“KEELER Alfred Frederick James of … Braund-avenue Greenford Middlesex died 15 August 1945 at Osaka Japan Administration London 25 July to William John Keeler foreman motor driver. Effects £503 17s. 4d.”
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995

In Acton Cemetery, nine Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones stand in a row against the boundary. There is nothing unusual about the one dedicated to Private Alfred Keeler of the 1st Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment, nothing that makes it stand out. Yet his presence there is remarkable. If “home” is where your family is, Alfred, whose final days were spent as a Far East Prisoner of War in Japan, could be said to have returned to it, to the place where most of his close relatives are interred. His headstone is a rare reminder of one of the darkest episodes of the Second World War, of men and women whose sacrifices seem forgotten, in the furthest corner of a London cemetery, surrounded by industrial estates and busy roads.

Alfred’s family included market gardeners in Hounslow, jewellers in Hoxton and pub landlords in Kent, as well as soldiers who served their country in distant places. They lived at a time when the London suburbs were changing forever.

His earliest years were spent amongst orchards and glasshouses, as his parents and maternal grandparents cultivated and harvested fruit and vegetables supplied to London’s hotels, restaurants and households. Amongst the first to live in the Victorian terraced houses and villas that remain from that time were market gardeners, who maintained trees and crops. They drank in the public houses and worshipped in the churches that looked ancient but had arrived with early piecemeal development in the nineteenth century, villages created were none had existed before.

Alfred was born in 1904 in one of the first houses to be built in Maswell Park Crescent, Hounslow, one of a row with ornate wooden trims, a home shared with his maternal grandparents. It is still a quiet street but in those days he could probably see the fields and glasshouses from the upstairs windows, and the railway line that must have transported some of the produce generated by local growers. Homes built in the 1930s now cover the land in Hounslow and Isleworth that helped to feed London, and the kind of work once done by people born and brought up there is today, in many cases, carried out by migrant workers in counties far beyond the city. The baptismal records of Hounslow and Isleworth reflect the rural nature of the area at that time, gardeners, farmers and dairymen alongside the carmen and railwaymen who distributed their crops. And in amongst them, soldiers – and unmarried mothers.

By 1881 Hounslow Barracks was the depot for the Royal Fusiliers and the Middlesex Regiment. The presence of so many vigorous young men in uniform may have caused the parents of young women in the area some sleepless nights. Alfred’s maternal grandfather, George Brown, was one of them. When Alfred’s older sister, Rose, was born in one of the small houses in a terrace opposite the Royal Oak public house its patrons probably heard her cries across Worton Road but her father wasn’t there. In 1897 William Keeler was serving with the 2nd Battalion, The Middlesex Regiment, as part of the British Empire’s huge garrison committment. Martha Brown must have had some faith in him as she included his surname as one of the baby’s names when she registered the birth. She did the same thing when the child was baptised at St. John’s Church in St. John’s Road, Isleworth. The stern Norman style building, complete with gargoyles, seems to have reflected the vicar’s attitude, as an attempt to obscure Rose’s illegitimacy by filling the space referring to the father’s occupation with the words “market gardener” was undermined when this was crossed out and “single woman” added to the record. There is no way to know if Martha was aware he had done this. In the baptismal register of another church in Hounslow the spaces where the father’s details would have been recorded are filled with a line rather than making any mention of the mother’s single status, so it was rather a harsh act. Despite this Martha returned to St. John’s in February 1899 to marry William, the battalion having returned from India the previous year. He was now a “gardener’s assistant”, perhaps working for his father-in-law or his own stepfather, John Gardener, who seems to have been an independent grower, with his own business in the area. By the end of the year Rose had a brother called Harry.

