Rugby’s real heavyweights
QUESTION Who is the heaviest rugby union international player of all time?
THE title goes to gargantuan Fijian prop Bill Cavubati, a whopping 26st when he played for Wellington in New Zealand throughout the Nineties. His huge size made him a cult hero.
Cavabuti made 38 appearances for the Fiji national team. Today, he is a wellknown nightclub bouncer in Wellington and still plays premier rugby for Marist Masterton in the Wairarapa Bush league.
Weighing in at 24st 11lb, Tongan prop Ben Tameifuna was comfortably the heaviest man at this year’s World Cup tournament. ‘Big Ben’ was an immediate crowd favourite with the Japanese.
At 21st 4lb, Wales and Exeter tighthead prop Tomas Francis was the heaviest Brit in the tournament.
Jason Timothy, Salford.
QUESTION The surrender to the Japanese in Singapore has been described as the British Army’s greatest defeat. Did General Percival explain his decision at a military tribunal?
ON February 15, 1942, the Japanese, led by General Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, took Singapore. It was 70 days after their invasion force had landed at Kota Bharu on the north-east coast of British-controlled Malaya.
The island colony had 80,000 British and Commonwealth troops at its disposal, but fatally, because the military under Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival had expected a land and sea assault, air cover was minimal.
Churchill called the loss of Singapore, where 136,000 men surrendered to the Japanese, the ‘largest capitulation’ in British military history. Percival was a Japanese PoW for three years, suffering many privations. On his release he did not face a military tribunal.
Percival was one of dozens of British and Commonwealth officers of the rank of colonel and above captured by the Japanese at the fall of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma. These senior officers, many of whom were decorated war heroes, were separated from their men and shipped around the Japanese empire as a group, kept alive so they could be ritually humiliated at every opportunity.
After Percival had endured a brief time at the infamous Changi Prison in Singapore, he was taken to Karenko Camp in Japan to be imprisoned with U.S. senior officers from the Philippines. Later, they were joined by British and Dutch senior officers, civilians from the Netherlands East Indies and by Sir Mark Young, the Governor of Hong Kong.
A small party of governors and lieutenant-generals was moved to a specially built camp at Moksak near Taihoku, the capital of Formosa (now Taiwan). When the American forces advanced, the party was sent to Mukden in Manchuria.
On his release at the end of the war, Percival was flown to Tokyo at the request of General Douglas MacArthur to witness the Japanese surrender ceremony on the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. The other witness was U.S. general Jonathan Wainwright, who had surrendered the Philippines.
On his return to Britain, Percival immediately set about writing a long dispatch to the War Office presenting his version of the Malayan Campaign. This was not published until 1948 after revisions had been made.
He retired from the Army in 1946 and wrote his memoirs, The War In Malaya, a restrained, rather than self-serving, account. He was not awarded a knighthood, which was highly unusual for someone with such a high rank.
As life president of the Far East Prisoners of War, he made the headlines in 1957 when he led protests against the film The Bridge On The River Kwai when it was released, obtaining an on-screen statement that it was a work of fiction. He died aged 78 in 1968.
T.W. Wainwright, Lemsford, Herts.
QUESTION Do fireworks have any effect on the environment?
ACCORDING to the 2017 Annual Air Quality In The UK report by Westminster’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), emissions associated with Bonfire Night lead to significant short-term pollution.
Firework smoke is rich in metal particles. These make firework colours in much the same way as Victorian scientists identified chemicals by burning them in a Bunsen flame: blue from copper, red from strontium or lithium, and bright green or white from barium compounds.
Cadmium, lithium, antimony, rubidium, strontium and lead are used to produce different effects. Potassium and aluminium compounds produce smoke trails. Perchlorates, which are reactive chlorine and oxygen compounds, are used as propellants. A German study demonstrated that fireworks produced 5,000 tons of particulates on New Year’s Day 2016.
Bonfire Night particulate pollution is generally short-lived, dependent on weather conditions. Unsettled conditions help disperse them, but calm conditions may result in localised pollution.
Bonfire Night 2016 saw calm conditions across the UK and Defra recorded ‘very high’ pollution levels in North-East England, Yorkshire and Humberside, as well as ‘high’ levels in North-West England, Merseyside and the East Midlands.
Those susceptible to poor air quality include children, the elderly and those with chronic respiratory and heart issues. Most particulates are washed away in days, but their long-term impact on soil, groundwater and waterways is uncertain.
CO2 emissions from fireworks are not thought serious. A study calculated that at New Year, each German contributes 25g of CO2 through fireworks, but as much as 33,000g through driving and heating.
More significant are bonfires. The combustion of solid fuels is a major source of particulates, carbon dioxide and dioxins. Diwali bonfires are a principal cause of the pollution in India at that time of year.
Dr Ken Warren, Glasgow.
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