A Place called Lo Yang

[Lou Barron]

I was making up some notes for a addition to my stories for the Our War series of my time as a guest of the Japanese Navy and i thought about the the time that i was sent into the Japs cook house as a slushy what i had to do was get wood and keep the fires going and cleaning up any mess it was not to bad but sometimes i did get a bit extra rice or raw fish .
one thing that i was amazed was the way the Japs used some of the food that was left behind by the British one of things was mixing tin condensed milk with tins of corn beef .My job did not last long as we was shifted to Changi Jail

[j.sabourn]

Lou think I mentioned Loyang that is now it is known nowadays. Is an offshore sea base and have even seen a rig tied up alongside there, inside the dock area itself was a café come bar where the Tiger beer was not too expensive so a lot didn't go any further into Loyang itself, which is a typical Singaporean community mainly of chinese origin. Took the wife there one time on an overnight stay in Singapore at the hotel I used to stay at whilst in Loyang. Although I sang its praises don't think she was too impressed, should have stayed in the city itself. It was a base for all the ships off hire and awaiting sale or charter, and think I brought at least 3 of them down to work on the Australian coast. So as well as being a graveyard for many during the last war was also a graveyard for many ships. They used to be stacked up 5 abreast alongside all the quays that were there. If you watched that film of Aberdeen Harbour put out by john Arton, in the 80"s they used to be stacked up 4 abreast on Waterloo quay, just waiting to get on the berth to load, all the ships lying abreast had to move off to let the inside ship out. used to happen 2 or 3 times a day, was known as the Aberdeen Shuffle, never got onto the Hit Parade though, still enjoying a wee toddy I hope. Cheers John S

[Lou Barron]

I suppose it would be a lot different now than it was when i was there John

[happy daze john in oz]

Certainly Lou, they have moved on from corn beef and condensed milk, now it is McDonalds with fries.

[John Arton]

There was a rather good documentary on the horrors of building the Burma railway in WW2 on BBC2 last week, where some of the japs involved in it were also interviewed. Most of them {the Japs} said its was military madness to even contemplate the building of the rail road and many of the Japanese suffered during the buiding of it, though obviously not as much as those P.O.W.'s who built it.
rgds
JA

[Lou Barron]

I was very lucky that i did not go on the railway i did see and had a yarn to some of them guys who did survive and i thought we got badly treated those guys really got the lot some of them was was so thin that they had trouble walking .
The Japs shipped a lot to Japan and some of them lost their lives when the Jap ships was sunk by submarines that would be in the last year of the war .
Even back in Changi they were still dying at a very quick rate

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Lou.
The book I just finished reading "Prisoners of the Japs" In the last days of the war they were shipping out prisoners to Japan as fast as they could. Though the American's knew that they were doing this they still torpedoed as many Jap ships as possible, they estimated that 20,000 prisoners were killed by American submarines, with the Jap's machine gunning themif they managed to get up from the holds.
In a documentary on TV on the weekend about the fight for Singapore they interviewed a few of the Jap's pilots who were bombing, and they were saying how beautiful it was to see the bombs going down and hitting the targets, they didn't think it beautiful when the bomb dropped .
Cheers Des

redc.gif

[happy daze john in oz]

I have been to that part of the world and seen a living museum of the events there, also been along Hell Fire Pass. How anyone survived in the conditions there is miracle. Lou you were luck mate not to have been there.

[Lou Barron]

As most of you guys know that us ex pow s have been trying to get the Japanese to say sorry for the atrocities they did during the war but no response .
I blame that arrogant American General McArthur he was the one who let a lot of the Japanese and Koreans of the hook.
The Germans was made to pay for their atrocities and there was not that many got away i know there was some but there was a lot of Japs got away .Maybe i am a bit bias again the Japs but i can never forget the nice smile then knock you off you feet idont Hate them but i sure dont like them