Page 91 - History of War - Issue 01-14

FREDDY SPENCER CHAPMAN

a defi nite whistle. A train was approaching fast. derail a train – and he was worried that they bomb could be set off automatically by a trip-
But they mislaid the pliers and Sartin had no were running out of explosives. Leu Kim brought wire. Sartin prepared a 5lb bomb in an 18-inch
time to set the switch. He connected the main them fresh detonators, fuses and several section of bamboo with a pull-switch. They
fuse to a simple detonator on top of the rail. hundred pounds of gelignite from a friend in tin- found a good position for an ambush, where
The train got so close that they could see mining. But they were using a hundred pounds the rubber trees grew up to the roadside and
its “dark mass” as they raced along the of explosives a night, and risking capture by the a bank gave shelter against the bomb blast.
track, gaining on them until they slid down stepped-up Japanese patrolling of the railway, The railway line would allow a speedy getaway.
the embankment and fell into a foul-smelling whilst their arsenal of tommy-gun ammunition and Fifty charges operated by time pencils were
swamp. The explosion battered their eardrums hand grenades went untouched. Freddy decided set on the sleepers at the junctions of rail
a moment later, shaking the mud under their to look for targets on the main road instead. lengths, so that both rails would be damaged.
feet, before lapsing into a ferocious shriek and Then the men took up ambush positions on the
grinding of metal. Missiles roared over their Frightening sight road. A bamboo charge was put in the middle
heads and crashed into the swamp – lumps of Route One ran from Singapore through Kuala of the road. Sartin held the wire. He was to pull
coal or metal or bits of body, they could not tell. Lumpur and on up to the Thai border. It skirted it when Freddy tapped him on the back. Freddy
The train “dragged itself slowly over the bridge”, the Main Range, which rolled to its east in an and Harvey would then throw two grenades
clanking with distress. The cab of the locomotive unbroken line, fi rst black against the rising apiece, and empty their guns into the target,
went slowly past, crowded with Japanese troops. sun, then purple with heat and bruised with before making off up the railway line.
It came to a halt a little further up. rain clouds as the day wore on. Rubber estates As they waited “in intense excitement”, the
The two terrifi ed Tamil drivers came back bordered it for much of its length from Tanjong fi rst of their railway charges exploded. They
down the line with an escort of Japanese, who Malim to Ipoh. In places, it passed the red scars heard a train coming from the north, but it
fl ashed their torches at the goods wagons as and derelict moon landscapes of old tin tailings. stopped at Tanjong Malim. Suddenly, they heard
they passed. Freddy covered them with his Most of the daylight traffi c was made up of lorries on the road and Freddy counted six sets
gun but they did not see him. They satisfi ed Japanese lorries, staff cars, motorcycles and of headlights coming towards them. He waited
themselves that the train was out of action, and cycle troops moving south. The few civilian until the lead vehicle was almost on them and
set off south down the line for Tanjong Malim. pedestrians and cyclists disappeared at night. tapped Sartin’s shoulder. The bomb exploded
Large convoys of trucks and staff cars moved beneath the truck’s fuel tank, illuminating the
south through the small hours. They drove ambush site like a stage set. A second truck
THE BOMB EXPLODED BENEATH very fast with full headlights and little interval crashed into the wreckage, and a third slewed
THE TRUCK’S FUEL TANK, between them, “just asking to be ambushed”, sideways under violent braking. Harvey emptied
his tommy gun. Freddy threw his grenades and
Freddy thought. They came across their fi rst
ILLUMINATING THE AMBUSH target by chance, as they were returning from fi red, and “found myself racing down the path,
fl oodlit by the funeral pyre of the Jap lorries”.
setting time charges on the railway. Six trucks
SITE LIKE A STAGE SET were parked in the grass beside the road. Their ready, and the three reached the railway line
The Japanese did not have their weapons
sidelights were switched off and there were no
signs of sentries. Harvey heard snoring coming before the enemy opened fi re. But a frightening
Freddy climbed out of the swamp as the from them. They worked from truck to truck, sight came into view. “We saw a party of men
Japanese left. Water and steam were gushing pushing explosives between the crank cases with lanterns a hundred yards up the track,”
out of the engine onto the line. Harvey threw a and clutch. It took them an hour, working in said Freddy. It was a Japanese patrol sent down
grenade into the fi rebox, and they took cover as silence. They connected the charges with four from Tanjong Malim to investigate the earlier
it exploded. The brick abutments were damaged, feet of safety fuse, giving them two minutes to explosion, and they opened fi re. The trio plunged
and the foot-thick girders of the bridge were cut get clear. Freddy was disappointed that none through the rubber, the night “hideous with the
in two. It was getting light and they sped away of the trucks caught fi re in the explosions, but noise of rifl e, machine-gun and even mortar fi re”.
through the rubber, slackening their pace when noted that neither the trucks nor the drivers were They were in real peril as visible targets for less
they regained thick jungle. They heard the time- “much further use to the Japanese war effort”. than a minute, but the Japanese kept on fi ring
pencil charges exploding for hours afterwards. They invented a new bomb to use on the for over an hour. Once they were safely past the
Leu Kim brought them reports later of the two road. Several hundred pounds of gelignite had coolie lines on the Escot Estate, the three got
wrecked trains still lying on their sides. Freddy deteriorated in the heat, so badly that the nitro- their breath back, congratulating themselves on
still feared that they were not hurting the enemy glycerine was seeping out of it. It was unstable a successful – “though terrifying” – ambush.
as hard as they should. Blown road bridges had but they were reluctant to dump it. Sartin was Freddy fretted over ambush techniques. The
barely made the Japanese pause during their storing it in lengths of bamboo. It struck them Japanese were alerted by now – they thought
advance, and their emergency rail gangs soon that a length of bamboo lying on the road would that several hundred British and Australians
had damaged track up and running again. He not be noticed. The explosive inside it could be were on the loose. In truth, they were three
feared that locomotives could jump a six-foot detonated by a pull-switch, set off by a length men living rough. The convoys they were
gap in a rail – he thought cutting both rails for of wire pulled by the bomber lying at a safe attacking could contain a cavalry of 170 men –
at least ten feet was the minimum needed to distance. If there was no cover for him, the outnumbering them by more than 50 to one.

1945

1944
11 MAY 25 JULY NOVEMBER JANUARY 27 APRIL 13 MAY
Chapman is captured by After spending over two Chapman, Davis and Chapman succumbs to The three men set off to Chapman swims out to a
a Japanese patrol during months in the jungle alone, Broome manage to rig his worst illness yet, and make the prearranged submarine and is rescued.
his search for British and having been struck up a wireless set, is immobilised for almost rendezvous for 13 May.
ethnologist Pat Noone, but down repeatedly by illness, whereupon they hear three weeks. Davis and They are forced to travel
persuades the Japanese Chapman finds his way news of Allied success in Broome build a two-way by way of rigorous trekking

officer not to kill him by back to Davis and Broome. Europe and the Far East. radio and transmit a and paddling.
claiming he has lost his message to Ceylon for
Japanese friend and is reinforcements and rescue.
not an enemy to them. He
escapes during the night
back into the jungle.
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