Memories of work on the River Kwai in WW2

Memories of work on the River Kwai in WW2

Leicester in WW2

Alec Tinsley recalls work on the infamous bridge over the River Kwai in WW2.

'Colston Bassett Captures the Past' project

Ref: EMOHA67/2

EMOHA

1940s

You may use this item in accordance with the licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en

.mp3

English

Oral history

4 min 41 sec

A group of us was taken out of the barracks and sent back into Singapore. To River Valley camp. And told we was going to build a railway in Thailand. Taken down to the station and put in steel trucks, 30 people to a truck, the doors were closed and we only stopped for water as we travel through Malaysia to Thailand and Bangkok. There was little air in the trucks at all, so they had to move round to the door to get fresh air, to stop people fainting. People did die on the way up and they was not allowed to be taken off the train. When we arrived at Ban Pong, which were our last railway station, it was monsoon weather and we had to march to the River Kwai from the salt flats on a single path right through the jungle. We slithered and people fell out of line and they were just left there to die. When we arrived at the River Kwai banks, and waded across on a vine which had been stretched across by the natives, our first job was to build the wooden bridge over the River Kwai. And then the steel one. There was no mechanical equipment to do the work. We worked with axes, hand saws, chisels, and bamboo was used for everything. The first thing we was given was an axe and a hammer to build our first house, our own huts for one day. It all got to be done in one day. Food was rice and a little rock salt, and occasionally a few pumpkin seeds was given for food. So we had to improvise. We looked at what the natives used and how they caught things. And I went back to my childhood days at Colton Bassett when we used to catch rabbits and eat those. I was always told that what birds and animals normally drink. Water was quite safe for us to do so as long as we boiled it. We watched the natives catching - how they caught lizards, and we cooked and ate those and snakes. Snakes taste a little bit like chicken. We was up at dawn every morning and roll call was made and my number, my prisoner of war number was 105, which I had to shout out in Japanese. The Japanese said they couldn't understand English. If we were not quick enough to shout the number, the Japanese beat us with the butt of the rifle at the side of the face. At this time, our clothes was not too bad. I still had shorts, a shirt and boots. But these gradually rotted off my feet. And I finished off wearing a short sleeve of my shirt, just like a nappy, which I tied on with a little bit of bark from the bamboo, because string was not available. I had a rice bag for a bed. And there was no such thing as string, paper, pencils, bread, butter, sugar. There was nothing that we take for granted in our only civilised life. We was counted out as we left camp, go to work, with one pint of rice per man was sent to the railhead. The first job was to cut down the jungle one metre wide, and the next party would come along and saw down the redwoods - the big large trees. And everything I could have done with hand tools. The Japanese said no work, no rations. And they also said that if you could not go to work, you was no good to the Imperial Japanese Army. So therefore we carried people out and stretchers to break stones which were put in between the rails, otherwise they would have had no food.

Elizabeth Alcott

Alec Tinsley