Though imprisoned at the Batu Lintang Camp, civilian internees and Prisoners of War battled to the bitter end to survive the war with all they had. Despite being surrounded by barbed wires, they persevered by building a community amidst the tasks that were assigned to them.
Prisoners’ spirits remain high, help them survive
This is the third of a four-part article on the history of the Institute of Teacher Education Batu Lintang.
The internees and Prisoners of War (POWs) detained at the Lintang camp believed that the conflict wouldn’t last for very long. However, as the years passed, they began to accept their fate — that the war would not be over soon.
Despite being in captivity and living in merciless conditions, prisoners held their spirits high and adapted to their circumstances. Those who were accustomed to using posh bathrooms were forced to adjust to the latrines — an individual unpleasant, thatched hut — to meet nature’s call.
Meanwhile, Mary Brewsher, an Australian missionary internee in the camp, was described as a person full of bright ideas. Agnes Newton Keith’s book “Three Came Home” revealed that Mary and the author plotted against the Nipponese.
“One day, I was lying on my bed, staring up at nothing, when my eyes were drawn to the four-ply partitions in the roof of the barrack above me. We (Mary and Keith) agreed that the four-ply was necessary for tabletops and unnecessary for partitions.”
The same night, the internees in the women and children’s compound learned that the canteen would be discontinued as their punishment.
“The tabletops were not worth the food loss, but we were always willing to take the risk because we got away with so much so often. And there were so many punishments meted out to us for things we didn’t do or did out of ignorance that living a law-abiding life was no guarantee of security.”
Keith further shared that when Mary first arrived at the camp in 1942, she was a plump woman. However, as a result of the Japanese food ration control, the Australian had developed a nicely shaped body during her time in the camp. Mary had entered the camp with her Australian missionary husband Roland and their Bisaya twins, Dandi and Danis Tiong, whom they had adopted before World War II.
Originating from a village in Limbang, Dandi and Danis were orphaned at birth because their lives were said to be a curse. They were twins, and their biological mother had died shortly after giving birth — thus, a double curse, as the villagers dubbed it.
Last child prisoner
Meeting Dandi Michael Tiong, now Jeli Abdullah, recently was as if a history book had come to life. The 82-year-old is now known as the Lintang camp’s last child prisoner.
“We were in Limbang with our adopted father and mother at the time when my brother and I, as well as my parents, were caught by the Japanese. We were then taken to the camp where most Europeans had been detained,” shared Jeli.
Born in 1940, Jeli and his twin brother were two years old when they were sent to the Lintang Camp.
“So, we spent most of our time at camp. My brother and I used to play outside the camp when we were there. We would often approach the Japanese guards and chat with them.”
Jeli recalled that the soldiers were helpful, cheerful, and friendly.
“But they had to shoo us away because they didn’t want us to be there at the time in case a senior officer saw us.”
Despite the fact that it happened eight decades ago, he vividly remembered sitting in Lieutenant Colonel Tatsuji Suga’s car. According to him, Suga, the man in charge of the Lintang camp, loved children and often gave them sweets and biscuits.
Jeli’s father stayed in the men’s compound and kept a diary of his life there in the beginning. However, it had grown risky for him to continue, so he had stopped. Others who continued to write about their lives there had hidden their writings in tin, buried beneath their barracks, in latrine drains, or above the thatched rooftop.
“My father was an agriculturist. So, the Japanese allowed him to go out and grow vegetables. My mother spent her time sewing on her sewing machine. Until we were liberated, life was pretty much the same,” added Jeli.
Everyone with a task
Every internee and prisoner at the Lintang camp was assigned a task. The Japanese guards provided labour based on each individual’s status. The women at the women and children’s compounds had it easier. The Other Ranks POWs, however, were forced to take the biggest hit.
Dr Peggy Day, a history professor who has done her research on the Lintang camp for a decade now, talks about the tasks that the internees and POWs had to do in the camp. Their daily routines were similar depending on the compound.
“While women weren’t expected to work in the garden, men in the civilian internees’ compound were required to clear land, plant, fertilise with human waste, and care for various vegetable crops in an internal garden and a garden outside the barbed wires. There were also tasks like cleaning the latrines and carrying and dumping full buckets, felling trees for firewood, preparing, cooking and cleaning up for roughly 250 people, among other things,” shared Day.
Meanwhile, in the early months of the camp, civilian men were forced to take a locomotive to the Batu Tujoh airstrip.
“They would get up early, walk two kilometres to the railway, and then take the train to Mile 7.”
They were initially tasked with digging a particular hill that the Japanese did not want.
A hard labour, the tasks were then assigned to the POWs instead. According to local historian Edward Mansel, the POWs were tasked with carrying stones from a nearby quarry for the improvement of the airport runway at Mile 7.
A community within barbed wires
Lintang camp seemed to have formed a mini community out of the hardships they endured together.
On Sundays, when the guards were in a good mood, the Roman Catholic Priest and Anglican Priest could visit different compounds to carry out church services. On other days, the children may be seen running around their compound, and chatters began at dusk and lasted till dawn.
On certain days, husband and wife internees were permitted to meet. This opportunity was usually offered for half an hour or an hour at a time so they could bond. During Christmas, the fathers from the civilian men’s compound would build toys out of scraps for their children as gifts.
On normal days, when the internees and prisoners were confined at work, an elementary school for children, divided into two age groups, was operating at the women and children’s compound. The nuns taught the classes for two hours a day. The sisters also made an attempt to make letter blocks out of wood for teaching.
In addition to the elementary school, there was another type of school that taught various European languages. Lieutenant Frank E Bell of the British Officers’ Compound organised the lessons in order to boost the morale of his friends.
According to Dr Julitta Lim’s book “From An Army Camp to a Teachers’ College”, after the war, Frank established “The Bell School of Languages” in Cambridge, England. He believed that if people were able to communicate and understand one another, there would be less conflict.
Thus, a community of prisoners formed. As they accepted their fate, they learnt to live as well as they could while waiting for the day of liberation.
