Page 92 - History of War - Issue 01-14

FOR VALOUR

Unsung heroes By now, Freddy said, “our muscles and nerves They counted seven lorries going past, full
could stand no more”. They felt exhilarated and of Japanese with their weapons at the ready.
alive – and that was the danger. The greatest They presumed that the garrison at Tanjong
risk in living dangerously, Freddy wrote, be Malim, still convinced they were up against
it “rock-climbing, driving a motor car fast, or “hundreds” of Australians and British, felt they
shooting tigers or Japs”, came when vigilance needed reinforcements from Kuala Kubu to
became prey to over-confi dence and exhaustion. deal with the saboteurs. After a bend, Route
Each raid took 12 hours or so, and they had to One runs dead straight through the little town
cover as many miles in careful silence, carrying of Kerling, with the usual rows of shop-houses
50lb packs. They were short of explosives and and a Chinese temple. Though there was no
fuses, and would have to go to the Sungei moon or streetlights, lightning was playing
Sempan dump to get more. The Japanese over the mountains a few miles to the east,
had massacred Chinese in several kampongs and they were terribly exposed as they tiptoed
close to Tanjong Malim in retaliation for their along the pavement past padlocked stalls and
casualties. Leu Kim told Freddy that they had shop-houses. Wooden verandas hung over the
held back 2,000 men – two regiments – at pavement from the fi rst fl oor of the buildings,
Tanjong Malim and Kuala Kubu specifi cally to and they heard the “heavy breathing and snoring”
hunt him. They had posted sentries on all the of sleepers as they passed beneath them.
rail bridges, and their patrols were getting closer They were safely through the town when fresh
to the kongsihouse. Leu Kim could not sleep headlights showed on the road behind them.
for worry of what would happen to him and his There was only seedling rubber at the roadside
LIEUTENANT family if they so much as suspected him. here, but it offered some camoufl age and they
ran into it. They did not see the barbed wire
Freddy couldn’t be sure what he had achieved,
COLONEL FREDDY in darkness illuminated only by explosions and fence protecting it. “For God’s sake, keep still!”
Freddy cried as they became entangled in it.
burning fuel. His best guess was seven or eight
Headlights “fl oodlit” them as the trucks passed,
trains derailed, 15 bridges damaged, rail track
SPENCER CHAPMAN cut in about 60 places, and 40 trucks and cars possibly returning from the wrecked train site.
damaged or destroyed. He put the casualties
The three men hung on the wire in strange
infl icted at between 500 and 1,500 Japanese.
poses. A barb entered Freddy’s forehead, giving
At the least, he felt he had proved that his him a scar. They had blackened their faces, and
orn in 1907 and orphaned by the age of nine, “mad fortnight” had fully justifi ed the idea of
Chapman was brought up in the Lake District stay-behind parties. Had he been given a large “FOR GOD’S SAKE, KEEP
by an elderly vicar and his wife, and it was here number of British offi cers, backed by Chinese
that he nurtured his rugged durability, stamina volunteers, and Malays and Indians, he was sure STILL!” FREDDY CRIED AS
Band resourcefulness. Throughout school and his that they would have slowed down the Japanese
education at Cambridge University, Chapman pushed enough to have allowed the British 18th Division THEY BECAME ENTANGLED
himself into mountainous treks and extended expeditions and the Australian 9th Division to have gone
into the British countryside. During his twenties, he into action. As it was, the British arrived in IN THE BARBED WIRE
ventured to the Arctic, Greenland and the Himalayas, where Singapore just in time to be taken prisoner,
he further honed his survival skills before the outbreak and the Australians got no further than Java.
of the Second World War. After taking teaching jobs in their uniforms were dark with mud, but they
the Scottish Highlands and Singapore between 1941 and Boyish temptation thought that their guns and square packs must
1942, Chapman received the news that the Japanese By dusk on 15 February, there was no sign of catch the eye. The trucks did not stop, however.
had invaded Malaya, whereupon he disappeared into the the Chinese guerrillas (the fugitives did not They reached the town of Kuala Kubu at four
Malayan jungle with a group of hastily trained guerillas. know it but Chin Peng, a rising star in the Perak in the morning. The Japanese had taken over
Chapman and his comrades spent the next two and Communist Party, was cycling to catch them the European bungalows on the outskirts. The
a half years behind enemy lines in the jungle, sabotaging before they left, but his bicycle broke down lights were still burning, and they could see
Japanese advances through the destruction of valuable on the way and he was two hours late). So fi gures moving about through the windows. They
bridges and vehicles, a campaign that saw the killing of the three Englishmen set off to return to the heard singing, probably to celebrate the victory
between 500 and 1,500 Japanese soldiers. As time wore goldmine camp. To stay any longer would put in Singapore, though it would be two days before
on, Chapman found himself fighting alone, and he was