William’s childhood was quite different to his children’s, an urban one. His father, Ashley Keeler, had been the manager of a hotel in the Strand in London at the time of his death in 1881, when William was three. The narrow fronted red brick building is still there, next to the Vaudeville Theatre, in an area that was probably as busy with tourists then as it is today. Ashley had begun his career in hospitality as a barman, he had grown up in pubs in Kent where his own father was a licensed victualler, a peripatetic existence that continued as Ashley moved from job to job in public houses and dining establishments across central London, and after his marriage to Caroline Beard, the daughter of a craftsman in Hoxton, described variously as a watchmaker, a goldsmith and a jeweller. The marriage record shows that she married from 189 Piccadilly, a public house called The Yorkshire Grey. Ashley was a Licensed Victualler at this stage and William was born at 162 Whitecross Street, off Old Street, which was the site of a pub of longstanding, The Black Boy and Still. This was a short distance from his maternal grandfather’s home in Kingsland Road where he lived with his second wife and their children, possibly over his shop, relatively new housing along a high street with a church and a hospital. Today Hoxton’s new tower blocks rise up among Victorian houses and shops that were just as smart and desirable when they were built, covering agricultural land as London’s suburbs expanded and absorbed villages and towns. This was a time when there was a public house on every corner, an essential shared space for residents in densely occupied housing, a place for adults to socialise and for business to be conducted. Ashley and Caroline’s next pub may have been in Rotherhithe as that is where their second child, Alfred, was born two years later in 1879.

Caroline was thirty-seven years old, with two young boys, when she was widowed, and it was four years before she married a man ten years her senior, a widower, at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. It was this marriage that took William, Alfred and Caroline to Hounslow, where John Gardener appears to have been an independant producer supplying shops in central London. William was now amongst soldiers who lived at or near Hounslow Barracks with their families. Once he was old enough military life abroad may have presented a more exciting alternative to one ploughing fields for cabbages and picking fruit, but it was Martha Brown who brought him back to it. In 1902 he returned to military service in South Africa, to the Transvaal, but he was at home in Hounslow at the end of that year in time for the birth of Clara. They now settled for some time at Maswell Park Terrace, with Martha’s family, but as her older relatives died it began to disperse. Alfred’s brother William was the last child to be born in Hounslow, at Heath Road.

Census records show that in 1910 Mary Ann Violet was born in Shropshire, a significant move away from the family’s support network in Middlesex and Kent, too far for it to have happened unexpectedly during a visit. This was probably a job opportunity but an unusual one in a society where you had to rely on close relatives, as the only other option was the workhouse or the limited generosity of the local parish. At thirteen Alfred’s oldest sister would have been old enough to support her mother at home, and would soon be old enough to work, but there were now seven people in the household to feed. Martha had probably worked picking crops as she was needed or able to, much as happens now when there is a demand for fruit pickers during the season. There is also evidence to suggest that her husband was developing his skills. William is often mentioned as a “carman” or “coachman”. The first is someone who delivered goods using a horsedrawn cart or van, the second is the driver of a horse drawn vehicle that carries passengers. There would always have been work for a man capable of handling horses for these purposes and it may have been better paid than market gardening. Whatever the reason for their time in Shropshire, the Keelers were back in London in 1911.

Alfred was able to watch trams pass their latest home in Studland Street, Hammersmith, where his father was still a gardener, but probably a domestic one, as this was a suburb that had already lost its market gardens to development. Residents there now bought their fruit and vegetables from shops like the one now run by William’s stepfather and his mother, along with their son, John, a short distance away in King Street. His father could use public transport to work as a clerk, a record keeper, at the Board of Trade in St. George Street, Westminster, as they lived right next to the Piccadilly Line, close to Ravenscourt Park Station. If this meant an increase in income it was needed as William and Martha now had five children under their roof. Charles was born during their time in Hammersmith but Rose may have moved out to live with and support her widowed maternal grandfather. Alfred was probably attending a local school during a more settled period. At seven years of age he had already experienced rural and suburban life, and now lived in a busy, high density area of west London.

