POW in Changi Goal, Singapore, he being The Right Reverend Dr J L Wilson KCMG, who was at that time the Bishop of Singapore, who later became Bishop of Birmingham.

Just before Dad died he gave his grandson Richard a copy of the book ‘One Man’s War by Stan Arneil,’ who he said he knew, showing Richard a photo in the book stating that was where he had been.  I believe that this was his way of letting the family know the story that he had kept to himself all his life.   How he knew of this book is uncertain as it was first published just before he died.

For all that he went through; he always had a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face.  He was the lynch-pin of a very happy and close family, which was torn apart in 1983 with the death of his eldest son in January, his sister’s death in June followed by his own death in July, with his wife Betty following in March 1986, all dying from Cancer. 

Since researching his story, I have often wondered what it was about dad that helped him survive.  Padre Duckworth, who also survived Songkurai No2 camp and Tanbaya, whom dad would have known, in a broadcast on 12th September 1945 from Singapore to London states “From this 1680 who arrived at No. 2 Camp Songkurai, less than 250 survive today to tell it’s tale.”  I have come to the conclusion that it was down to tenacity and sheer bloody mindedness. 

Died

1983/07/17 - Died of Cancer at Leeds.

Information

Margaret Walton - Daughter

Andrew Snow - Thailand Burma Railway Centre

Japanese Transports

Thailand - Burma Railway

KEW Files:- WO 361/1946, WO 392/23, WO 345/8, WO 361/2058, WO 361/2201, WO 361/2025, WO 361/2070,

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