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Diary of Frederick Lloyd
Supplied with the kind permission of Steve Lloyd
1943
The Japs then moved us to an abandoned girls school, but there was still little work to do. At that time I had a bad attack of dysentery, so I lost quite a bit more weight as with that and the food supply starting to get short. Suddenly we had to pack up and were trucked to the railway, we were put on the train and finished up at Bandung in central Java. The guards there were ex-cavalry, and there were stables with horses, so one job was cleaning out the stables. There was a small Jap field hospital just outside the camp and on some days we had to clean up the area there. One day when were cleaning up a Jap soldier literally crawled up the wooden steps of the hospital, he had been injured in a truck crash, but he was refused treat-ment and kicked down the steps by a Jap officer because he had wrecked the truck, one of our group went to help him, we were lined up and yelled at by the Jap officer that had kicked him down the stairs. Another day we were all lined up against a wall and machine guns were set up pointing at us, we were stood there for six hours and then dismissed with no explanation. Later, all the guards changed and a British Army Colonel was brought into camp, he could speak good Japanese so he was made POW C.O. The rumour soon got around that he was a British secret agent, the Japs didn't know that his name was VanDerPost, and he was a Dutch South African. He started lectures to occupy the men as there was still no work outside. He is now a well known author in South Africa and the United States.
Once again the Japs moved us, this time back to Batavia and again there were no work par-ties, after several weeks we were moved to the docks and put on board a small freighter. Finally we were back in Singapore in a camp opposite Changi army barracks.
September:-
A Red Cross Postcard was filled in.
This was about the time Marjorie found out that Frederick was still alive, having been informed earlier he was ‘Missing’.
This time we were sent out in work parties to an area where the Japs were building a runway "Changi airport". Most days we worked in a foot of mud and water, the only good thing was that there were plenty of catfish about a foot long, with two front legs and long whiskers, but although they made you shudder they didn't bite. Some days we were able to get across the road to Changi barracks where I met a guy, Eric Flood who worked for the same company as I, "Mardons" in Bristol. Eric was in the Norfolk Regiment, and had been taken prisoner right there in the barracks.
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