The Forgotten Highlander Page 19
Next the Pampanito and the Sealion II moved in for the kill. On board the Pampanito Lieutenant Commander Paul Summers had just taken up a perfect position to attack the scattered convoy when several large explosions unexpectedly rocked his vessel. To the west of Summers the Sealion II had fired two salvoes of three torpedoes each at the frantically zig-zagging convoy – and met with spectacular success. Three torpedoes smashed into a large oil tanker that exploded into flames, lighting up the sea like a giant flare. Out of control the burning tanker collided with the Kachidoki Maru. We had an amazingly close escape as it screeched along the side of our hull. When the Kachidoki Maru suddenly listed dramatically, pandemonium broke out afresh as men screamed in terror and begged to be let up on deck. It was terrifying; we expected to be torpedoed at any moment and drowned like rats in those stinking holds. We all fixed our eyes on the narrow stairwell to the decks, wondering how the hell we would ever get out.
But the burning tanker had illuminated a second target, the Rakuyo Maru. The poor prisoners in the holds knew what was coming and braced themselves for the inevitable. At 5.25 a.m. Lieutenant Commander Eli Reich steadied the Sealion II, a modern Balao-class submarine that had been commissioned just six months earlier, and fixed the Rakuyo Maru in the sights of his periscope. The thirty-one-year-old skipper took careful aim at the 9500-tonne vessel silhouetted against the night sky by the burning tanker. He was not going to miss. Earlier in the attack he had fired in support of the Growler and missed and been forced to flee Japanese escorts. And he had a personal score to settle: the first USS Sealion had been sunk in a Japanese bombing raid on the Philippines at the outbreak of war and Reich had lost four of his crew. There would be no mistake. As he gave the order to fire three steam torpedoes at ten-second intervals, the young New Yorker had no idea of the carnage he was about to cause. All three tin fish hit the Rakuyo Maru. The first struck the engine room, another hit amidships and the third torpedo hit the 477-foot ship in the bow area. Amazingly none of the 1317 prisoners were killed by the explosion. The ship started to list and the Japanese guards and sailors immediately deserted the sinking ship in ten of twelve available lifeboats, leaving the prisoners to fashion makeshift rafts and take to the water with what little food and water they could find on board.
Tragically 1159 men, survivors of the Death Railway and all of its hardships, either drowned or died of exposure after days floating in the sea. It was a colossal loss of life and as the Sealion II dived to avoid depth charges the young sailors who celebrated their kill had no idea of the catastrophe unfolding above them.
While the Sealion II dived to safety, the Growler and the Pampanito set off after the convoy, and when Commander Oakley caught up with it the survivors in the water found themselves in the middle of a fierce naval battle. The Growler fired its torpedoes on the Japanese frigate Hirado and scored a direct hit. Some men in the water cheered while others saw all chance of rescue disappear. The shockwaves from the Hirado explosion killed some prisoners, others died when the Japanese retaliated with depth charges or were killed by the propellers. The Growler got away unscathed. (It was Oakley’s last major triumph, two months later he and his crew were killed when the Growler succumbed to Japanese depth-charging.)
Darkness had once again fallen and the Kachidoki Maru steamed north towards Taiwan, making a dash for protective air cover. But by eleven o’clock that night the Pampanito caught up with us and thirty-one-year-old skipper Paul Summers was planning a very special celebration of his birthday, which had taken place just a few days before on the day we sailed from Singapore.
Any hopes we had that we had outrun the wolf pack or that the attack was over were about to be dashed. Summers prepared to mount a surface attack on the Kachidoki Maru but had to abandon it because of technical difficulties. His crew worked feverishly to fix the problem and Summers resumed the attack. We were the biggest vessel among the group of small ships and made a juicy target. As the Kachidoki Maru steamed into the crosshairs of Pampanito’s periscope, Summers gave the fateful order to fire. Four minutes later we suddenly felt a tremendous blast and an explosion tore through the hold. The whole structure shuddered and water flooded in from above. I knew then as the water crashed on top of me that my worst fears had been realised. We had been hit and I knew that the torpedo had struck very close to us. It was in fact the first of two torpedoes that would send the hellship to the bottom within fifteen minutes.
