Son to retrace POW’s steps
Marking the Fall of Singapore for war hero Honour brave soulsof conflict
A labour of love is set to take a Strathaven dad back to the Far East where he will follow in his late father’s footsteps on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore.
John Hunter (53) will travel to Asia this Friday on an eight day fact-finding mission in memory of his father, Private William Dunlop Hunter.
The Gordon Highlander was just 21 when he was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in 1942 during the World War Two conflict.
Dad-of-three John has spent the last 15 years collating his father’s war records in the hope of piecing together his movements as a prisoner of war under the Japanese Imperial Army.
And, as the world marks the Fall of Singapore on February 15, John and three of his brothers – Timothy, Michael and Liam – will retrace their brave father’s footsteps in Singapore and Thailand as a special tribute to the brave war hero.
John, a strategic relationship manager, told the News: “I’m known as the family historian. It’s amazing what you can find and I hope to gather more pieces of the jigsaw to unearth my father’s history.
“My first trip to Singapore was 10 years ago and I’ve been a couple of times since. It’s fascinating when you’re there, picking up all the history.
“I heard all the stories when I was a kid about my dad and watched the film The Bridge on the River Kwai. It was absolutely horrible what those soldiers were put through.
“My father was captured on Valentine’s Day and was involved in seven weeks of jungle warfare and spent the best part of three months in Changi POW camp.
“The Japanese were brutal. They terrorised the locals and threw children in the air catching them in their bayonets.
“My dad was moved to start building the Thai Burma railway with thousands of Allied soldiers stuck in cattle trucks for two weeks with little or no food or water.
“Three-and-a-half years he was held captive. He weighed 11 stone and when he was released he was less than five stone. Twice he was left for dead by the side of the railway.
“I remember as a child seeing holes in his chest and deep scars on his back where the bayonet had went right through him. He was also punished with split bamboo canes which were razor sharp.
“How he survived I’ll never know. He was a very religious man so I think his faith helped him through.”
During his capture William suffered 24 bouts of malaria and fell ill with cholera. He was finally brought home to Glasgow on a slow boat from China in October 1945 and was told, because he had been so close to death, not to expect to have children. outdoors guy, he took a lot of the skills he learned in the jungle and taught the young EK lads at camp.
“He was also part of the second Vatican Council and in 1969 met Pope John Paul VI.”
William died in Hairmyres Hospital aged 61 on February 14, 1981 – on the 39th anniversary of his capture.
“That was quite an emotional thing and I know that he was struggling with the horrors of war in the run up to his death”, said John.
“I know more about my father now than I did when he was alive. There are very few guys left who fought in that conflict and my dad was one of the last to survive; 6000 men were captured and only 600 came out of it alive.” February 15 is the 75th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore when tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth service men and women fell into the hands of the Japanese.
In the three-and-a-half years that followed they were all to suffer and, in many cases die in hell camps situated throughout the Far East.
The Lanarkshire Yeomanry Field Regiment R.A. are to be remembered for their sacrifice at a commemorative service in the St Brigid’s Centre , Newmains, at 2pm on Sunday, February 12.
After a short service of remembrance there will be a presentation by Jon Cooper, a graduate of the Centre of Battlefield Archaeology at Glasgow University and director of The Adam Park Project in Singapore.
Adam Park is a residential area in Singapore and was the centre of ferocious fighting between Allied and Japanese troops in February 1942 during the Battle of Singapore.
Over the past few years Jon and his team have made some incredible finds in that area and have significantly added to our knowledge of a previously little researched aspect of WW2. After the fall of Singapore, Adam Park became one of the principal locations where POWs who were labouring on the construction of a Japanese memorial shrine were held. Among them were 20 men of the LanarkshireYeomanry.