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Wilma Young Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 4th December 2000, Tape 4 (90 min)
Wilma Young interviewed on 4th December 2000, Tape 4. There were a few things about the camps that I wanted to ask you about before we go on to after the war ended. Can you talk about "tenko"? Oh yes, they counted us. I think they started counting us when we were in Irenelaan and eh … they used to count us twice a day. We had to line up and em … eh … the leader of the house, the captain of the house had to line us up house by house and em … then call us to attention in Japanese, and then we had to stand there while they counted us, but it used to take them some time to count. But if one of the higher officers were in the camp and were inspecting us, em, we had to keep our heads bowed and our eyes to the ground. We were not allowed to even look at any of the higher ranking officers, but em … What about the sick people? Oh well, if you were in the hospital, you didn't have to turn out to be counted, but otherwise, you had to be pretty sick before you didn't front up to be counted, that was … So did they count the people in the hospital in some other way? No, I don't think they counted the people in the hospital. So the idea of a count must have been just a fiction? It was just a way of … of controlling everybody. Well, yes, it was a way of showing their superiority over us and making us … em … toe the line and get out. Was there ever any actual violence? Oh yes, there was. Em … eh … Mamie MacIntosh was stood out in the sun - she had done something, I can't remember what, when we were cooking - and em the guard went to slap her and she put her hand up and said, "Nanti, nanti," you know, "Wait, wait," and she took off her glasses and took out her teeth and then she stood at attention, and he slapped her on one side and nearly knocked her over, and then he slapped her on the other side and eh … and let her go. And eh … Sister … or Lieutenant as we were, Raymont, for some unknown reason she was sitting on her bed space - I think she was doing a bit of sewing, she had her … she was sewing something - and I don't know what got into the Japs, but they dragged her out and stood her in the sun for a long time till she … and wouldn't let us give her water or a hat or anything and em … she collapsed and eventually, it wasn't long after that that she died, so … em. And then, I think one other woman did something they didn't like and eh … they, they hit her and knocked out her front teeth. They could be … and they would threaten. Eh … one day when we were carting water there was a bucket full, and eh the guard, I think it was the one we called the Snake ,was in charge of us and em … he told me to pick it up and I said, "Well", you know I said, "It's not mine. it's somebody else's". But he was so menacing that I didn't wait, I just picked the bucket up, and ran, so … em … they were very threatening and they did on occasion resort to violence. What was your status as prisoners of war? Were you entitled to Red Cross parcels or Red Cross visits? Well, as prisoners of war, under the Geneva Convention, we should have been paid and em … we should have been treated as officers of the army and not made to work, and em … eh … there were certain conventions that have got to be followed. But when we pointed that out to them they just said they weren't… they hadn't signed the Geneva Convention, so it was nothing to do with them and eh … in any case, we hadn't been given officer status, the nurses, that came later, so that … Do you mean hadn't been given it by the Australian army? Yes. Right. We went to the war, we were attached to the Australian army and we were given the rank of lieutenant or captain or major, whichever was applicable … eh … but we didn't have a commission from the Governor and eh … that came after, I got mine after I got home. Nevertheless the Red Cross did try to help, didn't they? There were parcels of some sort from the Red Cross? Eh, there was one. One parcel at the end of 1944 came into the camp, but em … of course the Japanese took out what they wanted and we got very little out of it. Eh … tin of Spam (which we had never heard of), 25 Chesterfield cigarettes (which we didn't want) - although we could barter those for food or something like that. If you wanted to smoke you had to smoke in a certain spot, had to dig a hole and all stand around that and smoke. Of course there was a terrible fire hazard in most of the camps we were in and eh … yeah, there wasn't much in that Red Cross parcel, very little. A little bit of chocolate, a little bit of sugar I think, but that is about all. Betty Jeffrey describes finding the Red Cross parcels stored after the camp … after the end of the war and finding that there was … that they had sent them, but you'd never got them. Do you recall that? No, I don't recall that as a matter of fact. Right, ok. What about this business of weighing you? Well, we were in the men's camp - they used to weigh us and of course we kept losing weight, but they kept on weighing us. Do you think they were starting to worry that they were going to lose the war and be held responsible? I don't think they were. I think it must have been just a ruling that somebody