The ship tilted. We were going down. Up above the Japanese began shooting their wounded men in the sick bay in mercy killings. Down below men shouted and panicked and scrambled madly for the single ladder up on to the deck. The noise was horrendous. But the pressure of the water must have pushed the hatches wide open. Either that or someone on deck, whether one of the stowaways or one of the POWs up there at the time we were hit, gave us a chance. Water rushed into the hold straight away with incredible pressure. It pushed me up as the ship continued to tip over. The hatches became parallel with the sea now and by some miracle the water washed me out of the hatch, and I floundered into a stream or strong current that rushed me out into the sea. It all seemed to happen at once. I popped out of the ship like a cork out of a champagne bottle.
After the extreme heat of the hold the water felt very cold. The sea was just a mass of thick oil as a total of twelve ships in our convoy were sunk that night. I knew I had to get as far away from the ship as possible as soon as I could, to avoid being dragged under with it, but it was like swimming through treacle. Those of us who could swim were the only ones who had a chance. I knew from my Boy Scout training that I had to swim away to avoid getting pulled down by the suction.
I swam for my life, as hard as I could, away from the waves created by the pull of the ship going down. I put my head down and powered with desperate overarm strokes, dodging debris as I went, all the time gulping down oil. It was like drinking fire and burned all the way down, doing irreparable damage to my vocal chords.
When I was fifty yards away I felt safe – for the moment. I turned to look at the ship. Treading water I saw it tilt and then in just a few seconds the stern silently and gracefully slipped under the waves. The sea was now aflame as the oil burned, and a torpedoed oil tanker was well ablaze. Like a scene from Dante’s Inferno, smoke filled the night sky and shouts and screams came from all directions. As the flames got closer I feared that I might be burned alive. Luckily they spluttered out before reaching me and then I was very sick, bringing up a horrible mixture of crude oil and salt water.
Even after the sinking the killing went on for those of us who survived and got on to rafts. Anyone starting to panic was thrown off into the sea. When they scrambled to get back on they were kicked away. Men pushed under and held under Japanese survivors. Fighting broke out as the animal instinct to survive asserted itself, making some survivors try to capture more seaworthy vessels and shove others off to their deaths. Many gave up, already so weak, dangerously dehydrated and ill. Frequently they had been injured too in the sinking. Many gulped salt water and quickly went stark raving mad, drowning themselves to end the torment. Horrible as it may sound, as men became mad they had to be shoved off the rafts or boats or the remainder might have perished.
There was a lot of shouting and screaming. Cries of ‘Get off, you bastard!’ or ‘I’ll kill you!’ made me close my eyes in distress. Most of the shouts were in English. There were not many Japanese, the majority of whom had got off early in lifeboats. Drowning and dying men called for their wives, their children or mothers. Men said things like ‘Daddy will be home soon’ and then disappeared beneath the waves. It was harrowing to hear. By that stage most of us were treading a very fine line between sanity and madness. It didn’t take much to put people over the top. I couldn’t see where it was coming from but a group of men started singing. First to keep their spirits up they sang ‘Rule Britannia’. After the Selarang Incident we had been banned from singing this stirring anthem with its line about ‘Britons never, ever, being slaves’. But t
his was a strange freedom and as the situation worsened the song changed and the poignant words of the great hymn ‘Abide with Me’ drifted across the South China Sea. It was very moving and I still cannot bear to hear that hymn in church.
I felt horrendous and wondered if I would last the night. How little could a human being survive on? I was about to find out. In the water with bedlam all around, a great urge to be on my own engulfed me. It felt like the safest tactic.
Two hundred and forty-four of my comrades on the Kachidoki Maru died that night. It was tragic beyond belief that having survived the Death Railway they became prisoners of the deep.
