Lest We Forget
by Charlie Todd
November is the month when we remember our fallen in wartime but we shouldn’t forget the hardships endured by many of the survivors. Amongst us are many ex-servicemen with interesting stories to tell.
Rifleman James Ferguson Smart Watson – 1st Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
At 84 Hamish (it seems to be the Gaelic thing James is Hamish?) Watson is the oldest active member of the Lanark Branch of the R.S.C.D.S. Born in St Leonard’s Street, Lanark on 29th April, 1915 Hamish, a foreman at local tomato houses, received his ‘Call Up’ papers in 1940 and reported to the Hamilton Barracks in Almada Street on 18th July, 1940.After three months basic training Rifleman Watson was posted to the 1st Battalion at Trimulgarry Barracks near Secunderbad, India. After four months of acclimatisation and training the Battalion was posted to the 14th Army in Rangoon, Burma under General Wavell.
Hamish’s first time in action was also his last. Advancing across open paddy fields without air cover, towards Japanese positions the man next to Hamish was hit and fell. As he went to render assistance Hamish felt a blow on the side of his steel helmet ‘like being hit by a brick’. A Japanese rifle bullet had punched a hole in both the helmet and Hamish’s skull. Evacuated by ambulance he underwent surgery at the Base Hospital at Bareilly and convalesced at Oribi, near Durban, South Africa before returning home to Carstairs Military Hospital via Southampton. Discharged from the Army, officially after 2 years and 352 days service, Hamish transferred to Bangour Hospital, where Professor Norman Dott carried out further surgery before he retuned home in 1943. Initially rated as 70% disabled he gradually improved to 30% but is still on medication to this day. However, other than never being allow to drive on medical grounds Hamish has enjoyed a very full life marrying Jane Brash, a keen Country Dancer, in 1943 and although Jane died 18 years ago Hamish still ‘soldiers on’ with the hobby he loves. Well done Hamish.
Lance Bombadier Jimmy Scott – 155th Field Regiment (Lanarkshire Yeomanry) Royal Artillery
At 79 Jimmy ‘Bon’* Scott is the oldest active playing member of the Lanark Accordion and Fiddle Club. Born in Motherwell on 1st July 1920 Jimmy joined ‘A’ Squadron of the Lanarkshire Yeomanry, a Territorial Army Unit, in February 1939 as Trooper Scott. Mobilised on 1st Septemebr, two days before war was declared, Jimmy was initially billeted in Lanark’s Masonic Hall (where the Accordion Club met for many years before moving to Ravenstruther Hall). Town born Jimmy had joined the Yeomanry because of his love of horses but with the changing face of war they were the first to go and ‘A’ Squadron became part of 155 Field Regiment RA armed with 4.5 inch howitzers. After some basic training they embarked at Greenock for Bombay, India and spent the next four months at Ahmednagar Barracks.
Next it was on to Malaya, disembarking at Port Swettenham and moving north to the Ipoh camp in the midst of the Malayan rubber plantations. Five ‘cushy’ months followed for the Jocks who got on well with the other servicemen and the planters and locals but all that changed one evening when word came through that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbour and, at almost the same time, the Seletar aerodrome in the North of Malaya. Although initially moving up to gun emplacements prepared earlier near the Thai border, the whole British and Indian Army was soon in full retreat, passing the wrecks of the cruisers ‘Repulse’ and ‘Prince of Wales’ sitting in shallow water near the coast, and, barring periodic rearguard actions, not stopping for 13 weeks until they reached Singapore in the South where the formal surrender, of 120,000 British and Indian troops, took place.
