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212075
Lieutenant
Edward Alexander Murray
Known as Alex
Known as Alexander Edward Murray on War Records
1921/09/17 - Born Mhow, India
Son of Charles Christie and Florence Louise (nee Howell) Murray
Alex attended the Lawrence Senawar School, starting as a boarder at the tender age of three. Senawar is in the foothills of the Himalayas, in Simla. The youngest of five children, he had his brothers’ and sisters’ company at school which was a comfort to him. Together the siblings made unattended alternate summer holidays on a long three day train journey to Calcutta, by all accounts, they had an amazing time. Senawar was established by a British man and was run on military lines. It was said that any young man leaving Senawar was already well-prepared if he chose to join the Army. Alex left school at 13 and became a boy soldier.
Next of Kin, Mr C J Smith, 135 New Buildings, 25b Park Street, Calcutta
Royal Corps of Signals
9/11 Indian Division Signals
Service
1936/07/18 - Enlisted, training at Catterick in North Yorkshire, England, and in India.
At 18 he joined the 3rd Indian Corps of the Royal Corps of Signals. His elder brother Douglas was already in the Signals.
Family Photo - Left to right - Edna, Alan, Douglas, Joanne and Alex
When war broke out in 1939, he was posted to Malaya and it was then that he received his commission in the Royal Corps of Signals. He became involved in the Signals’ attempts to establish radio communications between units. They were working in the jungle and the dense vegetation, which included many rubber trees, it was very difficult to achieve clear radio transmission as the rubber trees deflected the signals.
1941/12/08 - Japan entered the war by Bombing Pearl Harbour and attacking Hong Kong and Malaya.
Japanese troops land on the Malayan border with Thailand at Kota Bharu (Malaya), Singora and Patani (Thailand).
1942/01/24 - Alex arrived in Singapore.
As the Japanese had taken the airfield at Kota Bharu, the Allied troops had very little air cover and by the 31st of January 1942, Allied Troops were pushed back to Singapore.
The causeway joining Singapore to Malaya was blown to stop the Japanese advance.
On the 9th February the Japanese attacked the North West coast of Singapore. General Percival had set his main defence on the North East coast line, and the Japanese quickly gained the advantage.
By the 15th February the Japanese were in danger of taking control of the water supply at the reservoirs, which would endanger the Singapore City water supply. General Percival had no alternative but to surrender.
1942/02/15 - Singapore surrendered to the Japanese
1942/07/27 - WO417/3, Casualty List No. 861. Reported ‘Missing’.
1943/03/16 - WO417/004, Casualty List No. 1084. Serving with Indian Army. Previously shown on Casualty List No. 861 as posted Missing, 15/02/1942. Now reported a ‘Prisoner of War’.
Japanese PoW
1942/02/15 - Captured Singapore
Changi Camp
PoW No. M-7175
Alex brother Douglas, was also interned at Changi, they were only 100 yards apart, but they had no contact.
On 30th August 1942, Alex and his brother were part of the infamous ‘Selarang Incident’ at Selarang Barracks. The barracks had been built to accommodate 700 men but the Japanese held 17,000 British and Australian POWs in the barracks. As the Japanese Imperial Army had not signed the Geneva Convention, they ordered that all the British and Australian PoWs to sign a ‘no escape pledge’. Some escaped PoWs who had escaped the day before, were captured and executed in front of the troops. When the prisoners were taken into Selarang, they were put into groups of ten. The Japanese informed the troopps, if one of the ten tried to escape, the other nine would be executed.
The PoWs in Selarang refused to sign the pledge and were subjugated to five days without food or water. There were already a number of PoWs in a hospital block, suffering from Oedema (Beri Beri), highly contagious Dysentery and Malaria. The Japanese threatened to release these men into the main square with the many thousands pressed in there. It would have resulted in a massive increase the risk of certain death.
Alex remembered digging primitive latrines at that time, and also pits for the bodies of the dead, the digging was done by the PoWs bare hands, working in the hard, stony ground. On the fifth day of the incident, the PoWs were ordered, by their own officers to sign the ‘no escape’ document, under duress.
On the 17th September 1942, he celebrated his 21st birthday at Changi.
Japanese PoW - Side One
Japanese - Side Two
1942/10/25 - Transported oversea in England Maru with ‘Z’ Force to Taiwan,
with 1100 British PoWs
Commander Lt-Col. W.W.F/ Jephson, 5th Field HQ, RA
1942/11/06 - Arrived Keeling, Taiwan
New PoW No. IV 986
1942/11/14 - Taihoku, Taiwan
Together with his brother Douglas, things changed for the worse as the conditions in the camp were very bad. Rice, a small amount of vegetables and very rarely a small amount of meat were distributed twice a day. Alex met two PoW Scottish doctors in the camp, and these doctors persuaded the Japanese to give the PoWs unpolished rice and the nutrition in the husk of the rice was a life-saver.
Douglas developed Oedema and suffered foul swellings which were not considered dangerous by the Japanese and so Douglas continued to work outside. Alex contracted Dysentery, Oedema, blood poisoning and Scabies for good measure.
1943/06/18 - Shirakawa, Taiwan
Alex was sent from the camp, away from Douglas, to the officers’ camp at Shirakawa, where he remained in hospital for the next four months.
In the Shirakawa camp there were 400 officers, British, American and Dutch, from Major Generals to 2nd Lieutenants and 100 other ranks. These officers worked the land under the supervision of semi-military Formosans, aged between 14 and 30, who treated the prisoners very cruelly. Alex recounted how strange it felt to carry a heavy bucket of earth with a General, both of them being beaten with bamboo poles and told to work faster.