Suddenly the thought of sharks came into my mind. I knew that I must have suffered some cuts on the way out and that sharks were attracted to the scent of blood – I had to get out of the water as soon as I could.
My prayers were answered when a single-man raft came floating past. Exhausted and covered in thick bunker oil I hoisted myself into it. It was oval-shaped like a big dog’s basket, made of a cork-like substance and just big enough for me to sit in with my legs out in front. It had no provisions in it. With so many dead bodies floating in the water the sharks must have had a field day. From the sea I picked up shreds of string and rope, as well as bits of wood that I thought might be useful later. I also managed to find a few scraps of canvas to shield me from the sun if I lasted that long. I looked for anything in the water that might do for a paddle but it was pointless anyway. I didn’t know in which direction to paddle. It was amazing how quickly I drifted away from the rest of the shipwrecked men. I could soon see outlines of people in the water in the distance, all of them covered in oil. I had no way to know who they were, whether Japanese or POWs. It was easy to mistake a Japanese for one of my own. I made up my mind that if it came down to me or a Japanese, he would be going to meet his ancestors.
The position I had drifted to must have been in the opposite direction from the bulk of the flotilla. A strong current took me even further away.
The noise from everyone else in the sea started to fade anyway. Soon I was alone and bitterly cold in the night air. I tried to use the rope I had picked out of the water to lash the raft together more sturdily but it was very difficult in the dark and with my lack of energy. Yet I busied myself, knowing that I had to stay awake to stay alive.
When light came in the morning I was utterly alone. There was not a thing in sight. Just the vastness of the blue sea, the infinite blue sky and the scorching yellow sun. Whether it was because of the heat, thirst or oil, my tongue had begun to swell. My eyes stung from the oil. When the sun had been up a couple of hours I had still not seen or heard a thing. I started to think of home, of my family and friends, and of happy times in Scotland.
Castaway and dreaming of home I was shocked to suddenly hear a shout from behind me.
‘You will be picked up soon!’ a voice called out. My spirits soared at the thought of a companion to share the ordeal but my joy was short-lived. I turned around full of expectation only to be confronted by a Japanese officer in a one-man raft similar to mine. Immediately I thought, Right! Here we go. I couldn’t see if he still had his sword or not but prepared myself for a fight. There was no way to fight from the raft, I knew it had to be in the water. I knew that my swimming ability would give me the edge. I had my lifesaving badge and I could control a frantic person in the water. He was also fully dressed in a tunic, trousers and boots so I was confident of beating him. It was incredible that even in the extreme circumstances we were in, the need to defend yourself from another human being was uppermost in my mind.
He was using a proper paddle to come towards me. I steeled myself but he stopped five yards or so away and shouted, ‘Here’, as he threw me a tin. Despite my oily hands I managed to catch it. The Japanese officer then paddled off without saying anything more and it was the last I saw of him.
The top on the tin was sealed and waterproof. I clawed at it frantically, eager to know what was inside. It seemed to take for ever. When I finally managed to prise the top off my heart sank. The tin contained chocolates, something we could have only dreamed of in the last two years but a death sentence for me now, dehydrated and adrift in the tropical ocean. I would have loved to have devoured those chocolates but I knew that afterwards they would have sent me mad with thirst. Eating them may have even killed me because I had eaten nothing like that for such a long time. Immediately I threw the tin and its lid in the water. I watched it sink and realised I probably should have discarded the chocolates but kept the tin to catch any rain water. It was a cruel moment.
I was alone again, and so tired, completely unable to do anything. All I could do was lie there and use my brain and imagination to keep me awake. One of the things I did was to go back in my mind to the plumbers’ merchant in Aberdeen I worked at before the war. I did a mental stock-take through the bins and warehouse, memorising all of the stock. Going through the drawers of pipes, fittings, couplings, screws, nuts and washers took a long time and I enjoyed it. I even made up imaginary orders for customers in the ‘big houses’.