saw in a book and they did it. Perhaps it was while … occasionally we were under military command, and then we would be back under civilian command. We used to vary from being under the army and under civilian rule, so em … they didn't weigh us all the time, I think it was only while we were in the men's camp in Palembang that they weighed us. They didn't weigh us that often either. But, however, we kept losing weight, but em … that didn't inspire them to do anything for us. Right. Ok. While you were away, your pay presumably was accumulating for you? Yes. Yes, so you had quite a nice, tidy sum waiting for you when you got back to Australia? I can't remember how much I had, but, you know, our pay wasn't wonderful. We didn't … an ordinary Lieutenant in the army got a lot more than we did, we weren't paid at the same rate. Right. Nevertheless, 4 years you were in captivity? 3 years and 8 months. Yes. I think it was 11 shillings a day, something like that. Oh yes, there was a bit of money, which was a great help, but the … well, the point was that it had cost us a lot of money. We had paid, bought all our own things to go to the war. It had cost me, by the time I bought everything I needed, it had cost me £100. Well, eh the army paid for our outdoor uniform, and when I went, once we went overseas, they allowed us the money for the top coat. If we didn't go overseas, we didn't get that money and eh … when we came home, you see we didn't get any recognition of the fact that we had lost all the things we had taken with us and em … I went to Canberra in late '46 and saw the then Treasurer, by the name of Rosevear and em they eventually gave us £12.7s.6d., I think it was to replace what we had lost. A one off payment of that or £12… Oh no, just that. Just that. Yeah, never gave us anything else, no. But, you know, we had bought, we bought all sorts of things to go overseas. They … later on during the war they provided the women with underclothes and things, but never … we didn't get any of that. The pay that was waiting for you, did you get it in one lump sum or did you… did it come in bits and pieces? Oh I think I must have got it in a lump sum. And did your normal pay start the minute you got back? Did you immediately have money in your pocket because you must have arrived with nothing? Yeah, we arrived with nothing. Eh … oh I think we got our army pay, yeah I think we got our army pay, I am sure we had a bit of money in our pockets. But we didn't have much in the way of clothes and em … no, I was cold and I …I em … I got an army great coat, an ordinary army issue great coat and I used to wear that. Did you go into hospital when you got back to Australia or were you well enough not to? Oh, we were in Heidelberg, I stayed in Heidelberg em when I got back to Melbourne. As a patient? As a patient. I stayed there that first night and then I went home. I went out to friends and em, but they kept the bed in the hospital and said eh that we could come and go a bit for a start as we wanted, but then eh … I was well enough to get back to work fairly quickly. But it must have taken a long time to get fit again, to be rid of these diseases and to put on weight again and to become strong enough to do your regular duty again?. Oh, it didn't take long, no I got back to work … eh … fairly soon …eh … I took some leave. Vivian and I took leave for a bit and then we went back to work and then we got a bit more leave. We went to eh … well we went to Perth, I went to Adelaide, Viv came to Hamilton where my parents were … eh … we went to Tasmania, toured around there. We went to Sydney, Brisbane, and then we got back to work again. Were you recognised where you went? Did people know who you were as you travelled around? Eh … yes, yes, I think they did. Did you have to talk about your experiences? Well, at Hamilton … Viv had worked in Hamilton before she went to the war and my parents were there when I came back and we were staying with them, and my father was some member of a Dad's Association, and they gave us a sort of welcome home and em … Viv and I had to speak at that and then the Hamilton radio people wanted to do an interview, so we went there and had an interview and eh … the Mayor of Hamilton gave us a civic reception, yeah, at Hamilton. Did you find it difficult to talk about? No. No. I didn't find any difficulty, it seemed to me that it was something that had happened and eh … people, if people wanted to know, if they didn't want to know you wouldn't … there was no point, but if people wanted to know, I couldn't see why I wouldn't let them know what happened. But still, a lot of people were caught up in the way the war had affected them and they weren't so interested in how it had affected other people, but there were people who were interested. So then you went back into nursing again? Yes, I did. Where? I went to Heidelberg, I worked in Ward 7 in Heidelberg. What did you notice was different in this experience from the same place when you had been there at the beginning? Well, yes … em … yes, well, there was a bit different atmosphere I think and em … there were so many more people em, you know the AMWAs and those sort of people that we hadn't had when I went to the war. We had VAD, voluntary aid people, but em … when I came back