Singapore

Outram Prison was one of the earliest prisons in Singapore.

Originally, it was known as Pearl’s Hill Prison before being called Outram Prison or Outram Road Prison.

Completed in 1882, the jail complex had five blocks for male criminals; four for natives and one for European.

Other buildings housed the female prisons, hospitals, employees’ quarters, execution room and morgue.

By January 1937, the long-term prisoners were transferred to the-then new Changi prison while leaving the short sentenced prisoners in Outram Prison.

During World War Two (WWII), Singapore was occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Immediately, the infamous Japanese military police known as Kempeitai took over Outram Prison.

They used the gaol to punish all those who broke their laws; prisoners of war (POWs), civilian internee and local people alike.

From Sandakan POW Camp to Singapore Outram Prison

The inmates jailed at Outram Prison were coming in from not only in Singapore but surrounding areas such as Malaya and Borneo.

They were transported by sea using Japanese hell ships. As if their journey to receive their sentences were not hellish enough, another form of hell welcomed them at Outram Prison.

These men and were punished for many reasons, from espionage to rebellion.

For a group of POWs from Sandakan POW camp in former British North Borneo, their crime against the Japanese circled around a radio.

From Singapore to Sandakan POW Camp

The Battle of Singapore or Fall of Singapore is till known today as the largest British surrender in history.

The intense fight took place lasted from Feb 8 to 15, 1942 which resulted in the Japanese capture of Singapore.

After the battle ended, about 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops in Singapore became POWs along with 50,000 men who were taken by the Japanese during the earlier Malayan Campaign.

As for the Japanese, they were not entirely ready with this large influx of POWs.

One of the POWs who arrived in Sandakan POW camp to work on the airfield in July 1942 was Lionel Colin Matthews.

While many were taken prisoner in Changi Prison, thousands were transported to be used for forced labour on constructions like the Burma-Siam Railway and Sandakan airfield in North Borneo.

There, Matthews founded an intelligence network among the POWs. They collected information, weapons, medical supplies and radio.

The secret group even made contact with the local police as well as Filipino guerrillas.

Unfortunately in July 1943, four local Chinese members of Matthews’ underground group were betrayed to the Japanese.

After being tortured by the kempetai, they confessed to providing radio parts to Matthews and his team.

Matthews and his second in-command, Lieutenant Rod Wells as well as the members of the underground group were captured, beaten, tortured and starved during their interrogation.

After that, the group was sent to Kuching, Sarawak to stand for trial.

In Kuching, Matthews was sentenced to death along with two members of the British North Borneo Constabulary and six other local Sabahans.

Meanwhile, Wells and 18 others were sentenced to Outram Prison.

Rod Wells’ account on his experience at Outram Prison

Wells, who received 12 years of solitary confinement, said goodbye to Matthews with a handshake and a few personal message from Matthews to his wife.

Two days after departing Kuching, Wells arrived in Singapore where he had been captured two years before.

In Singapore, he was imprisoned at Outram Prison and here is his account as recorded by Christoper Somerville’s Our War: Real Stories of Commonwealth soldiers during World War II.

“On entering Outram Road Jail I found the most terrible sights of dejected people with absolutely no will to live, just slowly walking around. From the back you could see their reproductive organs hanging down between their legs – there was no flesh on them. It made sitting very hard. The hip bone would be pressing into bare skin. But you just had to sit and put up with the pain.

“Everything was done to order. No talking was allowed. When no order was given, you were silent and just stayed in the same position you were in when the last order was given. At nine o’clock at night you were sent back to your cell. There was a light on all night inside the cell, so that there was not a second of the twenty-four hours you were in darkness. And this went on, for me, for twenty-three months, including my period in Kuching. Twenty-three months in solitary.

“We worked at picking strands of hemp out of old ropes, to make a new ones. The strands were too tough to break with your hands; you had to follow them to find out where they started. If you left any of those knots untouched you got a belt across the back with a sword in its scabbard. And as an added incentive, if you didn’t do a hundred of these lengths of rope in day by picking out about 200 lengths of hemp from each – you got no rice that day.

“Meals were roughly five ounces of cooked rice and a bit of stewy water with a bit of weed in it, green grassy stuff. Tea – that was like a hundred to one whiskey and water, pale discoloured stuff that was always cold when you got to it.