The start of the First World War brought a return to military service for William, a reservist who may have been an active member of the Territorial Force, built up in the early years of the Twentieth Century as a defence against invasion. Alfred’s father was now in his late thirties, so eligilble for conscription, and eventually so was his oldest son, Henry. On the home front, Londoners began to feel the effects of raids by German zeppelins and aircraft in 1915, with the greatest impact felt in east and central London. In the case of Alfred’s family, it was more likely to have been a combination of cheaper rent, the guarantee of available work and access to public transport that made them move further west to South Acton. This was “Soapsud Island”, a concentration of laundries within a few blocks of mid Victorian terraced housing that was still surrounded by open fields. Acton had been associated with the laundring of clothes since the eighteenth century, when a small area became known as “Starch Green”. Just as the need for fresh produce led to market gardening in the suburbs, the growth of the hospitality industry and an increase in households with fewer staff meant that clothing and household linen was sent out to new, efficient laundries that collected and returned them as part of the service. Even less well off, busy families who lacked the time to wash their clothes could take advantage of a service that allowed them to fill a net bag with clothes once a week that would be washed together with many others and returned, still wet. They just had to hang them out to dry. Almost everyone in the streets surrounding Stirling Road, where the Keelers now lived, was employed in the industry, however young they were.

“I went part-time in the 1914-18 War. The Missus said to my mother (she was Em to them all then, you know)’Em, what’s that young Doll of yours doing with all these holidays? Bring her here, I can use her.’ Twelve years old. Of course that was in the school holidays, and when they finished, I went after school hours. Half a crown a week. We used to do the aprons on what they called a box mangle…and sometimes the roller slipped. And I went out on the back of the van if they couldn’t get a boy. I had to sit in the van while the driver picked the washing up. The police would come along and say to me, “What are you doing? and I said, ‘Waiting for my carman.'” “Soapsud Island – Memories of the Acton Laundry Trade” Compiled and edited by Jane Dewey

The whole family were probably drawn into the work, William may have worked at weekends as a carman, in addition to his job as a clerk, and Martha may have been employed to iron or wash clothes.

“I was a young lad in the 1920s. I lived in Osborne Road, South Acton, next to the Royal Laundry. I had a Saturday morning job with them. I was the vanboy on the delivery van. This was, of course, a horse-drawn van. I sat on the hampers at the back of the van to see they didn’t fall off. I had to guard the van while George was delivering. We drove from South Acton to the Chelsea area. We took large hampers of clean laundry: our route went down the Cromwell Road.” “Soapsud Island – Memories of the Acton Laundry Trade” Compiled and edited by Jane Dewey

Even if they avoided the air raids the war years were a sad time for Alfred. His grandmother, Caroline, died in 1915 and was interred at Acton Cemetery, mourned as a respected member of the community in Hammersmith. His brother, Henry, was away, serving with the 1st Battalion of his father’s old regiment, and his father was now a rifleman, with 18th London Rifle Brigade. Rose had been drawn away from the launderies to munitions work by higher pay. There were at least three sites where she might have worked while living at Stirling Road, at Park Royal, Perivale or Greenford, as she had to be less than an hour’s journey away. A set of photographs held in the London Picture Archive shows the Greenford team, including “munitionettes”, at the National Gas Filling station that was set up on the former dye factory alongside the canal, near the Black Horse pub. There was a constant demand for the shells filled there, and the work was incredibly dangerous, but in the end, it was not the war that killed Rose, it was a something that had haunted Soapsud Island long before the family came to Acton.

In 1898 a man ran to help a woman he had seen in distress in Bollo Bridge Road, staggering and waving her arms. She had been near her home in Stirling Road when the sickness she had tried to ignore overcame her at last. The kind stranger and a passing police officer witnessed the end of a mother in the last stages of tuberculosis, known as “consumption”, an illness associated with poverty and slum conditions. At the inquest it emerged that she had been unable or unwilling to ask for help to pay for a medical examination. She was carrying a bundle of clean washing and, after her death, the money found amongst her belongings was passed on so that her children could have a meal that day. The Keelers may not have been that hard up but something made the women of that family particularly vulnerable to the condition transmitted so easily in overcrowded housing. In 1918 they lost twenty year old Rose, then eight year old Violet, and finally fifteen year old Clara. Alfred’s mother had to register these deaths as his father was away, she had watched her daughters die knowing that her son and husband might not live long enough to hear the awful news. After the war the family continued to live in Stirling Road. Two more children were born, Ronald and Daisy. But Death had not done with them. In 1921, when Alfred was around eighteen years old, his mother, and then six month old Daisy both died of tuberculosis.

