WEXFORD’S TRAGIC PRISONER OF WAR
THE LIFE OF WEXFORD MAN MICHAEL WALSH THE SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL BRITISH LEGION IN WEXFORD, WHO RECENTLY READ OUR ARTICLES ON WEXFORD MEN INCARCERATED IN NAZI POW CAMPS IN WORLD WAR TWO, RECALLS THE SAD DEATH OF A WEXFORD MAN WHO TRAGICALLY DIED IN A BRUT
ACOUNTY Wexford man is honoured at a war memorial to those who died at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army following the fall of Singapore, but closer to home his memory is similarly honoured at a windswept cemetery by his only surviving relative in Ireland. The name of Michael Walsh, of Templetown, a gunner with a Royal Artillery Coastal Regiment, who died at the age of 27 on March 5, 1943, as a prisoner of war of the Japanese, is inscribed on the Singapore Memorial as it is in a much smaller memorial at Templetown.
The son of Philip Walsh and Annie Walsh (nee Corish), of Fethard-on-Sea, Michael was one of thousands of men who surrendered when Singapore fell to the Japanese.
Les Newman, the Secretary of the Royal British Legion (RBL) said Michael Walsh was captured, interned and died in Changi.
‘He is remembered on the Singapore Memorial and on a family grave headstone at Templetown Church,’ said Les.
Mary O’Shea, from Templetown, is Michael’s only surviving relative in Ireland.
‘I’m the one that put his name on the headstone, though I never met him, I wasn’t even born when he was killed,’ said Mary.
‘I heard he was very quiet, but I know nothing else about him,’ Mary told this newspaper.
‘A cousin of mine did a bit of investigation, but she said I wouldn’t really want to know what happened to him. He was taken prisoner, so I suppose he died of neglect and dysentery,’ said Mary, who erected a memorial to Michael at Templetown Cemetery where she takes part in a small Remembrance Sunday ceremony each year.
‘It was the least I could do, I am his only living relation here and at least he has his own little plaque,’ she said.
Les, who has studied the fall of Singapore, says Michael was more than likely one of the defenders of Singapore captured after the fall of the fortress island and imprisoned in the notorious Changi jail, along with thousand of other troops and civilians.
Changi was selected by the Japanese as a POW camp area and became one of the harshest Japanese prisoner of war camps. Changi was used to imprison Malayan civilians and Allied soldiers.
The treatment of POWs at Changi was harsh but fitted in with the belief held by the Japanese Imperial Army that those who had surrendered to it were guilty of dishonouring their country and family and, as such, deserved to be treated in no other way.
For this reason, 40,000 men from the surrender of Singapore were marched to the northern tip of the island where they were imprisoned at a military base called Selerang, which was near the village of Changi. Les said the ‘British’ civilian population of Singapore was imprisoned in Changi jail itself, one mile away from Selerang. Eventually, any reference to the area was simply made to Changi.
15,000 Australians went in to Selarang Barracks, which had been built to hold just one battalion of infantry, and 35,000 British went to Roberts Barracks, Kitchener Barracks and India Barracks (Java Lines), this would have included Gnr. Michael Walsh.
They were later joined by Dutch POWs captured in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).
Two weeks after the prisoners arrived in Changi, Roberts Barracks was designated as the hospital area. One block was taken over as the operating theatre, another became the isolation ward and blocks 144 and 151 became the dysentery wards.
Despite the size of the hospital area, it was too small to cope with the medical needs of all the prisoners, as indeed was the rest of the Changi area. Battle wounds and the growing shortage of food coupled with few medical resources and major sanitary problems meant that health rapidly declined. POWs were sent out from Changi every day to work in different locations on the island.
Many worked on the Paya Lebar air field and others, mainly from the Bukit Timah camp, were sent to the centre of Singapore to build a Japanese shrine, which was later demolished