Chapters

Click on any link shown in Blue and then use the Back Button to return to this Page

Capture

The fall of Singapore brought mixed fortunes for the men of "Z" AOW , the majority of the men captured in Singapore ended up in Changi , some remained there for the duration of the war,
 but with the decision by the Japanese to construct the Thai - Burma Railway  , the Japanese began removing men to carry out the work

The Work Parties leaving Singapore involving the "Z" AOW Personal

• First Mainland Party

• Y Party

• Letter Parties X,W,V,U,T,S,R

• Letter Parties Q,P,O,N,M,L

• D Force

• F Force

• H Force

 Some of these men were brought back to Singapore and the shipped out to various places like
Japan to work in the ship yards or mines or Taiwan and Saigon in Vietnam

Some men from the "Z" AOW were Posted to Sarawak via Singapore on the 16th September 1941to work on the 2/15th Punjab Regiment vehicles.

Evacuation of "Z" AOW personnel
Senior commanders realised that the fall of Singapore was highly likely , so on the 12th to the 13th of February 1942 RAOC personnel including the "Z" AOW ,were ordered to the docks were various ships were waiting to take them to Batavia in Java to set up Workshops to support the British forces already there. The Route was laid down for the ship captains , they were to proceed via the Bangka Strait to Batavia , Java.

Around the 12th or 13th of February 1942 ,the men were embarked on various ships in the harbor , setting sail at night to try and avoid the constant air raids.

Evacuation ships possibly carrying RAOC personal (Research by Michael Pether)   

Pulo Soegi
ML311
Ml433
Malacca
Dragonfly

The ships left Singapore heading for the Bangka Strait oblivious to the fact that the Japanese had launched a invasion of Bangka Island and Palembang , Sumatra and there was a substantial enemy naval foce lying directly along their route. When the British commanders had planned this route ,they were unaware of the Japanese intension to invade Palembang and the Bangka Island and even if the first Evacuation ships to reach the strait had been able to radio back a warning of the danger of the Japanese ships  , there was no possability of this information reaching the other Evacuation ships as all communication equipment at Singapore had been destroyed to prevent them falling into the Japanese hands after the inevitable surrender.
 As a result ,all the above ships were sunk , either by air bombing of by shelling from Japanese Navy  and the men onboard were either killed , drowned or captured , only one ship survived , the  Malacca ,fortunatly they picked up a stranded sailor who informed the captain of the Japanese ships in the Bangka Strait , the captain decided to change course and headed for the  Indragiri River and attempt to reach safety via the escape route across Sumatra to Padang.

 The Malacca made for Temilahan then onto Rengat  , their final destination would have been Iyer Molek were they would have transfered to road transport taking them to rail head at Swahlunto and then it would have been a railway journy to Pagang and finally the men boarded the ship  Tinombo which sailed to Bombay , India.
 Some of the "Z" AOW personal were capture in Pagang and were made to build roads in the northern Sumatra area of Atjeh , later in 1944 the Japanese decided to construct a Railway between Pekanbaru and Muaro this became known as the Sumatran Railway , the Atjeh Party were then brought south to work on its construction .

 One men from the "Z" AOW  became part of a group of soldiers in Padang who became known as the Sumatran Battalion under the command of Captain Dudley Apthorpe , they were transported to Burma to work on Japanese construction projects including an enlargment of an airfield . Later they were to work on the Thai-Burma Railway .

 The sinking of the ships in the Bangka Strait resulted in a great loss of life but for some of the survivors that reached Radji Beach , Bangka Island their ordeal became worse , the Japanese Army seperated the service men , civilian men and women and the Nurses , the Service men were marched around a headland and ordered to line up as the Japanese set up machine guns , some of the men knowing they were about to be shot made a run for it . Similary the nurses were ordered to wade into the sea and the Japanese proceeded to machine gun them . Some men injured on the beach where bayoneted where they lay , only three men and one Nurse survived this massacre , one of the men was Private Kingsely of the "Z" AOW , he met up with the Australian Nurse, Vivian Bullwinkel ,  Nurse Bullwinkle suffering from bullet wounds and Private Kingsely had Severe bayonet wounds they set off together to Muntok were they were seperated into the Womens and mens camps , they were both able to relate the story of the massacre but unfortunat private Kingsely died of his wounds on the 24th of March .
 The other service man to suvive was Ernest Alexander Lloyd of the Royal Navy , having ran into the sea to ovoid the Japanese , he eventualy came ashore and walked down the beach , there he saw the bodies of the Nurses then further on the bodies of the civillians who had been either shot or bayoneted , he also eventually gave himself up to the Japanese in Muntok , there he reconised an American, E H German, who was with the civillians on the beach, the American was later seen in the civillian camp in Palembang.
Bangka Island massacre

 For the rest of the men captured in the Bangka Strait , they  were made to work , some on a airstrip on Bangka Island , later they were transfered to Palembang , Sumatra to face more than three years as POWs.

"Z" AOW Roll at the fall of Singapore