there were so many more of those people that em … you know, I wasn't used to having working round the hospital. You mean support staff? Mm, support staff. And what sort of jobs were they doing? Well, I am not sure what they were doing. I suppose eh … they were helping with showers and making beds and …eh. So some of the things that you had been doing as nurses before? Yes, I suppose they were more into that sort of thing, yes. What I seemed to do most of the time was take blood samples from people. I suppose people back from the war, they were looking in their blood for various diseases, I don't know, but em yeah I seemed to take blood, a lot of blood from people, all … Mm, well how long did you stay there? Oh, I suppose, I think about 6 months, I don't think any longer. How did you meet your husband? Well, I had friends in East Brighton and so I used to go and stay with them when I had time off, and Alan lived next door with his mother and em … so I got … he had been a prisoner of war in Germany … eh … and of course I had known him briefly before he went to the war, but then … em … I got to know him better when I came back. So you had a lot in common with that war experience then? Yes, yes, well he was on the Hereward and was shipwrecked off Crete and his brother was drowned and em … he'd managed to get to Rhode Island, was taken prisoner by the Italians and eventually was taken to Germany, so he was about 4 years a prisoner and em …then he went to England and looked up the family relations in England and was there for some time before he came home. Did you talk about your experiences with him a lot? Eh, not a lot I don't think, no. Not a lot. How did you feel about it when you got home? Did you want to talk or did you feel it was something you wanted to put behind you and … No … get on with the rest of your life? >Well, I felt if people wanted to know, I was prepared to tell them. I could see no reason why I wouldn't tell them. Eh … after all, I had been away for 4 years, most of it as a prisoner, what else did I have to talk about, nothing really. Did you find it difficult to get back into a more normal sort of lifestyle? Well, it was difficult, mainly you preferred to congregate with other ex prisoners. You see when Viv and I were down in Hobart we seemed to be with ex prisoners of war all the time we were there. When we were in Sydney, staying at the Australia, the beer came on at 4 o'clock. Well, there would be a big crowd of POWs all there, and I think all having difficulty in settling in back into … nobody quite knew what they were going to do and so … em, yeah, we felt more comfortable with ex prisoners of war. Did you feel irritated by the people who had never had that kind of deprivation? Things like how easy it was to get food for instance or … ? Well, it was a bit irritating because of the fact of rationing. You see, we weren't given a whole lot of ration tickets, we had trouble … there was one woman I worked with, she had hoarded up everything you could think of. She had got rations … enough … well I got married with … only one set of sheets and eh … you couldn't buy … yes, it was … you didn't have enough ration cards to buy anything and I had hardly any linen. Well I have still got hardly any linen, I don't need it now. But you had to have ration cards to get all those things and em … Was there a recognition that you needed additional food because you had been deprived for so long or did you have to survive on the sort of rations everybody else had? I think we just had the same ration. So how did you manage to get fit and well and build up your strength again? Oh, I didn't have much difficulty doing that … I em … I don't remember. I suppose you could have put yourself back into the hospital, that's what you said earlier wasn't it, that if you had felt the need, you could have done that? I could have, yes, I could have gone back in as a patient, I … you know … I could have, I could have said I wanted more medical treatment, but em I didn't do that. But em … I know there were … tea rationing, when we got married it was still … fortunately the grocer out here let us have tea, but we were miles behind with ration tickets when rationing went out, otherwise we wouldn't be able to have a cup of tea. We were short … rations … that rationing was em … well they didn't really give us what they … perhaps I think should have given us, as far as ration tickets were concerned to make up for what we had missed out on. Never mind. So you only eh went back to nursing for a fairly short time and then got married? No, I left the army in '46, but I went to eh … a medical clinic in Footscray, civilian, and I worked there until '47. Right, and you got married in '47? Yes, 5th December 1947. Right. