This Is The Account Of My 1St Cousin 2 X Removed War Service

[DJHawkes]

George was captured when the Japanese took Singapore in February 1942. He was put to work on the 265 mile long Railway of Death connecting Madalay in Burma with Saigon in Thailand. After 14 months work this was completed in October 1943 (12,000 Allied prisoners and 70,000 Asian labourers died in the process). Taken back to Singapore he was imprisoned in Changi jail after trying to escape. Two modern freighters were to take the PoWs to work in copper mines in Japan. 900 British PoWs were on the Kachodoki Maru and 1,318 Australians on the Rakuyo Maru which also carried a cargo of blocks of raw rubber - neither ship carried Red Cross markings to distinguish them as carrying PoWs. Together with 4 other merchant vessels and 5 escorts, convoy HI-72 set sail on either the 4th or 6th September. After being joined by other vessels in Manili they set sail for Japan.

They were 300 miles south-east of Hong Kong when at 05.22 on the 12th September the USS Sealion (SS-315) hit the Rakuyo Maru with 2 torpedoes. With the Japanese guards leaving the ship immediately, the 12 hours it took to sink gave the surviving PoWs time to construct makeshift rafts. At 22.40 on the 12th September USS Pampanito (SS-383) which formed a wolf-pack with Sealion and Growler, hit the Kachidoki Maru with 3 toprpedoes and she sank within 10 minutes in the Luzon Straight north of the philippenes. The Rakuyo Maru lost 1,159 PoWs while more than 400 perished from the Kachidoki Maru. On the 14th the Japanese rescued some survivors and took them to Japan. On the 15th the Pampanito picked up other survivors.

George and his friend Mark Wheeler spent 2 nights clinging to a raft before George was lost presumably drowned. Mark was taken to Saipan and landed at Tanapag HBS on the 2oth. He later visited George's widow Mary and two years later they were married.
Of the 1,318 PoWs on the Rakuyo Maru 159 were rescued by U.S. submarines and 136 by the Japanese. Of the 900 on the Kachidoki Maru 656 were taken to prison camps in Japan.

George was 28 years old when he was lost.

This is an oral history account of the detailed events given by his surviving Pal.

[Mamyalynne]

I find it very humbling to read how lives were laid down and lost for us, as I am sure you do Dot.

Thankyou for sharing that.

[tonyav]

Yes a very interesting account dot, thanks.

[gness]

28 years old Dot.....we should stop and think about these people and what they did more often...puts our little moans into perspective....x

[Peter Pedant]

The FEPOWs were terribly badly treated - and for alot their post traumatic stress disorder left them hopelessly disabled.

I think your 70k slave labour death figure is low - it could be 250k. no records were kept. It is said it was only army discipline which kept the army figures so low.

There has been the odd tv prog on the FEPOWS, and the ones who were ship wrecked and THEN (re)picked up by the Japanese, I feel terribly sorry for. Presumably they were so near death by this time, they didnt much care, even if they did know what they were facing.

and finally, the Japanese were so scared of allied POWs communicating with the armed forcsd in the event of an invasion of mainland Japan that they were planning to massacre all of them in Sep 1945. It was only the events of Aug 1945 which precluded this.