“The little pair of shorts you had on had your number on it. 641, that was me. You had to learn that number in Japanese pretty quick, because that was your name and address and everything else. I lost all identity. I was no longer a POW – I was a criminal; just a number. That was the worst thing of the lot. Just a number.”

Bill Young’s account on his experience at Outram Prison and ‘The Postman’

Not all POWs who were sent from Sandakan POW Camp to Outram Prison belonged to Matthews’ group.

William Young or better known as Bill Young, was captured and trialed in Kuching for escaping Sandakan POW Camp.

They were captured by the Formosan guards an hour after their escape and then Young and his friend M.P Brown were severely beaten.

The duo both ended up with broken arms, a leg and an ankle.

In Kuching, Brown was sentenced to eight years of hard labour in Outram Prison while Young was sentenced to four years because of his age. Young was around 16 years old, making him one of the youngest Australian POWs during WWII.

One of the many things Young remembered about Outram Prison was a guard which the prisoners nicknamed ‘The Postman’.

“And there was one guard in particular we used to call ‘The Postman’, he was very, very particular about it. He’d open the door and come and bash you if you weren’t sitting properly. Some of the guards you knew were lazy or indifferent and you could get away with standing up, resting your legs out, reading the graffiti. Morse code. And there’s some guards you would never send a message or anything like that, you’d never read graffiti and you’d never not sit cross-legged, and the worst one was the bloke we called ‘The Postman’.

And sometimes, I know on one particular time, probably one of the first times I was caught by him. I didn’t realise he was on duty. I’m sitting back, with my back on the wall with my legs stretched and I’m shaking them and one thing and another, relaxing, and I heard the knock and that was the signal, only one knock, bang!, just one knock like that. There was about two or three minutes, which seemed to be hours in time, and you knew he was outside, you knew.

“Now after that you’d hear the key’d go in the lock, now it wouldn’t turn, you’d hear the key go in the lock, and then for another two or three minutes there’d be silence, but you’d know he was outside there, and then he’d turn the lock and you’d hear it turned and there’d be nothing else. Two, couple of minutes.

“And then all of a sudden, bang! The door’d be slammed back. Frightened the life out of you. And there would be The Postman. And they all had swords. But it was an old-fashioned jail and the locks were old-fashioned and the keys were great old-fashioned things. And he’d come in and you’d be looking up and you’d be at attention, as if you were like that all the time, you’re willing your hair to grow bit thicker because you know what’s coming.

And he’d stand just a little bit behind you on the side. Not much room between you but he’d get there, wasn’t a very big bloke actually, and then he’d be giving you a lecture or something like that and all of a sudden, while he’s doing this, he’s raising this flaming great big key and then bang! down it comes. And oh God, flaming lump or a cut, sometimes blood come down, and you couldn’t do anything and you’re sitting there and the tears come into your eyes because when you have lost all your weight, your food, your muscles go down, it’s not mentally, everything goes down too. Your resistance to pain, your resistance to everything.”

Surviving Sandakan POW Camp and Outram Prison

After the war ended, Young returned to Sydney, Australia. He revealed to ABC news in 2016 at that time he couldn’t wait to reunite with his old mates from Sandakan.

But Young couldn’t find any of his friends. He told ABC, “I waited and waited and waited. It took me ages to find out.”

The sad truth was there were only six survivors from Sandakan POW camp and they had survived because they escaped.

After the war ended, 1,787 Australians died in Sandakan with many of them perishing during the 250km-long Death Marches from Sandakan to Ranau.

Those who were sent out from Sandakan to Outram Prison for their punishment had a narrow escape from death. If they were to stay in Sandakan, chances were high that they did not survive just like their friends.

Still, all of them did not escape from suffering caused by the Japanese at Outram Prison.

According to Australian War Memorial website, the prison was a place of starvation, torture and terror, a place of madness and for many, death.

Since these prisoners were sentenced to prison and not death, the Japanese couldn’t legally execute them.

Instead, the Japanese purposely trying to starve the prisoners to death by providing little food for them.

It is estimated about 1400 prisoners died at Outram Road Prison during Japanese occupation in Singapore.

