PoW jargon help

Hiya Nigel
I haven't been working on it for a few weeks - hence my late reply to this thread - but have the diaries transcribed and will be working on the notes to accompany them soon.
They are very interesting. A complete set beginning in January 1942 just as the writer arrives in Java and detailing the Japanese attack, the British surrender and the diarist's time "in the bag".
He is close to Nagasaki when the Bomb goes off.
He also talks about repatriation, in his case via San Francisco and eventually across the Atlantic by the Queen Mary.
I am hoping to publish them next year and am working with the FEPOW to do a special offer through them, if I can agree that with the publisher.
Greg

 

Just to update you on my research into the glass rod test. I am adding this note to the diaries I am editing:

Glass rod.
A form of screening for amoebiasis or dysentery which involved taking rectal smears from prisoners.
The following description of the glass rod test is taken from ‘Hard Way Back’, the online memoir of American prisoner Frank Hoeffer: “This dysentery check wasn't very pleasant as the Japanese medical attendants had a long glass rod about ten inches long and about the thickness of a thermometer with a small hook on the bottom, which was pushed into the rectum, twisted and then withdrawn. The end of the rod was then rubbed back and forth on round glass slides which were numbered and placed in large wooden boxes. At every port where we stopped this test was applied with much discomfort.”
http://www.wtv-zone.com/califPamela/memorial-Page-14.html

 

Just to let you know the diaires I was editing for publication are complete. I don't yet have a date for publishing but it will be in next couple of months.

Here is some info and a photo if I can do it.

Thanks for all your help. More news soon
Greg

Les Spence risked his life to keep a remarkable daily record of hardship, courage and endurance in prison camps run by the Japanese.
For nearly four years he and his fellow prisoners faced starvation, disease and cruelty. They kept up their spirits by playing sport, listening to an illicit radio and by trying to create their own civilised society behind barbed wire.
Throughout the suffering in Java, a perilous journey in the hold of an infamous hellship and the horrors of a forced labour camp in Japan, Les Spence kept writing.
He spent much of his time in a coal mining camp near Nagasaki. There, he was able to record one of the most momentous events in history: the dropping of the plutonium bomb on the city.

“We had uneventful train journey to Nagasaki and then we saw the result of the atomic bomb. It was simply astounding, nothing left standing for miles, everything flat and burnt out.”

Covering the period from January 1942 to November 1945, the diaries have been annotated to create a record of the Allied forces who many feel were sacrificed on Java.
Les Spence’s work is a first-hand account of how to hold onto hope when all seems lost.

A donation will be made from the royalties of this book to the Java Club.
View attachment 15443

 

PS If anyone is interested in researching POWs in Java, Changi and Japan, or hell-ships etc, there will be pretty extensive notes with the diaries. I would be happy to post the index pages here if they might be of interest.

Greg

 

The book is out!

Thread here: http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-books-publications/55038-new-complete-diary-pow-japanese-released-includes-java-nagasaki.html#post607659

Many thanks for members who helped with research

 

Sorry "Many thanks to members who helped with research" !