Families’ fight over ‘forgotten soldiers’ taken prisoners of war by Japan

Ahead of the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan (VJ) Day, on August 15, the Oxfordshire Children of the Far East Prisoner of War (CoFEPOW) want to raise awareness for their fathers, whose lives were changed forever by brutal treatment at the hands of captors.

More than 140,000 Allied troops were captured by Japanese armed forces in South-East Asia. They were forced into slave labour to construct railways, roads and airfields, and compelled to work in coal mines and shipyards.

By the end of the war more than 30,000 PoWs had died from starvation, diseases and mistreatment.

Trish Fergusson’s father Les Long was a PoW first in Singapore, and then in Japan from February 1941 until liberation day in September 1945, before returning to Oxford as a pub landlord.

Mrs Fergusson, a former teacher, said: “What my father and many others did and went through has been pushed under the carpet. VE Day is celebrated but not enough is done for VJ Day.

“I want people to know what happened and what they went through.”

The group, formed in 2011, meet to share their findings about their father’s Second World War experiences and campaign to raise awareness.

Another member of the group is Linda Peach. Her father Ivo Poulter was a sailor captured at the Battle of the Java Sea.

Royal British Legion county chairman Jim Lewendon said: “I would like to think that especially coming up to August there will be more attention paid to it.

“They were terribly ill-treated and a lot of them suffered terribly. I knew one gentleman who was an ex-Japanese PoW and I remember he had this habit of scrubbing himself down all the time.

“It’s unbelievable what one human can do to another.”

Prime Minister David Cameron said: “This August we remember 70 years since Victory over Japan Day and I want to pay tribute to the remarkable service men and women who stood together in the Far East and endured unimaginable hardship as they fought for our nation’s freedom and security.”

• Les Long in the POW camp

My dad’s PoW agony remains a secret

LES Long was an Oxford policeman, landlord of two city pubs and a well-known local figure.

But discussion of his time as a PoW in Japan during the Second World War remained out of bounds – even to his wife and daughter.

His daughter Trish Fergusson from Marston still can’t bring herself to find out what happened to him during his time as a prisoner.

The 65-year-old, who has a son and a granddaughter, said: “My dad never spoke about it. It still upsets me now.

“In my younger years he used to have nightmares and suffered from malaria – he would shut himself off completely about it.

“My mother and I were completely in the dark – nothing was ever said. His best friend didn’t even know.”

Part of the Royal Corps of Signals, Les was captured in Singapore and taken to Changi prison in February 1941 which he described as “hell on earth”.

He was forced to work on the docks for much of 1942 before being transferred to Omi prison in Japan in May 1943, where he stayed until he was freed in September 1945.

He returned to Oxford, married Evelyn in January 1946 and Trish was born three years later.

•  Trish Fergusson and her husband Ian with memories of her father Les Long from his time as a prisoner of war

Mr Long worked for the police in the 1950s then became landlord of The White Hart in Marston. He died aged 65 in 1984 after a fall at the pub. Mrs Long, who died in 1995 aged 74, was landlady alongside Les at The Marlborough Arms in St Thomas Street, Oxford between 1965-1971 before they ran The White Hart between 1971-1984.

Trish’s husband Ian has written a book on Les’s life but she can’t bring herself to read it. She said: “He didn’t want me to know. He didn’t want to upset me.

“I think he wanted to forget it ever happened and we learned to never ask.

“Thankfully he ended up living a happy and fulfilled life.”

• Len Matthews in India

‘Father had to accept his humiliation or be beaten’

RICHARD Matthews was just 18 when his father Len died in January 1970, having passed on very little of his experiences as a PoW in the Far East.

Originally from the Isle of Wight, Len Matthews volunteered for the Royal Army Service Corps in 1939 and brought forward his marriage to Doris Scott before he left to serve.

A driver, he fought on the beaches at Dunkirk, before the 55th Infantry Brigade he was attached to set sail for the Middle East.

On their way, news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached the troops and they were diverted to defend Singapore, arriving on February 5, 1942.

Just 10 days later, Singapore surrendered and 70,000 men became prisoners.

•  Len Matthews and his wife Doris Matthews pictured before going to France in September 1939

Mr Matthews, a former teacher at Oxford Academy, said research into his father’s experiences led him to find he worked on the Burma Railway.

Driver Matthews suffered from a range of illnesses including dysentery and the nutritional disease beri-beri.

Mr Matthews said: “He had told me nothing about his wartime experiences and I sometimes think if he had lived longer he may have told me.

“As a 6ft 4in blond man my dad stood out among the Japanese.