Located in Sandakan Bay, Malaysian state of Sabah, the Berhala island is a small forested island.

Before World War II (WWII), the island was used as a layover station for labourers coming from China and the Philippines. There was also a leper colony on the island.

Then during WWII, the Japanese used the quarantine station as a makeshift internment camp for both prisoners-of-war (POWs) and civilian internees.

The POWs and civilian internees were stationed on Berhala Island before they were sent Sandakan POW Camp or Batu Lintang Camp respectively.

In June 1943, the island witnessed a thrilling escape of eight POWs worthy enough to inspire a Hollywood movie.

The eight-member group later became known as The Berhala Eight.

Jock McLaren of Berhala Eight

The Berhala Eight were Lieutenant Charles Wagner, Sergeant Rex Butler, Captain Raymond Steele, Lieutenant Rex Blow, Lieutenant Leslie Gillon, Sapper Jim Kennedy, Private Robert “Jock” McLaren and Sergeant Walter.

Among them, the widely known one was Jock McLaren.

During World War I (WWI), McLaren was serving in the British Army. After the war, he moved to Queensland, Australia where he was working as veterinary officer.

When the WWII broke out, he joined in the Australian Imperial Force.

According to Senior News, McLaren was assigned in British Malaya when Singapore fell to the Japanese army.

He was then captured as a prisoner of war alongside 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops in Singapore.

However, McLaren was not going to bow down to the Japanese and stay in Changi prison quietly. Together with two other soldiers, he made his escape from Singapore.

They almost made it to Kuala Lumpur before they were betrayed to the Japanese by the local Malays.

By September 1942, McLaren was back where he was first imprisoned at Changi prison. But, ass the saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”

So he planned his escape again. This time, he managed to slip into a group of prisoners called ‘E’ Force.

As part of ‘E’ Force, McLaren was among 500 British and 500 Australian POWs who departed Singapore on Mar 23, 1943.

They boarded SS De Klerk, an abandoned Dutch passenger-cargo liner which was refloated by the Japanese who renamed it ‘Imabri Maru’.

The ship reached Kuching, Sarawak on Apr 1 and departed eight days later for Berhala Island.

On Apr 14, the men of ‘E’ Force arrived on the island where they stayed for six weeks before being transferred to the Sandakan POW Camp.

Life on Berhala Island for the ‘E’ Force

According to the War Memorial Australia, the Berhala Camp was enclosed by barbed wire, was set back about 160 yards from the sea.

The toilets were outside the wire, which gave intending escapees and excuse for being outside the camp.

Once again, McLaren tried to escape. He knew that once he been transferred to Sandakan POW camp, it would be harder for him to escape. For him, the escape had to be made from Berhala Camp.

Together with Kennedy, the duo joined a wood-carrying party during their stay at the Berhala Camp. This allowed them to move around the island while planning an escape plan in their heads.

They saw the leper colony there had a small boat. McLaren then planned to use it for their escape.

Meanwhile, another escape party was being formed by Steele, Blow, Wagner, Gillon and Wallace.

Both parties made contact with a corporal from North Borneo Constabulary, Koram bin Anduat to help with their escape.

Koram advised them to make for Tawi-tawi island in the Philippines which was about 250km west of Sandakan.

McLaren then realised that it would be a long, hard and dangerous row to Tawi-tawi. He needed another man so he approached Rex Butler.

As described by Hal Richardson in his book One-man War: The Jock McLaren Story (1957) on the escape as:

“A tall thin grazier from South Australia who had been a buffalo shooter in the Northern Territory and could shoot a buffalo’s eye out at fifty yards. Butler appeared to have the necessary nerve too. There was no room in the party for a man who was likely to crack when the heat was on.”

McLaren believed that Kennedy could withstand the pressure. After watching Butler moving around the camp and his coolness under the provocation of guards, he was confident that Butler was the man for his escape team.

McLaren, Kennedy and Butler made their escape from Berhala Island

On June 4, 1943, the Japanese bought a large barge and ordered the POWs to be prepared for transfer to Sandakan the next morning.

The Berhala Eight took it as a sign that they must escape that night before being transferred.

Under the pretense of using the restroom, the eight Australians left the camp in the middle of the night.

The men then collected their hidden supplies and clothes before going into hiding in the forest.