By this time Alfred was also employed at a laundry, but probably involved in the washing process rather then deliveries like his father and brothers. He may have begun to feel as his father had at the same age, that a military life might let him see something of the world. From this point I could not find him in records alongside family members. As they married and moved on from Stirling Road he disappeared and I believe that he left behind the sadness of what had happened there, the poverty he had no other way to escape from, and joined the regular army. Alfred was now in the Middlesex Regiment, which had undergone changes since his brother had served with them during the First World War. Over the following twenty years Alfred may have been in India, Egypt, Palestine, Shanghai and Singapore. Both the 1st and 2nd became machine gun battalions in 1937, when the 1st was posted to Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, at home, marriage had caused changes. Alfred’s father had been living with Henry and his wife but in 1935 he married a laundress. His health had begun to deteriorate and he died at Acton Hospital in 1940. A resilient man who had served as a soldier on three continents, he had turned his hand to at least three other professions in order to support his family. Alfred’s brother, William, had moved away with his wife from the old neighbourhood in Acton to new housing in Greenford, so new that some of the area must have resembled a building site, covering the land near Waxlow Manor Farm, in the rush of development during the 1930s that left swathes of the country red, white and black with Tudorbethan semis and terraces, most with their own gardens, so different from the Victorian housing that he and his siblings had called home throughout their childhoods.

If he did visit his brothers while on leave Alfred would have seen much of what is familiar to us of Greenford at its newest, especially the houses along Braund Avenue and Verulam Road. Much of it had been built from around 1929, as Greenford Road had been pushed through from Harrow to Southall. A police station, a library, parades of shops, hotels, blocks of flats and above all, new houses and gardens. The neatly trimmed privet hedges we see now had only just been planted. On a visit home Alfred may have strolled past the war memorial and wondered if there was time for a drink at the Red Lion before the film started at the Greenford Granada. Was Greenford a place he could call “home” once he retired?

It wouldn’t be long before those new windows would be criscrossed with brown tape against potential damage from air raids, and Ravenor Park would have a shelter close to the clinic, the library and the police station. By that time Alfred was in Hong Kong, perhaps believing that the war might not reach it, unaware that the British government would not use its resources to help them if it did.

“To ensure that the virtual hopelessness of the position was understood in London, General Bartholomew signalled the War Office on 13th April 1938: “In the event of wanton attack on Hong Kong, the garrison would have no option but to fight…the chances of effecting a prolonged resistance even in the best circumstances seems slight.” The War Office needed no convincing. The vulnerability of the outpost was well understood. It was again confirmed that the Hong Kong garrison would have to do the best it could with what it had. By the Summer of 1940 it was even suggested that the option be considered of reducing the garrison to cut down on the casualties they would suffer in a hopeless attempt to fight the Japanese off.” “The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Hostage to Fortune”, Oliver Lindsay with the memories of John R. Harris

For those not suffering under the burden of command there was plenty to appeal to a single man without commitments in Hong Kong, even after the war in Europe was under way, it wasn’t just that they had been posted well away from a theatre of war. Life there, for Europeans and anyone else who could afford it, was sweet. The exotic location alone must have been beyond the expectations of many of those who were posted there, especially for someone who had grown up in London.

