The following account is that of John William Franks, Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant who was captured and forced to work on the Burma-Siam Railway during WW2 and his subsequent move to Changi POW camp in Singapore.

After a year of utter misery on the Railway of Death, I was back where the nightmare had started, on the island of Singapore. Sadly many of my mates had not survived to see Changi POW camp again. They had died in Siam (now Thailand) and Burma and had been buried or burned in the jungle.

The Changi we returned to was very different. Instead of staying in a POW camp on the outside of the local jail, we were housed within the complex. In peace-time it held no more than 750 civilian prisoners but we numbered 6,000.

Every passage, gangway and flat rooftops soon crammed with prisoners. Within days of arriving, I became the Warrant Officer in charge of the jail kitchen and responsible for feeding 6000 men with facilities designed for 750.

My job was a thankless one. The diet was so inadequate, and provisions so meagre, that we were hungry all the time. As expected it was rice three times a day. A sloppy porridge in the morning and at lunchtime and two cups of cooked rice flavoured with onion water in the evening.

The Japanese quartermaster, Lieutenant Takerhashi had studied at Cambridge University before the war. Given his background, I thought he’d show more compassion towards us, but quickly discovered otherwise. He was as unpredictable and brutal as the rest of the Japanese and showed complete indifference to our plight.

We managed to supplement the rice with a few vegetables that we grew in a small plot outside the jail grounds. The local beans provided the vitamin C which had been lacking in our diets for so long. Eventually we also received a “fish ration” if it can be called that.

The locals gathered all the jellyfish and shellfish and other rubbish from their nets and, instead of throwing it back, they brought it to shore and a party of prisoners dug a large hole in the beach and buried it in the sand.

After six months, this decomposed waste had become a reddish brown paste that stank to high heaven. Known as Blachan, it was mixed with rice and shallow fried as fish cakes. Looking back, I can hardly believe we ate it, but it helped keep us alive. Until then we’d had no calcium in our diets. This deficiency caused brittle bones and the loss of fingernails and toenails.

Work parties were still chosen by the Japanese, primarily to drain swamp land, but many of the POWs suddenly found they had time on their hands. Previously they had been expected to work up to 14 hours a day. This was when the mental scars began to show. Men would wake screaming in the night, shaking uncontrollably, or fly into violent rages.

Some couldn’t handle being so far away from their families, or began to worry whether their wives would still be waiting for them. We desperately needed mail from home, but the Japanese refused to let it through.

In three years I received only two letters from my wife Vera. Both of them were more than a year old. They were full of domestic details but I read them over and over again, treasuring every word. I knew that somewhere there were sackfuls of mail waiting for us, but it was typical of the sadistic attitude of the Japanese to deny us even this common decency. Later, after I’d returned home, a suitcase arrived containing hundreds of letters. My anxious wife had written to me six times a week throughout my entire captivity. How I wished those letters had reached me.

During the early months of 1945 it was noticeable that the Japanese were less hostile, perhaps because the tide of war was turning, although we had no news to confirm this. I was going through a very bad period, recovering from a bout of malaria and suffering badly from beriberi.

I was exhausted, desperately trying to keep the kitchens running smoothly. In such a weakened state, an accident was always likely. I was carrying a heavy container of rice when my legs slipped from under me and I crashed onto the tiled floor with the container on top of me.

Without ant X-ray equipment I had no idea of the extent of the damage. The doctors bound my ankle and made me a pair of crutches from bamboo. Many years later it was confirmed that my ankle had been broken and my spine had been permanently damaged. Ultimately, it set up an arthritic condition which has deteriorated considerably in my declining years.

A day I am destined to remember always is August 15, 1945. It began like any other at Changi, but in the late afternoon two paratroopers dropped out of the sky and signalled that we were finally free.

Of course, we new nothing of the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There has been much written about them since, but whatever the arguments, they undoubtedly brought the war to a speedy end and saved the lives of the thousands of POWs, as well as Allied and Japanese soldiers.

When I saw the paratroopers I was amazed that men could look so fit. For years I had looked at the emaciated bodies of my comrades which I came to accept as normal. We were all walking skeletons, which visibly shocked the incoming troops.

I remember the sheer joy of being able to walk in and out of the jail without being challenged. I tried it out several times before I could believe it was true.

A few days later, we learned that Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife were to visit and I arranged a demonstration of a typical day’s ration on a table in the kitchen. This includes Blachen, our fragrant fish paste. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when they caught the smell and I explained how it was made.

Initially I was offered a flight out of Singapore by Dakota, but I was in such poor health that I needed time to recover and put on weight. I stayed on at Changi, building up strength, and three weeks later set sail for England on the MS Sobieski.

Ironically, I remembered the gallant little Polish ship. She had been part of the convoy which had taken me to Singapore in 1941 and had somehow survived the war dodging German and Japanese torpedos.

She gave me a comfortable ride home and I stood on her deck late in October 1945 as we sailed into Liverpool amid cheers and copious tears. Many of the wives were waiting at the dockside and it tugged at my heart to see the reunions.

My wife was waiting for me at Kings Cross Station in London.

As I stepped off the train, I looked everywhere for Vera. There were so many people on the platform, I was afraid I wouldn’t find her.

Finally I saw her, standing on sandbags desperately searching for me. I cannot describe the joy that swept over me when I held her in my arms. Every day since has been a bonus.

Maggie Atkinson’s father, Gerard Fox, also came back from Changi on the MS Sobieski into Liverpool at the same time as John Franks after four years as a POW. Maurice and Maggie Atkinson have lived in Highnam since 2011.

The above account has been taken from John Frank’s “My Diary from Hell” published in June 1995 in the Daily Mail