WX9055 HARRY PICKETT enlisted 25 October 1940, became Signaller with Headquarters Company.
As a POW in Singapore he was part of ‘A’ Force Burma Green Force No. 3 Battalion which sailed from Singapore to south west coast of Burma where the POWs would work on airfields for several months before making their way to the Burma end of the Burma-Thai Railway. The men worked on this rail link until the end of 1943 when the Japanese began moving all the POWs working in Burma, south to one of the larger camps in Thailand.
Having survived the railway, Harry was selected by the Japanese as being ‘fit’ to sail to Japan to work. After much ‘to and fro’ which included a train trip into French Indo China and working at Saigon to wait for a ship, Harry’s group known as ‘Rakuyo Maru’ then returned to Singapore by train, where again they worked at the docks whilst waiting for a ship to take them to Japan!
Please read further about the sinking of Rakuyo Maru’
As well as the story of ‘Pampanito’