“The guards liked to humiliate him. Had he ever lost selfcontrol, a severe beating or death would have followed.”

• Richard Matthews pictured with some of his father Len’s belongings

When Driver Matthews returned to the Isle of Wight, he went back to running a furniture removal business with his father.

He died aged just 57 as a result of injuries sustained during the war, with Mrs Matthews receiving a full warwidow’s pension.

Mr Matthews, of Long Hanborough said: “When they returned they were not treated as returning heroes. They were largely ignored and left to get on with it.

“He was a very quiet man and kept himself to himself. He didn’t like being the life and soul of the party.”

History of the conflict THE Pacific War began in December 1941 and pitted Allied troops against the Empire of Japan as it invaded Thailand and attacked British-owned Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaya.

In the early hours of December 7, Japan launched an air strike on US-naval base Pearl Harbor without explicit warning, which crippled the US Pacific Fleet.

The following day Britain, along with the United States, Canada and the Netherlands declared war on Japan.

Already depleted from two years of war with Germany, the British troops sent to South-East Asia suffered many heavy defeats.

More than 140,000 Allied troops were taken prisoner in camps in Japan, Burma, Borneo, Singapore and other Japanese-occupied countries.

According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal – a war crimes trial – the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1 per cent: seven times that of PoWs under the Germans and Italians.

The most notorious use of forced labour was in the construction of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway, which saw the deaths of 6,904 British personnel.

On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the United States dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On August 9, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan.

The following day the Japanese Government communicated its intention to surrender. But that offer wasn’t acceptable to the Allies due to there being too many conditions.

On August 15, Emperor Hirohito broadcast on Japanese radio his nation’s acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, defining the terms of the country’s surrender.

Arthur Titherington

FORMER PoW Arthur Titherington, above, from Witney, fought tirelessly for an apology and compensation from the Japanese Government before his death in 2010 at the age of 88.

Mr Titherington was captured by the Japanese army when Singapore fell in 1942 and spent three years as a PoW.

He was a slave labourer in a copper mine on the island of Formosa – now Taiwan.

When he was released – one of 90 who survived from a group of 522 – he weighed little over five stone.

Following a 60-year fight the former Witney mayor’s campaign did lead to the British Government paying £10,000 to every PoW but the Japanese never said Shazai – an apology with an admission of sin.

In 1995 the former Conservative councillor wept openly in Tokyo District Court during a four-hour hearing as the judge ruled there was no case to answer. In 1998 he joined hundreds of others who snubbed Emperor Akihito on a state visit to Buckingham Palace by turning his back on the Japanese leader.

• Arthur Titherington with Son Shin-do, a Korean victim of the Japanese regime, during an emotional meeting in 1995

After another unsuccessful case in 2000 Tony Blair promised £10,000 to more than 16,000 prisoners and their widows.

Not satisfied, Mr Titherington fought for an apology which he didn’t receive before he died in September 2010.

• Linda Peach with some of her father’s mementos

Remembering ex-postman’s service

IVO Poulter was a postman in Florence Park in the 1930s and he covered Iffley Village and parts of Rose Hill until his retirement in 1972.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Mr Poulter – who had signed up for the navy aged 15 in the early 1920s before deciding on a postal career – abandoned his life as a postie to help the war effort as a sailor.

Mr Poulter, who was a gunner, sank with HMS Encounter at the Second Battle of the Java Sea on March 1, 1942, and was picked up by a Japanese destroyer.

He then spent three-and-a-half years at the Makassar Camp in the island of Celebes.

There he worked on building air strips, air raid shelters and unloading ships – while suffering severe beatings.

•  Ivo Poulter aboard his ship

After being liberated in September 1945, Mr Poulter returned to Oxford and married his wife Lucy.

He ran the Florence Park Youth Club and latterly the area’s pensioners’ club.

Born four years after her father’s return, Linda Peach, of Marston, said he kept his ordeal under wraps and got on with his life.

The mother-of-two said: “He would have bouts of crying and no one knew why and he had marks on his body and never went without a vest.

“There were marks on his legs too where he must have been shackled.

“It was just wickedness. He had to dig his own grave and then was told to get back to work straight after.

“It was physical and mental abuse.”

• HMS Encounter at the Second Battle of the Java Sea

Speaking to the Oxford Times in 1984, Mr Poulter – who died in 1991 – described his ordeal.

He said: “They tried to break us in every way but didn’t succeed.

“In one incident a working party of 12 men came in from unloading ships, we were placed in cells and guards brought in a pick and shovel for each man.

“We were told we were going to dig our own graves as we were to die in the morning.

“The reason was not given and in the morning we were released and went to work as usual.”