The prisoners were asked to sign a form ‘I am wiling to work for the Nipponese’ which they refused. Their rations of rice, vegetables, meat and sugar were cut but still the PoWs refused to sign until eventually, things got so bad they agreed to sign a form ‘We are willing to work on the vegetable farm for the benefit of the camp’.
In these harsh times Alex found that he ate less than the average prisoner and he managed to keep his weight amazingly well. All officers above the rank of Colonel left the camp for Japan.
Alex described the camp as a ‘veritable Mecca for living skeletons’. Food supplies became poorer and poorer as the war drew to an end.
Then notice came of the move to Japan. On route to Kelling Harbour to take the men to mainland Japan, Alex past through the old camp where Douglas was still interned. They talked there for an hour before their goodbyes, hoping they would soon meet again as free men.
The voyage to Japan was as bad as expected. Before sailing, mail was distributed. Alex received a postcard from his sister Edna, a letter from his mother and a card from his Aunt Gwen, the only mail he had received in three and a half years.
1945/02/09 - Transported in the Taiko Maru to Japan with 700 PoWs
It was bitterly cold when Alex was moved into Fukuoka 12D Camp, Japan. The camp had 600 Dutchmen, 150 British officers and 80 other ranks. Some tiny parcels of Red Cross parcels were received but not enough to make a difference at all.
The first few weeks in the new camp, the prisoners rested. The Camp Commandant was very strict but, unusually for a Japanese Commandant, he recognised that all the prisoners were very sick men.
Work started in April, with the officers in the vegetable garden, and the other ranks in the coal mines, working for Kaijima-Onoura Coal Mining Company. The food rations gradually decreased as the war moved on. The men worked twelve hour shifts under the boiling sun, they were dreading winter.
1945/August - Camp renamed Fukuoka 9B - Miyata
On the 15th August 1945, work was stopped and it was believed the war to be over, this was the greatest day of Alex’s life. It could have something to do with the big mushroom cloud he had earlier seen over Nagasaki.
The Japanese and Korean guards, plus and the local Formosan supervisors, abandoned the camp. United States Air Force parcels were dropped on the camp and were a welcome, if often damaged, contribution to food supplies.
Alex had described his capture at the Fall of Singapore as his entry ‘through the Looking Glass’ and now he felt he was able to start his journey back ‘through the Looking Glass’.
The prisoners, now liberated, remained in Japan for around a month while preparations were made for their repatriation.
1945/09/02 - Liberated Fukuoka, Japan
Liberation Questionnaire filled in by Alex after being liberated
Repatriation
Under Under Colonel Griffin’s Command, Alex was taken by train to Nagasaki harbour and saw the devastation which the mushroom cloud had caused, it was new to him, but was told it was from an atomic bomb explosion.
On the 14th September the men were welcomed off the train and onto the USS Rooks by an American jazz band, their old clothes were destroyed and they were disinfected and issued with clean clothes, coffee, doughnuts and ice cream was distributed by American nurses. Alex saluted the quarter deck of the Destroyer and was now on Allied Territory, at last.
On that journey Alex could scarcely believe he was a free man and had survived his terrible ordeal. Had the USAF not dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the PoWs knew the Japanese had been given orders to execute all the PoWs in the camps.
His thoughts returned to the future, he had decided in the camps, that if he survived, he would like to study to be a doctor. He would later write to the Advisor of Studies at the University of Aberdeen. In the end he went to Guy’s Hospital London, as at the time Aberdeen were only accepting Scottish-born students.
Alex was transported from Nagasaki Port in the USS Rooks to Manila.
Boarded 'HMS Colossus'
1945/10/05 - He is on the HMS Collossus roll for departed Manila for Hong Kong, the ultimate Destination was India.
Home in Calcutta, Alex had hoped to meet up with his mother and sister Joan there but they had already left for England. A card had been left for him at the Post Office bulletin board, he left a card to say he had received it. Alex spent a few months in Calcutta recovering from his experiences, he walked everywhere, revisiting the areas of the city which had been so familiar to him as a child.
1945/12/28 - WO417/9, Casualty List No. 1945. Previously reported on Casualty List No. 1084 as Prisoner of War now Not Prisoner of War. Previous Theatre of War, Malaya.
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Pacific Star
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War Medal
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1939-1945 Star
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Far East Medals
Post War
Alex then travelled to England and spent a period of further recuperation with his sister Edna and her husband in Hythe, Kent. He then took up his place at Guy’s Hospital and went on to qualify as a doctor.
He met his wife Elizabeth in London and they moved to Dumfries in Scotland where Elizabeth’s uncle was a GP and Alex went to work in that GP practice, setting up on his own with two other partners some years later.
Alex and Elizabeth had two daughters and Alex always said throughout the rest of his long life that his family was his greatest joy.
Alex and Elizabeth spent almost thirty years of their retirement in Italy and then returned to Scotland.
Elizabeth died in 2016.
Alex died 25th January 2021 in Lockerbie, Scotland, in his 100th year.
Information
Mary White - Daughter, Mary’s story added
Fall of Malaya and Singapore
Japanese Transports
Royal Corps of Signals
British Repatriation Rolls
KEW Files:- WO 392/25, WO 361/1978, WO 361/1968, WO 361/1978, WO 361/1254, WO 345/37, WO 361/2190, WO 361/2068,
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