“It is difficult to describe the pre-war beauty of Hong Kong, the New Territories and the islands both large and small amidst the sparkling sea. The stunning crimson sunsets and the bobbing lights of the distant fishing fleet sailing into the darkness before delivering their catches to us the following morning, coupled with the cheerful optimism of the friendly Chinese – of such delightful visons are memories made.” “The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Hostage to Fortune” Oliver Lindsay with the memories of John R. Harris

Their pay often bought far more than it did at home and services that might have been reserved for the wealthy in London, such as tailored clothing, were affordable. For those who had come from a United Kingdom that was already experiencing restrictions on what food and consumer goods were available the profusion of elegant hotels, resturants and clubs where life was going on as usual and despite the fact that lower ranks were denied access to some of the grander establishments a serviceman like Alfred would still have been exposed to the glamour of British colonial life. Even so it was hard for some posted there to ignore the plight of the many homeless and impoverished Chinese refugees.

Those responsible for the defence of Hong Kong were either over optimistic, suggesting that the Japanese military did not present a real threat, or determined to improve defences while they still could, even though it would achieve little. British forces had to be seen to take a stand to afford some protection to the Chinese living in the colony. Differing opinions amongst those in command as to how serious the threat was and what should be done about it seemed to result in a failure to prepare for the worst. A respected Intellgence officer, well acquainted with Japan, seemed doubtful that Hong Kong would be invaded at all. Others were frank about what was coming. The Mainland Brigade was commanded by Brigadier Cedric Wallis:

“Wallis was a slim, tough, very determined and ambitious soldier… He felt there were too many cocktail parties in Hong Kong and too ltlle time was spent in hard training. Like John Harris, he had listened to Brooke-Popham’s optimistic views. “I felt the Air Marshal must be very badly informed and making a grest mistake in belittling the Japs,” he wrote afterwards. “This sort of nonsense fitted in very nicely with what many liked to hear and believe in, as they could not bear to think that their carefree, elegant life-styles could be interfered with.” “The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Hostage to Fortune”, Oliver Lindsay with the memories of John R. Harris

When Japanese forces began moving into position some British officers carried out covert observation, on their own initiative. To them it was evident that an invasion was imminent and that the colony’s forces were outnumbered by the Japanese. Efforts had been made to prepare what was known as the Gin Drinkers Line on the mainland, in the hope that it would slow any advance by around three weeks, but the force manning it was too small. Almost two thousand Canadian troops had arrived as reinforcements without undergoing the training that might have made them a more useful addition to those already there, and some of their equipment was on a ship that had been diverted. Apart from the Middlesex Regiment’s 1st Battalion, there was the 5/7th Battalion Rajput Regiment, the 2/14th Battalion Punjab Regiment, and 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, alongside a volunteer force raised locally, as well as artillery units, Royal Navy personnel responsible for a much reduced local fleet and around a hundred members of the Royal Air Force operating a handful of antiquated aircraft. They faced a 30,000 strong Japanese force in an invasion that coincided with the attack on Pearl Harbour on the morning of 8th December 1941.

Accounts of the Battle of Hong Kong differed when an attempt was made to record what had happened by those who took part in it, even as they entered captivity, and despite knowing that the discovery of any diaries or documentation would have led to the most severe punishment. What is clear is that over a period of two weeks Hong Kong’s defenders faced a well trained, motivated and well equipped enemy, some of whom took every opportunity to display uninhibited barbarity and cruelty as they swept through Hong Kong’s defences. The mainland fell, the Gin Drinkers Line overcome immediately, and then the island, Japanese forces sweeping across the hilly terrain, despite the fierce, concerted attempt to slow their progress. Throughout the course of the fighting there were acts of self sacrifice and heroism. Some of those who fought to the last moment were the Middlesex Regiment, among the last to surrender. In 1811, at the Battle of Albuera, the regiment had earned the name “Die-hards”. They proved it again at Hong Kong.

It was on Christmas Day 1941 that approaches were made to the defending force regarding a surrender. There were now many wounded, dying and dead, the rest were exhausted after sixteen continuous days of fighting. The suffering that a failure to surrender might inflict on the civilian population could not be justified. Defenders became Prisoners of War.

