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All the Information in the ‘FEPOW Family’ belongs to the writer and are not ‘Public Domain’. Permission must be obtained before any part is copied or used.
Killed in Action
Royal Army Medical Corps
196 Field Ambulance
History
by
Clayton Ford
From the ‘Far Eastern Heroes’
Dedicated to the memory of 7368909 Private Robert Joseph Ungless.
Compiled by Ron Taylor
Thailand-Burma Railway
On 26th June Captain Davies led men of the 196 Field Ambulance to Banpong. Thailand, this was the start of the notorious railway that was to run for 415km, across dense jungle, through sheer rock and over rivers, all cut by hand and some explosives. The men of the 196 were sent to various places along the railway, even as far as the border with Burma.
Driver Arthur Merricks (RASC attached 196) escaped from Banpong, Thailand on 29/07/42 with Sgt Peter Yapp (RASC), but they were both recaptured within 24 hours. A local villager had reported their presence to the Thai Police. They were both sent to Singapore after being brutally punished and Merricks was sentenced to four and half years of solitary confinement at Outran Road Gaol. Merricks escaped again on 07/11/43, from Changi, what happened after this is not known, but he is listed as having died the following day.
Some of the men of the 196 who worked on the railway, found themselves travelling to the furthest point in the Railway at Thanbuyzayat, with the ill fated “F” Force. 3600 British and 3400 Australian POW’s worked there between April 1943 and April 1944. Lt-Col. Huston was part of this force. Over 60% of the British soldiers who worked there died. The 196 mostly worked at Hospitals in Sonkurai, Thailand and Tanbaya, Burma. Corporal Doug Skippen was busy typing an atrocity report in Tanbaya when the chief of the Kempeitai came in and asked him how long it would take to type a passage of the Geneva convention up. Corporal Skippen calmly removed the atrocity report, placed it down and told him around 20 mins. The Kempeitai Chief left and Corporal Skippen was then informed who the man was.
Most of the men of the 196 continued in their roles as medical Orderlies and worked in the ‘hospitals’ at the camps. However, 43 of the 266 men died in captivity.
Many of the 196 Field Ambulance won praise from officers and patients who were looked after by them, and many put themselves at risk of catching cholera, particularly at No.2 camp where Sergeant Ken Clarkson helped Sergeant Wardmaster through an epidemic of the disease where up to 30 men a day died.
Special Parade
By Fred Taylor
The bugle played the men fell in
Some of them tired and all of them thin,
Patched up shirts and shorts they wore,
Some with less, but none with more,
Bandaged arms and legs by scores,
Old rags that covered their ulcered sores,
Others straight from the malaria bed
With pains in their feet and in their head,
Everyone who could walk was there.
Dark sunken eyes fixed in a stare.
In two lines the men fell in,
And not one was wearing a grin,
Everyone was grim and stern
You wonder why, well you shall learn,
Not a word on that parade was spoken,
Not a word or familiar joke,
Jesting and joking were far apart
For each one there had an ache in his heart.
No funeral march with it's plaintive verse,
No gun carriage there to act as a hearse,
The coffin was carried shoulder high
By four of his pals with a tear in their eye,
The coffin was just a box of wood,
Not a flower or wreath to make it look good,
But the Union Jack was in evidence there
And stopped the box from looking bare.
With steps the procession passed by,
And with it the lad who was sent here to die,
Twelve months of suffering and toil,
Only to be buried on Thailand soil.
But his soul has risen to the heavens above
And with it goes his friends great love,
He's gone to a billet far better then ours
A haven of rest and happy hours,
The parade dismissed and one could note
Every one there had a lump in his throat.
Life it passes like sand through the hand
But the way they saluted, pal it was grand.
Frederick Noel Taylor, 4th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment
(Also in the June Mainland Party to Thailand)
(Written 1943-44 as a Japanese POW, in Thailand)
The railway tracks from Burma and Thailand were joined at Konkoita in October 1943.
The price paid 12,614 Allied deaths
Plus an estimated 80,000 Romusha (Native Labour) deaths.
Death Roll
Thailand-Burma Railway
| |
Died
|
Name
|
Service/No
|
 |
1943/02/28
|
Brown, John Robert
|
T/168164
|
|
1943/03/12
|
Hatcher, Robert James
|
T/222085
|
|
1943/05/07
|
Gilson, Leonard Samuel
|
T/175394
|
|
1943/06/07
|
Belton, Arthur Reginald
|
7374104
|
|
1943/06/09
|
Lay, Arthur Charles (Babe)
|
7368890
|
|
1943/06/10
|
Jaques, Wilfred
|
4033251
|
|
1943/06/12
|
Bowgen, Stephen Robin Ivatt
|
7372857
|
|
1943/06/12
|
Youngs, John Hedley Norcup
|
7372701
|
|
1943/06/24
|
Dean, Reginald Albert
|
7344310
|
|
1943/07/15
|
Jackson, Leslie Bell
|
7385352
|
|
1943/07/17
|
Whitley, Jack
|
7374338
|
|
1943/07/19
|
Adams, Roger
|
7394281
|
|
1943/07/23
|
Evans, William Prys
|
7518179
|
|
1943/08/05
|
Underhill, Harry
|
6400858
|
|
1943/08/07
|
Robertson, Ernest Alexander
|
7392223
|
|
1943/08/26
|
Dutton, James Henry
|
7394225
|
|
1943/08/28
|
Selby, Bertram Arthur
|
7376301
|
|
1943/09/02
|
Long, Leslie Bertram
|
7368819
|
|
1943/09/21
|
Rumsey, Gordon Reginald Jack
|
T/57636
|
|
1943/09/23
|
Bignell, Arthur Edward Victor
|
7347978
|
|
1943/09/30
|
Hoare, Reginald Slader
|
7368906
|
|
1943/09/30
|
Mellor, George Henry Thomas
|
7374095
|
|
1943/10/02
|
Brown, William
|
7262686
|
|
1943/10/13
|
Stringer, Douglas Neville
|
7374065
|
|
1943/10/20
|
Pudney, Eric Ernest
|
7368826
|
|
1943/10/28
|
Hunt, Walter Henry
|
T/168551
|
|
1943/11/02
|
Ashworth, Charles
|
7394190
|
|
1943/11/29
|
Andrews, Joseph Frederick
|
7368802
|
|
1943/12/02
|
Lewis, Raymond
|
7372833
|
|
1943/12/10
|
Saggers, William John
|
5989364
|
|
1943/12/10
|
Clark, Reginald Arthur
|
7368806
|
|
1943/12/13
|
Varney, Charles
|
T/123745
|
|
1944/01/21
|
Parker, Arthur
|
T/168730
|
|
1944/01/22
|
Williams, George Rowland
|
T/247912
|
|
1944/09/14
|
Turner, Herbert
|
T/283762
|
|
1945/06/09
|
Olds, Robert Arthur Edward
|
T/247954
|
|
1945/07/27
|
Norman, Leslie
|
7374029
|
|
|
