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Diary of Frederick Lloyd
Supplied with the kind permission of Steve Lloyd
1942
January - Early in January we were evacuated to a rubber plantation, the Japs had reached the Johore Straits and were occasionally using a mortar gun on us when anything moved on the Seletar airfield. During this time I was on a burial party for my sergeant, Sgt. Anders had died leaving me the senior rank of our section. Therefore, I had to arrange to ship all of our equipment out to Australia, including two other guys who actually did make it to Australia.
A few more days went by and I was ordered to get to the docks. While I was at the docks I was told to go back to Seletar and help salvage the aircraft left there. The next time I got back to the docks, the Captain of the freighter we were supposed to get on told me to get away from the docks until the evening because of the bombing: he didn't think he could get underway until then. Sure enough, evening came and we found the ship gone with all our kit. I heard later the ship was torpedoed and sunk.
By the middle of January we were told to move out of the plantation onto the HMS Kedah, a small river gunboat, and fully loaded up we sailed for Batavia on the island of Java. Once there we worked on Hurricanes at Batavia airfield, and after two weeks there we moved on to Djakarta, while here we found ourselves on ground defence of the airfield. One day three American B29 Flying Fortresses flew in from the Philippines, they changed an engine, refu-elled and took off the next day for Australia, before they left one of the crew told me to hop aboard and get out of there with them as all hell was breaking lose, but I could not even consider it, AWOL. No way. I often wondered if they made it.
February 25th - We were told that all VIP's were leaving, and we found out that night, when Wavell arrived, that he and his staff were being evacuated.
March 4th - A week later we were waiting for orders to board a ship at Tjilatjap, but as we waited in a small camp outside of town the Japs bombed the docks, our chances of getting off Java were lost, many of the freighters at the docks were sunk. We spent the night in a native village, and the next day the Dutch army brought up a train to take us inland. After a couple of days we stopped and plans were made to fight in the mountains. We organized into small groups with rifles and a few tommy guns. We were moving on towards the mountain areas when on March 10th the Dutch stopped us and ordered us to disarm as they had agreed to an unconditional surrender on Java, outnumbered we had no choice. The Dutch put us on a train and later we marched to a racecourse called Tasikmalaya Racecourse. Still after two days there was no sign of the Japs, after roaming about the race track inspecting the blownout barrels of several anti-aircraft guns, four of us slipped away and left the area and started heading towards the coast. Unfortunately we ran into the first Jap patrol, who were as surprised as we were. They tied us up to some trees and left very suddenly. We never knew why. We soon got ourselves free, and quickly made our way back to the racecourse. Another two days passed before the Japs showed up. They inspected the racecourse, we had billeted our-selves in the stables, and with literally no interference from the Japs, they left telling the Dutch to feed us. Several days later we were told to get ready to leave, and with Dutch drivers and Jap guards we were taken to the railway station. After several more days we were off again. We were not allowed off the train except at special stops for food, water and you know
We finally arrived back at Djakarta, and were taken to the airfield were we had operated from. This time we had to work in gangs filling in the bomb craters that the Japs had done while we were there. Apart from a few Jap guards there was very little security, so we were able to move about and managed to sabotage several new aircraft engines that the Dutch had left behind in their crates. With so much freedom we were able to watch Jap bombers take off and land, and started ideas of stealing one. The Japs were guarding the aircraft but it looked like there was a good chance we could get away with it, but before we could try it we were moved off the airfield and put on another train. Finally we arrived at Surabaya, and quickly found ourselves in a large camp in the town already occupied by Dutch reservists who had surren-dered. They had made there own POW camp, and because they considered themselves "in-ternees", and not real prisoners of war, they were expecting to be freed by the Japs to go back to there homes. The camp was in a marketplace, or Yaarmakt, where all the stalls were well built, native style so at least we could keep dry.
We were now officially indexed by the Japanese as a Prisoner of War.
Japanese Index Card - Side One
Japanese Index Card - Side Two
Soon we were sent out on working parties to the outside of a large hospital, we had to build bomb blast defences and gun emplacements. The Jap guards were very hard on us, and when working on the Chinese wheelbarrow system they took great delight in overloading the load so that it was very difficult to lift off the ground. One day it got so bad that I refused to pick it up, and so the guard hit me across the back with a shovel. I was save from a bayonet by a young Jap officer who intervened. He spoke perfect English and told me he had been educated at Oxford, he said as they were going to win the war, he offered to shoot me there and then to save me any more punishment. I guess he was not serious, because he laughed and gave me a cigarette, telling me to obey orders, and I know he told the Jap soldier off and sent him back to the barracks. On other days we went to the Wono Chromo oil wells where we had to clean up the destruction when the Dutch blew it up. Gradually the Japs had trouble finding work for all of us, so we were left in the camp a couple of days each week.
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