For the next nine months military personnel and civilians were held in camps in Hong Kong. The conditions were appalling, nothing had been prepared for their confinement. Under such circumstances it was difficult to maintain hygiene which led to the spread of dysentry, their diet was poor, inadequate and unvaried. Discipline was enforced with extreme violence. Attempts to smuggle out information and make contact with Chinese forces began almost immediately. Where it was discovered and proved those accused of it were tortured and executed, usually by being beheaded. Medical treatment was limited, as was the supply of medication. All of this would continue for the duration of the war.

In September 1942 preparations were made for PoWs in Hong Kong to be sent to Japan to work, beginning with medical examinations to leave out anyone likely to pass on infections. Despite this, men who were already in poor health as a consequence of their treatment by their captors were deemed well enough to go. On the 27th September the freighter Lisbon Maru left carrying 800 Japanese troops and 1,816 PoWs in its three holds, including members of the First Battalion the Middlesex Regiment, with Alfred amongst them. Ships requisitioned by the Japanese authorities had been refitted as troop carriers and these began to transfer PoWs, accompanied by Naval vessels and cargo ships. None of those carrying prisoners were marked to show their status. On the Lisbon Maru the conditions were awful, those who could manage it were sometimes allowed on deck but others were too weak and there was a stench of human waste in the holds. The survivors of these journeys called them “Hellships”, with good reason.

“The ship was called the Dai Nichi Maru and we were herded aboard like cattle and pushed down into the holds in the bow and stern of the ship. In the holds, wooden platform shelving two tiers high had been constructed on all four sides and we were crammed like sardines on to and underneath these platforms together with all our possessions. The space between the tiers of platforms was less than 3 feet in height which allowed us to sit upright but not stand. The platforms were quite deep so it was necessary to crawl over the top of anyone who was in front of you. As there were men suffering from dysentery it was not the most pleasant or hygienic place to live and sleep.” “Survival of the Fittest”, Alan Carter

The British Consul in Macau had been informed that the Lisbon Maru was carrying PoWS, despite this the lack of markings advising Allied forces that they were carrying PoWs meant that they were perceived as a legitimate target, and at 07:04 on the 1st October the submarine USS Grouper began her approach towards the freighter. Her first three torpedoes missed but her fourth struck the ship without causing casualties. The ship began listing and the PoWs were shut into the foul smell and heat of the holds, along with the bodies of two men who had died of diphtheria in the first hold. The third hold had been breached and men who were operating pumps to remove seawater became unconscious because of the stifling heat and lack of air. At 17:00 a Japanese destroyer came alongside and removed their soldiers. At that point there were, apart from the PoWs, the crew and and an officer commanding 25 guards. The ship’s captain, Kyoda Shigeru, expressed concern that the PoWs shut into the hold might drown but was told not to interfere by the officer. The crew and all but five guards were now removed and the prisoners were left to drown, quite deliberately. At around 21:00 the tow rope being used to haul it towards Shanghai snapped.

There were increasingly desperate attempts to escape by the men in the holds, Royal Naval personnel in the first, Middlesex Regiment and Royal Scots in the second, and Royal Artillery in the third. A hole was made in a hatch but two men were shot and killed by the guards as they emerged. Others managed to break out through portholes. The ship now shook as it began to sink, water gushing into the holds through the open hatches, men waiting on ladders to escape through them, but part of it was resting on a sandbank in shallow water with its bows held clear. Those who were able to began to swim towards islands some distance away but they were being shot at, an action that ceased after the Japanese realised that the survivors who had managed to reach land would be witnesses to this, so they began to pull PoWs from the water. This had in fact happened. An officer who had learned a Shanghai dialect explained what had happened and that the men floating in the sea were British rather than Japanese. In an extraordinary display of humanity and bravery, the Chinese fisherman not only used their boats to rescue PoWs, they fed and clothed them, and managed to assist the escape of three of them into Free China. Eventually Japanese Marines arrived to round up the PoWs, forcing most of them to hand back their donated clothing. The survivors of the sinking of the Lisbon Maru were taken to Shanghai, reaching it on October 5th. It was later established that of the 1,816 PoWs, 843 had been shot or drowned.

