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In December 1941 the Japanese invaded Singapore. I was eight years old, an only child, living with my parents. My father was RSM Alexander 鈥楽andy鈥� Munnoch of the 2nd Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and we were stationed in Tanglin Barracks. In a letter to my mother dated 2nd Dec. My father said 鈥淲hat about this war scare darling. Don鈥檛 worry. You and Catherine will be alright. I think the old Jap is bluffing and we are cornering him all roads鈥�.

He was proved to be wrong however because a day or two after Pearl Harbour the bombers came over Singapore. I remember it well. My mother woke me up and told me to go on to the balcony. A few seconds later we heard the first bombs drop on Singapore. From then onwards there was panic with everyone trying to leave the Island. My friends were all evacuated. The bombing continued both day and night. There was no air raid shelter. Amah used to put a mattress on top of me and then lie on top of that to protect me. We sheltered under a billiard table.

We heard that my father had been transferred from the front line to Queen Alexandra Hospital with severe malaria and we visited him. I remember passing cigarettes round to the soldiers. (Later we learned that the Japanese had massacred many patients, doctors and nurses). He told my mother to pack and be ready to leave as soon as possible. He discharged himself from hospital and we left in the early hours to the docks. We boarded the Narkunda. We were bombed constantly and unable to leave until late afternoon. We waved goodbye and I never saw my father again for three and a half years.

We eventually arrived at Fremantle and were met by the Red Cross and taken to Perth. We lived there, staying in different families, for the duration of the war. My mother worked hard; completely different from her previous life in the tropics. Finally she succumbed to a serious illness and decided she had to come home. The day before we were due to leave for Britain, I went down with German Measles and we were unable to travel. We heard later that the ship we would have been on had been sunk, with heavy loss of life, in shark infested waters.

We did leave eventually, saying goodbye to our friends who had been so kind to us. We travelled to Sydney by train over the Nullabor Plain, from then on to Wellington and finally through the Panama Canal to Bermuda when news reached us that the war was over in Europe. We arrived in Liverpool and travelled down to train to Kent where we were reunited with grandparents, aunts uncles and a cousin 鈥� none of whom I knew.

The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war was over in the Far East. My father had been a prisoner of war and was sent to Thailand where they were to build a railway and a bridge over the River Kwai. He told us that the bomb had saved them all.鈥� They were all starving, even the Japanese. They put on camp shows to try and boost the morale of the men and my father was in all of them. Cholera had broken out in the camp and he carried out cremations and cared for the graves. He got an MBE for his work in the camp. I understand he had a cross built, 40ft high. He collected the ashes and placed them in a cairn underneath. A sign read In Memory of our Fallen Comrades. After the war he was a military instructor at Bradfield college and sadly passed away in 1956 six months after my marriage. A memorial museum has just been built at the National Arboretum by COFEPOW (children of Far East Prisoners of War) of which I am a member and I was proud to attend the opening at the VJ day 60th Anniversary on 15th August 2005.

To see a picture of Catherine and her mother in Singapore check out Daughter of the Regiment II.

This story was submitted to the Peoples War Website by Jim Salveson of the Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of Catherine Butcher and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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