It was so hot out on the open sea with the unrelenting glare bouncing off the water. My burning skin was dissolving into salt-water immersion sores, made even more painful when crude oil got into the fissures. It felt like being cooked alive. When one part of my skin could take no more of the blow-torch heat I would move my little pieces of canvas around, feebly trying to gain some protection. I began to think of the cold and bitter winters back in Aberdeen, almost willing myself cool.
I recalled childhood days of making slides and organising snowball fights and smiled as I thought of our sledging expeditions to Auchinyell Brae, where we would toboggan from early morning until late at night, returning home with ears and fingers frozen numb.
Images began flooding back. I could see the fantastic sight of the mighty carts that belonged to Wordie and Co. picking up goods from the warehouse to take them down to the railway goods station. It was amazing to see the giant Clydesdales struggling in pairs up frosty braes, hauling huge loads with their masters whipping them on and shouting out obscenities. The carters were a ‘gallus’ lot, really rough and ready.
I laughed to myself as I thought of the rag and bone man too. At the sound of his bugle we kids would swarm behind his cart like a plague of locusts, hoping to be given a balloon or to pick up the steaming horse dung to take triumphantly back home for Mum to put on the garden. There were some real fights over that dung!
When the sun went down again it was bitingly cold. A full moon on that cloudless second night made it feel even colder for some reason. I had the bits and pieces of canvas draped over me but I was so cold. Terrified of rolling off the raft, I still had to stay awake. I was at my lowest ebb. The light from the moon struck the water and reflected bright in my eyes. I started to see things that weren’t there. Imaginary bits of wreckage or a boat would suddenly come into view. I began to lose my senses, saying to myself, ‘Come on, let yourself go. Go to sleep.’ It was always an inner battle. Half of me wanted to give up. The other half refused. And so it went on.
Alone with no sight of land, birds, dolphins or life of any kind, I sang songs to keep my mind occupied and awake. No words would come out of my parched throat but I sang them in my head. I went through all the pre-1940 dance songs I knew and always returned to my favourite: ‘It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie’.
It was a hit for Fats Waller and I sang it over and over and over in my head.
Be sure it’s true when you say I love you
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Millions of hearts have been broken
Just because these words were spoken
I love you, yes I do, I love you
If you break my heart I’ll die
So be sure it’s true
When you say I love you
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Unknown to me over 650 survivors of the Kachidoki Maru had already been picked up by the Japanese and the Pampanito, which had re
turned to the scene of the original attack to make a horrible discovery. As the submarine surfaced amid the debris and wreckage of the Rakuyo Maru, the crew saw survivors who had been in the water for three days and were horrified when weak voices started shouting. At first the young Americans could not understand the British and Australian accents, until one of the sailors made out the words ‘pick us up, please!’ Then the awful reality dawned. These oil-covered survivors were not Japanese but English, Scottish and Australian. The wolf pack had sunk two hellships packed with prisoners of war. One thousand four hundred and three allied servicemen had died as a result of the failure of the Japanese to observe the Geneva Convention and apply red crosses to our hellships.
Pampanito promptly radioed for assistance, and the Sealion II and two other American submarines returned to the scene. With survivors too weak to clamber aboard the subs, American sailors dived into the sea to pull men out, rescuing a total of 159 men. A handful died on board and the Americans were horrified at the condition of the survivors and to hear about the Death Railway and the privations we had endured. Incredibly the evidence gleaned from these survivors allowed the allies to discover for the first time the true extent of the horrors on the Death Railway and simultaneous announcements were subsequently made to stunned Houses of Parliament in both London and Canberra.
The men picked up by the subs were the lucky ones. Joe Bates, communications officer on the Sealion II, later told how his captain angered the crew by ordering the submarine to dive after rescuing just fifty survivors, leaving behind dozens of others frantically calling out, ‘Over here! Over here!’ It was a heartbreaking decision but Lieutenant Commander Eli Reich feared for the safety of his vessel. The cries of the men left behind haunted Joe Bates and his shipmates for decades.