by Ernie Badham

As most of us had managed to get to double figures safely, you can imagine the difficulty experienced when a man was in the position where he was in the high figures. I think before we even numbered off to twenty, mistakes were made. This infuriated the Jap officers who kept us numbering over and over until we were hopeless and in some cases, men were laughing at each other’s difficulty in mastering the language. Eventually after maybe an hour, the Jap called Dr Dunlop forward. Dunlop, who had been promoted to Colonel just before the capitulation, was senior officer in charge of our slightly over 200 men. As Dunlop stepped in front of the Jap officer he was abused and told he was held responsible for the debacle. The officer worked himself into a fury as Weary tried to explain our difficulty in mastering their language. Suddenly the Jap drew his sword and began hitting Dunlop across his back with the flat of his sword.

Weary Dunlop, being a big strong 6'3" strong solid man, an ex-rugby union Aust. team member, managed to withstand the beating and as the Jap was no doubt tiring, suddenly ordered him to his knees and then began to punch him about the head. Eventually Dunlop fell over and when the Jap began to kick him, we all to a man, instinctively moved forward to protect him. The Jap saw what was about to happen, screamed something in Japanese and the Korean guards immediately fixed bayonets and charged toward us. Another scream of Japanese from the officer and the guards stopped as they reached us and made a point of pinning those neared to them with the point of the bayonet. A few of the men will carry the mark of the bayonet tip with them to the grave. It was so close and happened so quickly that most if us, although shocked, had little time to comprehend the rather delicate situation it was until it was over.

Now we were able to see for the first time, the strange ways of the Japanese. As we were pinned by a show of bayonets, the Jap officer, assisted Dunlop to his feet, took out a cigarette for himself and offered on to Weary, He then lit Dunlop’s cigarette and told him he was sorry he had to treat him as he did, and asked if he thought we could learn to count in Japanese within a week or two. Then we were dismissed but from that day, Dunlop told us later he would despise the race until his dying day. In the years ahead, he was to add to that hatred so very much. As it turned out, we managed to count to our two hundred odd within the week or so but only if we all took the same position each day, therefore learning one number only. As time passed our place in line would often be changed through a sick man not being in his usual place in line but we somehow fumbled or mumbled our way through and eventually most of us could count, even up to the thousands.

After abut two months at the prison we were transferred to a large camp at a place called Tjimahi on the outskirts of Bandoeng. It had previously been a military establishment for the Dutch and Javanese Army. The barracks had been extended with additional huts built to house at least 2,000 prisoners and it was here we joined dup with captured Dutch soldiers. Most Javanese soldiers were not taken prisoner but were under oath not to take part in any military practice. Whilst here, the food improved as the Dutch cooks had a good knowledge regarding the best to be had from rice and local vegetables. Also the environment was so much better than the prison surroundings. This improvement was evident almost immediately in our group as we had begun to suffer various complaints and a few more months in the prison would have seen severe illnesses appearing in most of us.

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