“However for many POWs it was too late; they were so weakened by their treatment that 244 died during their first year in Japan. Among the dead was Lieutenant Colonel Stewart. Thus, of the original 1,816 POWs only 724 survived.” “The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Hostage to Fortune”, Oliver Lindsay with the memories of John R. Harris

The experience had done little to diminish the spirit of the “Die Hards” as they were introduced to the one of the routines of life in a labour camp, responding to their own number in Japanese during roll calls:

“A couple of practice runs ensured that everyone knew his number and when the first real count began it went very well until the numbering reached a group of Middlesex Regiment privates, all of whom were true cockneys from London’s East End and were sitting on the upper tatami directly opposite to where I sat. When the numbering reached them the first man froze – his number had obviously gone out of his head – there was a moment of awkward silence, then with typical cockney quick-wittedness he rapidly improvised and shouted ‘hearts’ whereupon the next man called ‘diamonds’ and there followed ‘spades’, clubs’ and ‘no trumps’ in quick succession. It brought the house down for despite our perilous position the spontaneous laughter was irrepressible. It drove the Japs mad and they lashed out at all and sundry with rifle butts and boots.” “Prisoner of the Rising Sun” Stanley Wort

In his account of his time as a POW Alan Carter describes his eventual arrival in cold, wintery northern Japan. The unwashed, unshaven Pows attracted considerable attention from the civilian population. They were issued with Japanese military clothing before they were put to work. In Alan’s case this meant shifts at the naval shipyard, as well as loading and unloading cargoes. By this time it was clear that they would have to steal food to survive as, despite the hard labour they undertook, they were fed starvation rations. On one occasion Alan and several others stole cans of crayfish but had to eat all forty-eight of them and dispose of the packaging without being caught. PoWs found ways of concealing food when on these work parties, one man hid a large frozen fish between his legs which the guards mistook for something else when they searched him. They took considerable risks in doing this, it could result in severe beatings and punishments that exacerbated their already poor state of health. Prisoners were dying of malnutrition, dysentery and a condition called beri-beri that results from vitamin deficiencies, a consequence of their being fed white polished rice, with no fresh fruit or vegetables, for a prolonged period.

“I can speak with some authority on the subject of beri-beri as I was one of the unfortunate people to contract this. The first I knew of it was when my fingers started to swell up, then my toes. At first I thought I had caught frostbite but as the days passed I found that my boots were getting harder to put on, my ankles had swollen and I was constantly thirsty. I reported sick but the Jap medical orderly would not let me stay off work because I could still walk. Therefore I had to go out in the certain knowledge that, by the time I returned, my limbs would have swollen a bit more.” “Survival of the Fittest”, Alan Carter

Alan was allowed to remain in camp when the swelling was so severe that he could not wear his clothing. After a month he felt he had to return to work somehow or die. He altered his clothes for comfort and, with help, went back to work. The timing of what happened seems a near miraculous coincidence. During a break he noticed a haversack containing a guard’s belongings and stole the large bottle of brown pills he found in it. He consumed all of them and began to feel the effects of recovery, sweating profusely and emptying his bladder repeatedly as his body lost the fluid that had built up in it.

“Stealing the tablets had been a risk as I could have been caught. Eating them had been a bigger gamble but God must have been with me that day. Fortunately I did not have a relapse nor did I ever suffer from beri-beri again.” “Survival of the Fittest”, Alan Carter

Physical survival was a daily struggle, but for some the psychological effects of imprisonment undermined any ground they gained in finding food or recovering from inevitable sickness. It took years for letters from home to reach prison camps and for many they provided a much needed boost to their morale, however some contained bad news, such as the death of a loved one. That alone could remove the will to live. The strength of mind that many of these men displayed for four years in an effort to return home, despite every setback and deprivation, is extraordinary.

