105 KM CAMP, BURMA – THE DESPAIR OF POWS

TOM FAGAN POW DIARY 105 Kilo Camp June-July 1943 – NX47533 Lance Corporal T H Fagan, 105 General Transport Company (formed
Egypt 1941)

FAGAN WAS RETURNING FROM MIDDLE-EAST EXPECTING TO SAIL TO AUSTRALIA – BUT INSTEAD WAS ‘DUMPED’ AT JAVA & THERE TAKEN POW OF JAPAN MARCH 1942.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE WORDS OF TOTAL DESPAIR FELT AT 105KM CAMP BY TOM FAGAN  – AROUND HIM MEN ARE STARVING, ILL AND DYING- THERE SEEMS TO BE NO END AND NO HOPE, FAGAN WAS SENT TO BURMA END OF RAILWAY WITH WORK PARTY FROM JAVA. 

105 KM  – ‘A’ FORCE CAMP

5 June 1943 – Cholera has broken out and four men died last night (including WX10366 Norm FRASER 2/4th MGB) others are being isolated in a hut to be monitored.  The orderlies are doing a marvellous job nursing them at the risk of their lives. 

WX10366 Norm FRASER

Driver with ‘C’ Company, 11 Platoon, 2/4th MGB AIF 8th Division.

Norm was father to 3 children.

WX10164 RUSSELL, Douglas Norman (Doug or Rusty) enlisted whilst working as a bank clerk for Commonwealth Bank, Mt Magnet 18 Dec 1940.

He joined ‘B’ Coy 8 Platoon.

As POW in Singapore Russell  left with first work party ‘A’ Force Burma, Green Force No. 3 Battalion with Norm Fraser (above).

Russell died of cerebral malaria aged 28 years at Aungangaung 105km Hospital Camp 21 Jan 1944.

See ‘B’ Coy 8 Platoon

Please read further about 105 Km Camp 

Also the story of ‘A’ Force Burma

10 June 43 – Four things govern our lives – RAIN, MUD, RICE and WORK.

It breaks my heart to see so many starving and unhealthy men.

Hundred are just lying on their bed-spaces, unable to move or fend for themselves.  Dysentery, malaria, pellagra and malnutrition are making inroads upon so many already weakened and crippled.

Those of us who survive will always remember the railroad of death and our barbaric tormentors, who put us through hell and caused the death of so many of our mates.

Very few have footwear, our legs filthy masses of tropical ulcers that run from knee to ankle.  The only treatment is boiling water packs.  The greatest fear is gangrene.  (There are no bandages or cloth of any kind.  Not even rice bags to cover their ulcers. No Medicines.)

I hate and despise these barbaric Japanese, and the just as sadistic Korean guards for the suffering they mete out to humans, and animals and birds.  There is no end to the lengths to which they’ll go to inflict pain.  I seeth with fury as I feel and see their bursts of cruelty. 

(One cannot help but feel Tom Fagan’s absolute and total despair for their situation)

In pre-war days, or more particularly before becoming POWs of Japan, no-one could have ever convinced me I would see grown, supposedly educated men, go to such lengths to cause hardship and horror, or to perpetuate, deliberately, demoniacal acts of unbelievable violence towards men, women, children or animal life.

Tom Fagan wrote the following:  He had landed in Java sailing home from Middle East supposedly to Australia!

Just a few points on Java and some of the things I have seen there. I am writing this while I am a prisoner of War in Batavia. Taken prisoner March 9th, 1942. We landed here in Java 19th February from the Middle East. We were all very disappointed and disgusted to land here as we were under the impression that we were on our way home to defend our own shores from invasion. One has to learn to swallow pride and disappointments in the Army where one is so often messed about. As I write this, maybe I am a little bitter at the way we have been dumped here, set an impossible task and then left high and dry without any support from our Allies. Besides the Australians, there are Americans, Punjabs and Tommies here, making a total somewhere near 12,000 we are all told. There are Dutch here of course, but I have yet to hear of where they have done any fighting on this island. I will start this book from Christmas day in Syria 1941 and try and memorise all my moves since then to the present time. 

CHRISTMAS DAY – 1941 This is my first Christmas day away from my wife and I am spending it in our camp at Haddett in Syria. The village is situated on the slopes of a mountain and just outside of Beirut. It is a day that I will remember for quite a while. Where we had a roasting day in Australia last year, we are freezing here today and there is quite a lot of snow on the hills. We were fortunate as we were able to procure some very good Aussie beer, which helped to make things more pleasant.

You can read further

We wish to acknowledge and thank Jan Hunter, Albury and District Historical Society Papers No 31 ISSN 1835 5455, and the Fagan Family for their work in printing Tom Fagan’s words – so that we, the second and third generations of Australia’s 8th Division can learn and never forget what depths of despair our young soldiers reached in such horrific camps and during such dark days and with incredible strength, overcame.