Changi Prisoner of War Camp

At 8.30 p.m. on Sunday 15th February 1942, the British Army suffered its single greatest ever defeat when Lieutenant General A.E. Percival surrendered Singapore Island to the invading Japanese forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The cost to the British was enormous, with total casualties numbering 138,708 of whom over 130,000 were taken prison of war. 40,000 of these prisoners were taken to Changi, a notorious Japanese prisoner of war camp, where they suffered out the rest of the war until September 1945 when Japan surrendered.

It is said that the conditions at Changi were harsh and deplorable. The Japanese justified these conditions by saying that since the prisoners of war had surrendered they therefore should be treated as such for dishonouring their country by surrendering. I could go into the history of the events surrounding this part of the war but suffice it to say, that the defeat at Singapore was considered one of the greatest defeats in the history of the British Army and probably Britain’s worst defeat in World War Two.

During this period of time, thousands of the men were slaughtered, thousands died of disease and thousands died building infrastructures such as the Burma-Thailand railway and the bridge over the river Kwai.

My grandfather spent three and a half years at Changi. My mother was just a little girl when he went off to war to serve “Queen and County.” When he returned to his family, he was just a fraction of the size that he was when he left. My mother often said that he was never the same upon his return. I think it safe to say that nobody who is seen battle or a POW camp can ever possibly be the same. During those years when he was a prisoner, they never knew whether he was dead or alive and it wasn’t until the war was over and they received official notification that he had survived, that they could breathe with relief.

One of my mother’s memories was going with her mother to be present for the arrival of her father after the war. At one point, they could not find him and, as fear cropped up into their hearts, they received word that his ship had arrived at another pier. With great relief, they rushed over to the correct pier. While trying to track him down, they walked right by him due to the fact that he was gaunt and malnourished. It wasn’t until he reached out and grabbed a hold of my grandmother, did they realize that he was most definitely alive. The first thing that my mother did was to blurt out how skinny her father had become. My grandmother’s response was to elbow her on her arm and tell her to be quiet!

Norman Hector Vaas, my grandfather returned home and lived for another ten or so years until he died in 1955 when my mother was 24.

I had often heard of the stories of how my Grandfather, who I never had the honour of meeting, survived the war. When I was younger, my mother gave me his duffle bag that he used to carry whatever belongings he had from Changi. I still have it. He was an avid reader and writer. Throughout his stay at Changi, he managed to keep a diary of his experiences there… I so wish that diary was still in existence for I would have loved to read of his experiences.

I never had the opportunity to meet most of the relatives on my mother’s side and even less on my father’s side but the stories I have heard about them, I shall never forget… I only wish that, whilst a teenager, I had been more attentive to those stories. Had I know how much they would mean to me when I got older, I would have asked a lot more questions.

Suffice it to say, I am proud of my grandfather’s bravery to fight for what he believed in and the courage he had to survive.