Stanley Wort’s experience probably resembled Alfred’s more closely, as he was sent to Nagoya, much further south than Alan Carter’s camp in Hakodate, and closer to Osaka where Alfred was sent. News from the outside world was difficult to come by, as newspapers were only useful if someone with him understood Japanese. Eventually there was an indicator that the war was turning in favour of the Allies – the sight of B29 bombers, as their range from the areas taken by US forces began to extend to Japan. He would not know this for some time, but the Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the plane that would deliver the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In the meantime he was forced to see more of them than he wanted to:

“The B29s flew on a steady course during the bombing run before turning left and climbing away. Succeeding waves did the same except that each one seemed to move closer to us. It was as if they were mowing a lawn strip by strip but without turning and doing the reciprocal runs. The attack was well organised for as the last plane of one wave turned and climbed away, the first B29 of the next wave started its run and each one came closer and closer to where we sat. We were between a rock and a hard place for if we moved the Japs would machine gun us and if we sat still it seemed inevitable that firebombs would rain down on us. By the time the attacking aircraft were over the centre of the town the fires started by their predecessors had created a firestorm. It was sucking in so much air that it caused strong sand-laden wind to sweep across the compound where we were sitting, stinging our faces.” “Prisoner of the Rising Sun” Stanley Wort

Alfred had survived four years of brutality, starvation and humiliation at the hands of his captors but those who sought to defeat them were the ones who killed him. An Allied air raid on the 14th August caused fatal injuries and he died on the day that Japan surrendered, 15th August 1945. He came so close to freedom. His body was cremated but the surrender meant that the usual protocols were not followed, his ashes were stored at a Buddhist temple rather than being sent to a PoW burial ground. Three months later, in November 1945, they were interred at Acton Cemetery in London. So many families found that the remains of their relatives were in the most remote and distant burial grounds of the Second World War, in places they could not hope to visit. It may have been some small comfort that the Keelers had their brother with them in the family’s burial ground.

it has been suggested that those who were in captivity in the Far East were forgotten in the joy and excitement of VE Day, when fascism was defeated in Europe. The suffering of those who survived was often hidden by their families, who did not speak of a husband who felt unable to sleep on a bed for two years after their return. They did not attempt to explain the rage their fathers felt if they bought a television set made in Japan. To many who did not understand, it was time to forget and move on, the persistent anger seemed extreme and unnecessary. There was a failure to recognise that while they may not have been on a battlefield while imprisoned, they fought and won every single day, by surviving. If they’d been awarded medals for every joke told at the expense of their captors, for every bruise from a rifle butt, for every morsel of food denied them, for their courage, their medal bars would have rung with them. They have been as silent in their suffering as the man whose ashes are in a quiet corner of a cemetery in west London but I will always hear them now.

Dedicated to the children and relatives of Far East Prisoners of War, who have done so much to keep the memory of their sacrifice alive and ensure that their suffering and resistance is remembered.

Text © Albertina McNeill 2025 with the exception of quotations. Do not reproduce without written permission on each occasion. All rights reserved. Do not add text or images to Pinterest or similar sites as this will be regarded as a violation of copyright.

My thanks to:
Piotr Stolarski, Library Assistant (Local Studies and Archives), The London Borough of Hounslow
Howard Anderson, 1st Middlesex
“Prisoner of the Rising Sun”, Stanley Wort, Pen and Sword.
“The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Hostage to Fortune”, Oliver Lindsay with the memories of John R. Harris, Spellmount
“Survival of the Fittest”, Alan Carter – available here.

WW2TV “Jardine’s Lookout Hong Kong 1941”
“Soapsud Island – Memories of the Acton Laundry Trade” Compiled and edited by Jane Dewey
Carters, Carriers, Carmen and Cabbies
Pubwiki
The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) National Army Museum
Hounslow Barracks, Wikipedia
COFEPOW
British Newspaper Archive
Ancestry
Lost Hospitals of London