The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [41]
A new regime headed by Major General Shimpei Fukuye wanted to transform Changi into a proper prison camp. A few weeks earlier four prisoners, two Australians and two British, had tried to escape from up-country in Malaya and Fukuye demanded that all the allied prisoners should sign an undertaking not to do this. Escape attempts were futile and doomed in my view. But our officers refused to sign as a matter of principle. The first we knew about this row was on being told to report to the Selarang barracks. As we made our way there, thousands of men were doing the same, streaming in to the barracks from all directions. The Japanese had decreed that all prisoners must be inside the barracks by 6 p.m. – anybody outside after that time would be shot. It was the beginning of a terrifying stand-off that became known as the Selarang Incident.
Seventeen and a half thousand men crammed into the Gordon Highlanders’ barracks designed to accommodate fewer than a thousand men. It was appalling. We had no space and what little water we had was for cooking only. Latrines had to be dug in the middle of the barracks square but we could never get near them, the place was so heaving with men. Somebody worked out that the population density was one million men per square mile. Outside of the crammed barracks in the parade ground there was very little cover for the men and we baked in the sun. Our officers warned us that we would face a court martial if we signed and that the Japanese were breaching the Geneva Convention that allows prisoners the right to attempt to escape without facing punishment.
The Japanese could not have cared less about the Geneva Convention and had no intention of observing it. To rack up the pressure they ordered the execution of the escapees and the British and Australian commanding officers were instructed to attend. It was a brutal, botched affair during which the Sikh firing party had to shoot the men several times. They shot some of the prisoners in the groin and the poor chaps had to plead to be finished off. Refusing blindfolds the condemned men displayed fantastic bravery and the British and Australians still refused to give in.
We were playing a dangerous game. The Japanese could not stand to lose face and we knew that they were capable of anything. Crammed into the parade square we were so vulnerable, deprived of all items of war. There was no possibility of an uprising. Personally I was riddled with fear that the situation could escalate into a massacre.
At various points during the stand-off the Japanese would drive in a dozen lorries covered in tarpaulins. These would reverse into strategic positions in front of us covering all points. Then at a signal the tarpaulins would be torn off in unison to reveal machine guns mounted on the trucks, four soldiers at the ready on each. Their guns pointed at us, the Japanese would start screaming. It was all part of the terror tactics they so enjoyed. We responded by singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. The national anthem was banned and this became our theme song, our only weapon and I doubt if it was ever sung with more fervour. The Aussies would pipe up with ‘Waltzing Matilda’, and sometimes a chorus of ‘There Will Always Be an England’ would ring out. As conditions deteriorated and more men went down with dysentery and diphtheria, singing was a way of keeping our spirits up. But I always believed that we were all going to be massacred.
On the third day of the stand-off conditions had become really desperate and men began to die of dysentery. I tried to keep a brave face on things for the sake of the boys but it was an awful ordeal. We were down to half rations, constantly thirsty and had hardly room to lie down – sleeping was a problem.
Still we stuck it out and then the Japanese played their trump card.