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By Root 1248 0

as everyone was heading south towards the Johore Causeway, hoping to get across it before the Japanese cut it off. As we drove towards Singapore, we passed burning cars and buildings, people fleeing on bicycles and carrying what they could or just running blindly, with no idea where to find safety. The worst part was seeing dead and dying bodies along the road. We came upon a horrific scene of mutilated bodies where a bomb had hit a bus. There was a child, about Philip’s age, right in front of us and before we could prevent it, he saw this headless body lying in the road. Every where there was smoke and the smell of petrol fumes. It was very frightening and Philip clung to me in the back of the car. Margaret was shouting directions at Hamid, but he was magnificent and stayed calm. When a group of people blocked the road and started hammering on the car, I’m not sure whether they wanted a ride or were telling us to go back or were just frightened, it was very unnerving. Margaret told Hamid to get out of the car and get rid of them, and she shouted through the window at them. Philip was sobbing, but Hamid kept nosing the car forward. Suddenly he accelerated, and drove onto the footpath, sending people flying. They certainly got out of his way – I think he would have run them over if they hadn’t.’

‘It sounds awful,’ said Caroline.

‘When we got to Gilbert’s place, which was in one of the better areas, a bit out of town, the sky was a strange orange-yellow,’ continued Bette. ‘We fell inside, so glad to be out of the car. There were groups of people wandering rather aimlessly along the street, and a lot of shouting and crying. When Margaret saw them, she thought that the luggage might be stolen, so she made Hamid and Gilbert’s houseboy unload the car and store everything inside for the night. I held Philip who was still terrified. Gilbert explained that we’d have to go in person to the city the next morning to get tickets on one of the ships leaving Singapore. We did, and on the drive into the city, we could see that parts of Chinatown and many city buildings had been bombed. We also saw a lot of Australian soldiers. They seemed pretty cheery about the whole thing. How sad that just days later they would end up as POWs in Changi. We were lucky that Gilbert had so many contacts in the shipping industry because he managed to get us tickets on a boat that was to sail for Perth the next day. That night we had a light dinner and tried to sleep but the bombing started up in earnest. We took cover under the dining room table. At times it sounded as though the bombs were falling right next to us.’

‘So what happened the next day?’ asked Julie.

‘We found ourselves in another country. A country at war. When daylight came, we realised that although Gil’s house had not been hit, the Oldsmobile on the street had. It was crushed, and completely undriveable. Margaret kept saying what a good thing it was that she’d insisted on unloading it.

‘All that morning, the Japanese planes continued their bombing runs and the city and docks were in chaos. We were very worried that we would miss the boat, but Margaret would not leave her possessions. So Hamid packed them all into Gil’s car, which was pretty tiny. Gil insisted that Hamid drive Margaret and he would look after Philip and me. This was fair enough because Margaret’s ankle still worried her from an earlier car accident and she couldn’t walk any great distance on it.

So Margaret went off with Hamid and the luggage, while Gil, Philip and I walked until we could find some transport. Eventually, Gil persuaded a trishaw driver to take us in his little vehicle by offering him a wad of money. The driver was obviously frightened by the bombing, but business was business. There were people running everywhere, ambulances and army trucks, but they couldn’t do much as it was so crowded, smoke billowing from burning buildings, sirens going off, and everything was just in chaos. Philip was terrified and so was I. By this time Hamid was well ahead of us. Just as we were squeezing our way past a bomb crater,