Page 94 - All About History - Issue 09-14
P. 94
ALL ABOU
T
The ‘Death Railway’ linking
Thailand and Burma
YOUR HISTORY
O O
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O AMAZING STORIES O Sergeant Harry Russell Ingle
PLUS: before he was captured in WWII
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WE WANT YOUR... Charlotte Clementson grow through their bodies, slowly torturing them.
Photos My grandpa, Harry Russell Ingle, He said he had watched soldiers have bamboo
Scans of snaps that passed away when I was aged 15. splints hammered down their fingernails and that
offer insight to the past He never talked about his past many soldiers were electrocuted as they were
even though I had tried to ask forced to work through storms while building the
Antiques and him about it several times. He railway in Thailand and Burma.
objects had worked on the Cambridgeshire Fens as a boy, I know he was shot in the lower leg at one point
Show off your family heirlooms, working in the fields. I knew he was in the Suffolk as he used to show his scar, although he did not
mementos and retro curios Regiment 5th Battalion during WWII, that he had talk about why. Grandpa was taken to several
Letters from the past worked on the ‘Death Railway’ in Burma and was concentration camps. He made a detailed map of
Old correspondence can hold a wealth of a prisoner of war and had been taken to Japan, the camp with labelled sections and where each
historical info and fascinating stories Thailand, Singapore and several other countries. It nationality was kept in the camp. It shows the
is only after asking my grandma more questions kitchens and where the animals were kept, and
News clippings about it that more facts have come to light and the Japanese areas are labelled as ‘administration’.
Articles reporting on iconic events some truly amazing letters and artefacts have been He was starved, which affected him until the day
shared. I find it very sad to think that he kept all he died; I remember he would let no food ever
Amazing stories this hidden for so many years after it happened. go to waste and would eat anything instead of it
Interesting or insightful tales passed He went abroad to fight during World War II going in the bin. I have seen pictures of people in
down from your ancestors
and was made a sergeant. He was captured by the newspapers that were taken from the death camp
Eyewitness accounts Japanese and forced to work on the Death Railway and they looked like skeletons. Grandpa has some
Did you witness a historic event in and in factories from 1942 to 1945. One of the amazing artefacts, which my grandma still has
person? Share it today camps he was held at was Kanose Branch Camp today. He and another prisoner, Private LF Wallace,
(Tokyo 16-B). He was starved and beaten and saw made a pipe while in the camp. A Japanese soldier
Family trees many of his friends die. He used to tell me the befriended him and grandma has a pouch with
A chance to boast about famous or odd story, such as when Japanese troops would tie his tobacco in it that the soldier had given him. He
significant ancestors soldiers to the ground over bamboo and it would brought back his ‘uniform’ that he had to wear too.
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