The next day, after stealing a boat from the leper colony, McLaren, Kennedy and Butler began their gruelling journey to Tawi-tawi.

With no sail, and with just the use of wooden paddles, the three men paddled their way through the raging ocean for their lives.

The men travelled by night in order to avoid the tropical heat.

Even with their frail bodies after spending the past 16 months on little food in the POW camps, the trio made it to Tawi-tawi island.

Thankfully, the men were welcomed by friendly locals on the island.

Koram helping Steele and the rest to escape Berhala Island

In the meantime, Steele and the rest four men were still on the Berhala Island.

When McLaren and his group stole the boat from the lepers, it did not go as smoothly as planned. The lepers actually keep on pursuing them.

After that, the lepers went to the Japanese to report on the incident.

Now, it became dangerous as the Japanese are looking for the remaining five escapees.

That was when Koram and his wisdom came to work.

According to Bayanihan News, on the night of the last POWs had been transferred to Sandakan, Koram borrowed a pair of boots from one of his Australian friends.

“Then he quietly made his way to the cluster of houses near the shore. He untied one of the boats belonging to an islander, made a hole in the bottom of the boat and shoved it into the flowing waters of the estuary where it was carried some distance away before it sank out of sight in the deep water.

He stole two more boats, and did the same with them. He then put on a pair of Australian army boots which he had managed to get hold of earlier, and stomped around on the spot on the seashore, leaving a lot of tracks. Then he quietly returned to the mainland undetected.Early the next day, there was a great hue and cry when the three islanders awoke to find their boats gone. They reported the matter to the Japanese, who went to investigate.

When they saw the boot prints in the mud they concluded that the Australian POWs must have taken the boats and escaped from the island, and they immediately mounted a search at sea. They never realized that the escapees were still on the island.”

Steele and the rest made their escape using kumpit

With the help of local guerrillas, the remaining five POWs made their escape from the island.

Using a local boat called kumpit, the POWs were told to lie in the hold. Then planks were placed on them with sacks of rice on top of the planks.

There was one nerve-wracking moment when a Japanese destroyer stopped the kumpit to check on it.

Thankfully, the Japanese decided not to board the boat but let it pass.

On June 24, all members of The Berhala Eight reunited on Tawi-tawi.

The Berhala Eight staying to fight

Due to lack of transportation and the need for experienced leaders, The Berhala Eight stayed with the guerrillas to fight against the Japanese.

Unfortunately, Butler was killed in action while on a fighting patrol at Dungun river of Tawi-tawi.

His body was then decapitated by the local Moros who were friendly with the Japanese.

Meanwhile, the rest of the POWs made their way to Mindanao to join the American and Filipino guerillas under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Wendell Fertig.

On Dec 21, 1943, Wagner was killed during an engagement with the Japanese at Liangan in Lanao province.

After battling with the Japanese for some time, Gillon, Steele, Wallace and Kennedy were evacuated from the Philippines by the USS Narwhal on Mar 2, 1944.

Meanwhile Blow and McLared remained with the guerrillas until the Australian government requested their return.

The impact of Berhala Eight

In the book Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Richard Wallace Braithwaite described the impact of the escape on the remaining POWs.

“The key to the success of the ‘Berhala Eight’ was help from local people, and this worried the Japanese. From now on, they killed recaptured escapees and punished the camp from which they escaped through cutting rations. As a result, senior Allied officers were by this stage strongly discouraging escapes.

“The Australian prisoners probably did not realise how seriously the Japanese viewed this development of local collaborators helping prisoners escape. All this undoubtedly reflected poorly on Hoshijima (Sandakan POW Camp’s Person-in-Charge Captain Susumi Hoshijima) and invoked a strong response. While all POWs at Sandakan suffered harsher treatment, the Australians were seen by the Japanese as the main problem.

“Most prisoners now acknowledged the likely consequences for the individual and for the camp of any escape attempt. Most became content to stand on the side of the chessboard but continued to dream of escape.”

When the Berhala Eight made their escape, they would not have thought of how the Japanese would retaliate against the remaining POWs and local people who tried to help the prisoners.

Nonetheless, their escape from Berhala Island saved their lives as they then missed the infamous Sandakan Death Marches and executions of Sandakan POW Camp.