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. Congratulations. My husband died in '81, yeah. And you had 4 children? Yes, I had 4. Did you work after you married? No. That is a dreadful thing to say, of course you worked. Were you paid for work after you were married? No, I wasn't. I did one night's night duty here in Pakenham. Eh, I had 4 children by that time and somebody rang me up and said, you know, they were desperate, would I do night duty. So, I said I would do one night to let the Night Sister have a night off. Anyway, I got in there and the nurse on duty said there was a mid in, she'd had the baby and she was haemorrhaging, you know. I said, "Well you bloody well make sure she has stopped haemorrhaging before you go off duty." I know I was a midwife. But a long time ago. But goodness, it was way back in 1940 I had delivered all these babies, but then, I hadn't … it wasn't fair, was it? No. So, anyway, em … they got her stabilised and I was on night duty and em … bells would ring and I'd … I didn't know … I hardly knew my way around the hospital, but I'd go and answer the bell and the people would open their eyes, "Mrs Young, what are you doing here?" They weren't used to me. So, I spent the night and eh … anyway, I came home, got the children ready for school. It was a big thing to do, my husband wasn't well and em … I went to bed. Anyway, eh … Alan came in at lunch time and eh wanted to know where his lunch was. So I got up and got him lunch and I said, "And that's the end of night duty, I am not doing any more night duty". You can't run a family and do your work. Ok. I know people do now, but … eh … it puts a terrible strain on the marriage. And on the health of the woman too. Yes. So, but you did get involved in the Red Cross didn't you? I got involved in the Red Cross, yes. When did that begin? Oh, I ought to know… About 1964, or '63 or … Right. … some time like that. So when the children had started to get a little bit older? Yeah, they were older, they were all at high school then, I think. And what was your role in the Red Cross? Well, they wanted us to start a branch of the Red Cross in Officer, and so I became the first president of the Officer Red Cross and got it going, and it is still going, they are doing quite well, that is good. And, then there was a service company formed in Pakenham. A service company is a bit different to a branch of Red Cross. You have probably researched that. No, go on. And em … so it does a different type of work to what the branch does. It is not there for money raising. And I became … eventually I joined it and I became the superintendent of that service company … and then I became … eh … what do the call it, regional president of the Henri Dunant Region, which meant travelling… Nar Nar Goon North once a year, and Lang Lang and you know, all …. it was a region which meant… it was about 2&#frac12 years I was doing that, which meant I had to go to all their annual meetings and eh do all that sort of thing. What sort of work were you doing in the service company? Em … we were doing first aid, we were encouraging people in first aid and we initiated around here first aid for the primary school children and so we had people going to the schools, giving lectures on first aid and then we would examine these children and they would get their junior first aid certificate and we found it very rewarding. Young children, even little ones, 7 and 8, eh … are most interested in doing first aid. So you were using your nursing training again? Yes, that's right. And eh … yes, we initiated, and then home nursing. I had someone come up from Melbourne to lecture on home nursing, which was good. Em … teaching people, you know, using bed pans and all that sort of thing in the home. Because a lot of that sort of thing is out of date now. And em … eh … well, more on the medical side, we took over arranging transport for people to go for medical appointments. We had a roster of people to drive … em … it was more on the medical side of things. When did you join the RSL? Oh I joined the RSL as soon as I came home, 1945. Have been a member ever since. I was a member at Hamilton first and em … I am a member of the Returned Nurses Club and I am a member here in Pakenham and I am a life member of eh … I got a life membership from Federal, so I am a life member. So obviously you are highly committed to it. What do you think is the value of the RSL? Well, it is a place where people eh can go and feel happy and comfortable and can talk to people who know what they are talking about. They can relax and em … eh … get help from their fellow members. I mean, just being able to sit down and talk to people is a help. But then we have got the welfare side of it too. We help people who eh … you know, if they are financially disadvantaged we can perhaps give a hand out of welfare funds, not that we have got that much, but eh … we can help. I feel eh it means a lot to people to be able to get together and feel relaxed in that company. That they can talk and say what they want to say and people understand what they are… they are not judgmental. Has the RSL changed in the course of your association with it? Eh … well it still has the same aims, the RSL, but the men have got older and they are not so keen on drinking as they used to be. You know, it had a … they didn't drink all that much, but it did have that aspect to it, but the men have got older. I think the younger ones still probably drink a bit, but the older ones don't any more, but em. How do you feel about ANZAC Day? Oh well, I think that is a tradition that we should carry on. I think it is a way of recognising what the men in the past, whatever we think of war, whatever we think, it doesn't alter the fact that those men, voluntarily in most cases, put their lives on the line so