Jimmy and his comrades were to spend the next 3½ years as a POW in various Japanese camps. Sent initially to the massive Changi camp he, along with other members of 155 Regiment, was transferred to form part of a 1,000 strong slave labour force at KinKaseki Camp on the Island of Formosa (modern day Taiwan but ironically originally ‘Island of Flowers). The job of the inmates was to mine copper ore for the Japanese. Conditions were appalling. 400 steps led from the camp to the mine entrance where a further 1,700 uneven steps led to the working level where the air was so starved of oxygen that the small carbide lamps frequently extinguished themselves leading to some terrible falls. In some distant corners at the lowest levels the heat and humidity were so ferocious that a man could only work for two minutes at a time. Injuries below ground and brutality and starvation above ground took a fearsome toll but ‘Ancho’ **(Squad Leader) Jimmy survived.
The hero of the camp was a Canadian doctor of the Indian Army Medical Service, Major Ben Wheeler, who performed miracles with practically no medical supplies, even conducting surgical operations with only a razor blade to act as a scalpel and no anesthetic for the patient. The war was over some days before US Marines ‘liberated’ the camp. ‘Big hard men’ Jimmy recalls, ‘but many had tears in their eyes when they saw the state we were in and the conditions we lived in”. Jimmy was repatriated via British Columbia, Halifax, Southampton and London before finally arriving in his native Motherwell. They missed the ‘Heroes Welcome’ for the returning survivors of 155 since the crowd on the platform at Motherwell Station had been told that the train was cancelled so it was a solitary journey back to his parents house in Thistle Street. Jimmy married and moved to Lanark in 1946 where he has lived ever since. Next month he and moothie player ‘Ginger’ Marshall, from Bellshill, together with 10 other ex POWs return for the first time to the Kinkaseki Camp to see the Memorial erected on the site of the camp last year and to relive old memories and honour the memory of comrades who didn’t return
Jimmy had received his first small accordion at the age of 10. In the POW camp the authorities provided a few musical instruments and costumes for the concert party, although there was an ulterior motive since the shows were sometimes filmed for use as ‘evidence’ that prisoners were ‘well treated’ in the camps. After the war Jimmy ran a very successful band for many years playing for old time and modern ballroom dancing.
* In the local Lanarkshire dialect Band become Bon
** Better remembered at Honsho as in ‘Head Honsho’
Box and Fiddle
November 1999
Rifleman James Ferguson Smart Watson – 1st Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
At 84 Hamish (it seems to be the Gaelic thing James is Hamish?) Watson is the oldest active member of the Lanark Branch of the R.S.C.D.S. Born in St Leonard’s Street, Lanark on 29th April, 1915 Hamish, a foreman at local tomato houses, received his ‘Call Up’ papers in 1940 and reported to the Hamilton Barracks in Almada Street on 18th July, 1940.After three months basic training Rifleman Watson was posted to the 1st Battalion at Trimulgarry Barracks near Secunderbad, India. After four months of acclimatisation and training the Battalion was posted to the 14th Army in Rangoon, Burma under General Wavell.
Hamish’s first time in action was also his last. Advancing across open paddy fields without air cover, towards Japanese positions the man next to Hamish was hit and fell. As he went to render assistance Hamish felt a blow on the side of his steel helmet ‘like being hit by a brick’. A Japanese rifle bullet had punched a hole in both the helmet and Hamish’s skull. Evacuated by ambulance he underwent surgery at the Base Hospital at Bareilly and convalesced at Oribi, near Durban, South Africa before returning home to Carstairs Military Hospital via Southampton. Discharged from the Army, officially after 2 years and 352 days service, Hamish transferred to Bangour Hospital, where Professor Norman Dott carried out further surgery before he retuned home in 1943. Initially rated as 70% disabled he gradually improved to 30% but is still on medication to this day. However, other than never being allow to drive on medical grounds Hamish has enjoyed a very full life marrying Jane Brash, a keen Country Dancer, in 1943 and although Jane died 18 years ago Hamish still ‘soldiers on’ with the hobby he loves. Well done Hamish.