repeatedly struck down with medical conditions including Leu Kim in ever greater danger, and it would the fugitives learnt that the island had fallen.
malaria, blackwater fever and exhaustion. Despite his be unsafe to try to get past the Japanese Beyond the town, they found a woodcutter’s
previous training and expeditions, nothing could have garrison at Kuala Kubu near dawn. Each man path leading steeply up off the road into jungle.
prepared him for the humid, swampy conditions and the was carrying a tommy gun, a 20lb pack and A stream fl owed down next to it, and they found
vast, uninhabitable landscape of the Malayan jungle. 30lb of explosives, with which to bid farewell open ground to spread out their groundsheets
He did, however, find himself in the protection of to the Japanese. and sleep. Sartin fi xed up a booby trap and they

Chinese guerillas who had suffered terrible fates at the They put a 35lb charge on the railway line as slept all the next day, 16 February, before setting
hands of Japanese soldiers. The Chinese rebels nursed they crossed it after emerging from the Escot off for the Gap once it was dark. The last time
Chapman and supplied him with food and artillery to aid Estate. Sartin dug it in a foot below a sleeper Freddy had been on the road, at the beginning
his mission.
After more than three years in the jungle, Chapman and connected it to pressure switches on both of January, he had swept up in the powerful Ford
made his escape by way of submarine after making radio rails. They had only got half a mile, to the bridge V8. They had 17 miles to cover now, and 2,500
contact with British forces. carrying the main road over the track, when feet to climb, and they tried to rest their legs by
Chapman wrote of his experiences in a book called they heard a train coming towards them from stealing onto the back of a bullock cart that a
The Jungle Is Neutral, published after the war had ended. the south. It passed them as they hid below Tamil was driving up the road. All went well until
, published after the war had ended.
He later married and had three children, and was given
He later married and had three children, and was given the parapet – Freddy almost succumbing to he turned and saw three tall white men in fi lthy
the Distinguished Service Order. Chapman the boyish temptation of dropping a grenade rags nursing tommy guns on the back. He let
returned to the teaching profession, becoming
returned to the teaching profession, becoming down its funnel – and chugged on. They had a off a great scream and fl ed away into the dark.
headmaster at schools in Germany “magnifi cent grandstand view” from the parapet Freddy had fondly imagined that ‘any fool could
and South Africa, but retired early
owing to ill health. On 8 August 1971,
owing to ill health. On 8 August 1971, of the great fl ash and explosion as lumps of drive a pair of bullocks’. He found that the three
Chapman shot himself in the metal whizzed through the air. The train came of them could not get the beasts to budge an inch.
head after suffering one of the
head after suffering one of the off the track but it did not overturn, and Freddy The road steepens as it climbs and winds.
periodic bouts of depression
periodic bouts of depression thought it was probably an empty goods train. Its great beauties – glimpses of a lake through
that had plagued him since The rubber trees come right up to the the mighty trees, and the tumbling waters of the
that had plagued him since
his Cambridge University roadside towards Kalumpang, and the men were Sungei Selangor – were hidden in the darkness.
his Cambridge University
days. He was 64 years old.
days. He was 64 years old. able to duck into them when they saw headlights The men grew exhausted and they could not stay
approaching from the south half an hour later. awake when they paused for a rest. They found
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