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LAC Jack Plant, RAF Medical
Branch, Mentioned in Despatches
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Jack joined the Royal Air Force Medical Branch in March 1940 and
after training at three RAF General Hospitals he was posted to
RAF Marham in Norfolk and in late 1941 to Sungei Patani in
Malaya. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese and became part of
the huge movement of forced labour within the Japanese Empire.
He eventually arrived at Jaarmarkt Camp in Soerabaya, Java which
was the largest POW Camp in SE Asia and used as a transit camp
for POWs. In early 1943 they were taken to the docks and boarded
the Amagi Maru . The conditions on board were appalling, grossly
inadequate sanitation, terrible heat and rapidly growing
sickness. After two weeks the survivors arrived at Ambon on the
island of Amboina where those who could swim pushed oil drums
dropped from the ship to the shore where they were rolled up the
beach and stored. They continued the journey to Haruku where
under dreadful conditions - they started by building a camp -
they constructed an advanced airfield for the Japanese Air
Force.
When this was finished they made the return journey to Java
where they were transferred to Cycle Camp, run by a particularly
brutal Japanese Commandant
Ω,
and thence to the docks for yet another voyage, this time to
Singapore where they were humiliated for domestic cinema
audience consumption
Ω.
They were then returned to the docks for transfer to Sumatra and
to their final destination at Pakenbaru
Ω. They marched inland when they learned they were to
build a railway, 140 miles long which would be completed on
August 15th 1945
Ω.
Camp 2 was to be the source of POW labour and the central
medical facility, such as it was
Ω.
Food was monotonous and of very basic nutritional value
Ω.
The first stage of building was jungle clearance for which the
Japanese used local “romusha” labour. If the lot of the POW was
terrible, that of the romusha was much worse
Ω.
The POWs prepared the ground using the most basic of tools and
when supplies of sleepers ran out, they had to make them from
whatever trees were available in the surrounding jungle
Ω. The laying of rails was universally accepted as
the worst job on the line and made great demands on the POWs
Ω.
Rivers, and there were many of them, were bridged using
primitive methods, the piles being driven in by POW labour
Ω. The POWs considered the possibility of sabotage
but since the railway was the only way in which they could get
back, common sense dictated they built it well
Ω.
Work continued and they arrived at the Equator; they all
developed survival strategies to give them some relief from the
relentless sun, and work continued until they joined up with the
gang coming from the other end of the railway
Ω. They returned to base camp in stages, dismantling
where necessary camps they had used previously. In many cases
the jungle had already taken them back and it was only constant
movement on the railway line that had kept it open.
He finally got back to England in time for Christmas 1945.
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