Lance Bombadier Jimmy Scott – 155th Field Regiment (Lanarkshire Yeomanry) Royal Artillery
At 79 Jimmy ‘Bon’* Scott is the oldest active playing member of the Lanark Accordion and Fiddle Club. Born in Motherwell on 1st July 1920 Jimmy joined ‘A’ Squadron of the Lanarkshire Yeomanry, a Territorial Army Unit, in February 1939 as Trooper Scott. Mobilised on 1st Septemebr, two days before war was declared, Jimmy was initially billeted in Lanark’s Masonic Hall (where the Accordion Club met for many years before moving to Ravenstruther Hall). Town born Jimmy had joined the Yeomanry because of his love of horses but with the changing face of war they were the first to go and ‘A’ Squadron became part of 155 Field Regiment RA armed with 4.5 inch howitzers. After some basic training they embarked at Greenock for Bombay, India and spent the next four months at Ahmednagar Barracks.
Next it was on to Malaya, disembarking at Port Swettenham and moving north to the Ipoh camp in the midst of the Malayan rubber plantations. Five ‘cushy’ months followed for the Jocks who got on well with the other servicemen and the planters and locals but all that changed one evening when word came through that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbour and, at almost the same time, the Seletar aerodrome in the North of Malaya. Although initially moving up to gun emplacements prepared earlier near the Thai border, the whole British and Indian Army was soon in full retreat, passing the wrecks of the cruisers ‘Repulse’ and ‘Prince of Wales’ sitting in shallow water near the coast, and, barring periodic rearguard actions, not stopping for 13 weeks until they reached Singapore in the South where the formal surrender, of 120,000 British and Indian troops, took place.
Jimmy and his comrades were to spend the next 3½ years as a POW in various Japanese camps. Sent initially to the massive Changi camp he, along with other members of 155 Regiment, was transferred to form part of a 1,000 strong slave labour force at KinKaseki Camp on the Island of Formosa (modern day Taiwan but ironically originally ‘Island of Flowers). The job of the inmates was to mine copper ore for the Japanese. Conditions were appalling. 400 steps led from the camp to the mine entrance where a further 1,700 uneven steps led to the working level where the air was so starved of oxygen that the small carbide lamps frequently extinguished themselves leading to some terrible falls. In some distant corners at the lowest levels the heat and humidity were so ferocious that a man could only work for two minutes at a time. Injuries below ground and brutality and starvation above ground took a fearsome toll but ‘Ancho’ **(Squad Leader) Jimmy survived.
The hero of the camp was a Canadian doctor of the Indian Army Medical Service, Major Ben Wheeler, who performed miracles with practically no medical supplies, even conducting surgical operations with only a razor blade to act as a scalpel and no anesthetic for the patient. The war was over some days before US Marines ‘liberated’ the camp. ‘Big hard men’ Jimmy recalls, ‘but many had tears in their eyes when they saw the state we were in and the conditions we lived in”. Jimmy was repatriated via British Columbia, Halifax, Southampton and London before finally arriving in his native Motherwell. They missed the ‘Heroes Welcome’ for the returning survivors of 155 since the crowd on the platform at Motherwell Station had been told that the train was cancelled so it was a solitary journey back to his parents house in Thistle Street. Jimmy married and moved to Lanark in 1946 where he has lived ever since. Next month he and moothie player ‘Ginger’ Marshall, from Bellshill, together with 10 other ex POWs return for the first time to the Kinkaseki Camp to see the Memorial erected on the site of the camp last year and to relive old memories and honour the memory of comrades who didn’t return
Jimmy had received his first small accordion at the age of 10. In the POW camp the authorities provided a few musical instruments and costumes for the concert party, although there was an ulterior motive since the shows were sometimes filmed for use as ‘evidence’ that prisoners were ‘well treated’ in the camps. After the war Jimmy ran a very successful band for many years playing for old time and modern ballroom dancing.
* In the local Lanarkshire dialect Band become Bon
** Better remembered at Honsho as in ‘Head Honsho’
Box and Fiddle
November 1999