Service Number 990000

Gunner118th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

John Trevor, known as Trevor, was born on 6th October 1911 to parents Ernest Harry and Lilian Annie Sale, née Nicklin, at Solihull, Warwickshire.

In 1935 he was living with his parents and brother at 610 Fox Hollies Road, Hall Green. In 1938 he married Annie Paget and they moved in with his parents still living in Hall Green.

Trevor joined the war effort with the 118th Field Regiment when it was formed in 1939 at Woolwich to release the regular garrison. It remained there until 1941 when it was sent with the 18th Infantry Division to India. Not long after arriving in India, they were sent to reinforce Singapore. They had little or no experience of jungle warfare and arrived amidst the chaos of air raids on 29 January 1942. They were just in time to take part in the final week’s battle for Singapore concluding on 15th February 1942, the day Trevor was captured by the Japanese.

At the fall of Singapore about 80,000 Indian, Australian and British troops were taken prisoner by the Japanese. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described this as the `worse disaster’ and the `largest capitulation’ in British history. Many were transported in ships or marched to camps all over Asia or joined other prisoners in constructing the notorious Burma-Siam Railway.

Changi Prisoner of War camp was opened that same day, it was here that Trevor was initially held, and was the main camp for the captured British and Commonwealth forces. Changi was one of the more notorious Japanese prisoner of war camps. The treatment of POW’s was harsh but fitted in with the belief held by the Japanese Imperial Army that those who had surrendered to it were guilty of dishonouring their country and family and, as such, deserved to be treated in no other way.

The Japanese used the POW’s at Changi for forced labour. The formula was very simple – if you worked, you would get food. If you did not work, you would get no food. Men were made to work in the docks where they loaded munitions onto ships. They were also used to clear sewers damaged in the attack on Singapore. The men who were too ill to work relied on those who could work for their food. Sharing what were already meagre supplies became a way of life. Malaria, dysentery and dermatitis were common, as were beatings for not working hard enough.

In common with many other prisoners, Trevor was moved to become part of the large cohort of POWs forced to build the Burma-Siam railway. The railway construction was a Japanese project inspired by the need for improved communications to maintain the large Japanese Armv in Burma. During its construction more than 16 ,000 prisoners of war died – mainly of sickness, malnutrition and exhaustion – and were buried along the railway.

The decision to complete the railway which had been commenced before the war was taken in June 1942. The Japanese aimed at completing the reamining 250 miles of railway by the end of l943. Two forces, one based in Thailand and one in Burma, worked from opposite ends’ of the line towards the centre. The prisoners’ initial task was the construction of camps at Kanchanaburi and Ban Pong in Thailand and Thanbyuzayat in Burma. Accommodation for the Japanese guards had to be built first. The cook-house and huts for the working parties came next and accommodation for the sick last of all. Frequently men were sent to work on the line long before their accommodation was completed.

Throughout the building of the railway, food supplies were irregular. Brought up by barge on the Kwai Noi river, or by lorry on a converted jungle track, a consistent service could not be maintained. Vegetables and other perishables arrived rotten. The rice was of poor quality, frequently maggoty and in other ways contaminated, and fish, meat, oil, salt and sugar were on a minimum scale. Men sometimes had to live for weeks on little more than a small daily ration of rice flavoured with salt. Malaria, dysentery and pellagra attacked the prisoners, and the number of sick in the camps was always high.

Trevor died on 14th November 1943 of Enteritis and diarrhoea, an infection cause by contaminated food and drink. He would initially have been buried in a grave alongside the railway where he worked. But, the graves of those who died during the construction and maintenance of the Burma-Siam railway, except Americans, who were repatriated,  have been transferred from the camp burial grounds and solitary sites along the railway into three war cemeteries.

Trevor now rests at Don-Rak War Military Cemetery, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The gravestone inscription reads “In loving memory”. He is also commemorated at the war memorial at The Green, Castle Bromwich. Probate dated 18th September 1945 records his wife Annie living at their home at 72 Marlborough Road, Castle Bromwich.

This article is based on research by Alan Fewtrell and Terrie Knibb.

References

http://lewishamwarmemorials.wikidot.com/memorial:names-and-history-of-118th-soldiers-who-died-after