that our country would be free and I do think we should recognise that. Do you march yourself? I have done. You said "men" before, do you think women have a place in ANZAC? Well I do, the women have a place too. The women now go into combat units. In our day we were not in combat units. We would be, supposedly behind the lines giving medical support, which was very necessary, but eh … it was rare to be right in the front line of the shooting … eh … and I think of some of the men in the First World War, you know, that when you think of what happened on the Somme, and eh all those battlefields in France and Belgium … em … without thinking about Gallipoli … those men went through a time that we can't conceive of. And then eh … then the men on the Burma railway and in the eh … some of the mines in Poland … they … some of those men had a most dreadful time, and the Kokoda trail. I am sure, if people could just visualise what human suffering goes on and the women in the past have mostly been behind the lines giving support. They've had a bad time too as it happened… em we got to the point where we were taken prisoner, and so did the girls in Rabaul had also had a bad time, but em … the actual hand to hand fighting and being in the trenches and em … handling guns and tanks and things, I think those men really should be recognised and we can only do that by marching on ANZAC Day. And I think the young people have got to understand the history that has gone into the making of this nation. Do you have an opinion about young people marching with, or in place of their parents after their parents have gone? Oh, I think that if those young people want to show respect for what has gone ahead, before them, I think yes, they should be allowed to march. There has been a lot of media representation of wars, of em … and of prisoners of war too … do you have an opinion about that? About how … how - say your own experience - has been represented on television or film? Well, it is hard to represent accurately what went on at the war and I think sometimes when it is on film, it is probably eh … doesn't come out quite as you see it when you are there. Well there is a very clear parallel here in your case because Paradise Road was made not long ago and that purports to be about your own experience. Can you talk about that and how … whether you felt you identified with that film at all? Well, parts of it I might have identified with, but em … it wasn't portrayed as accurately as I would have liked it to have been. Which things worried you most? Well, we were not as well dressed as those people and eh … I don't think you can get onto tape the suffering of … the illnesses and the dying by inches that we had to watch, and not able to do anything for people and eh … the emptying of the latrines, it wasn't… it was worse than what it looked like on the screen and eh … I don't know that it was as accurate as I would have liked it to have been. I know Bruce Beresford said that everything that happened on the screen in that film had happened in various camps, perhaps hadn't happened in ours, but he said that everything that was there had been told to him as having happened in his own camp … in some camp. So … but there were things where I didn't really agree with perhaps. The overall experience of being a prisoner of war, it has been horrific and awful, but did anything good come out of it for you? I think something good comes out of all your experiences, even bad ones and eh … you see the other side of people's lives and you know that there is good in everybody and eh … that there is a feeling of kinship - not only with the 24 of us that got home, where we have got a very tight bond, but we also have a bond with the civilian women who were in our camp with us. And eh … we still are in contact with civilian women who were in camp with us. One lady that lives in Singapore is coming out here tomorrow to Geelong to a wedding, and I am hoping I might be able to see her, but I am not sure whether I will or not and em … eh … I have letters from other civilians in the camp and when I was in Singapore I went to call on 2 of the civilian women who were in our camp with us. So there is a bond. Amongst ourselves - there is only 7 of us left - but there is a very tight bond, but also with anybody that was in the camp at the same time as us that we met there. Then even the … there is only 2 survivors from Rabaul - I only know one of them, but we have got rapport with her too. She lives in New Zealand. How do you feel about the Japanese people and nation? Mm … well, we have got to live with them and we have got to live in this world together, so we have got to try and get along. I myself don't want to be associated with the Japanese; individually probably they are quite all right, but I don't really know any Japanese … eh … and being bitter isn't going to help. We have got to get over that and eh … I don't think we can ever forget. We can't forget that we had that dreadful period of our lives in prison camp, but at the same time, we have got to learn to all live in this world together and eh … we have got to get along with the Japanese. I think that is very generous of you and maybe that is the place to stop. Right.
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