Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Clifford Cecil Geier was born in Greenock, South Australia on the 10th of March, 1921 to his mother Linda Geier and his father Edward Adolph Geier. Growing up, Clifford attended school at Greenock Public school and he was a practicing Lutheran Christian in his community. Before registering for war, Cecil was occupied by his job as a painter in his hometown of Nuriootpa.

On the 6th of September, 1941, Clifford enrolled to be in World War Two and was given the service number: SX14395. During his time serving in the war, Clifford became a Private which was his final status, before he became a Prisoner of War. During his time in captivity, Geier became an inmate to the Japanese on the 15th of February 1942 and spent time imprisoned at POW camps in Singapore. At first he was imprisoned at Changi then transferred to Bukit-Tinah. He then went on to spend 6 weeks in River Valley Camp until he was transferred back to Changi, where he spent the next three months.

After his time in Singapore, he was transferred to Onte camp in May 1943 where he additionally spent nearly six months. After this, he was moved to the Bangaan camp in the Philippines where he spent a few weeks in November 1943. He also worked in the Japanese camp Fukuoke, where he was released from in August 1945. After the vast amount of time that Cecil spent in many camps, he gained a lot of experiences and saw a lot of things. One of the hardest troubles he encountered was the brutality and starvation the prisoners faced when in confinement. Geier states some of these experiences in a War Crimes Investigation correspondence.

The prisoners were treated like they were not human when it came to rations. Cecil says that he saw many people dying of starvation when he was there, as the food conditions were not capable of sustaining life. He said that their diet consisted almost entirely of rice, sometimes watery stew and a small amount of pumpkin once a week. He said that occasionally they would get a small slice of dried fish and that meat was distributed rarely in small quantities. Cecil says that to keep themselves alive, he and the other prisoners would scavenge for lily-root, obtain pumpkin from passing natives by the river, catch and eat snakes or other animals, and sometimes eat extra rice or stew that the Japanese had thrown away.

Cecil describes his living conditions and the place he would sleep by saying it was a Japanese tent with a centre poll. When he was there it was the wet season and the rain would constantly sweep it away, so they built up a floor with bamboo to prevent this problem and they slept on bags. He says that he would occasionally not have time to sleep as he would have an extra shift during the night, transporting materials from Bangaan or the river to wherever they needed to be, they would likely finish around midnight but they were not allowed extra sleep. Also, sickness was no excuse for missing a shift and you could only go into the medical tent if you were near to dying. He recounted that he only saw a few people ever come out of the tent alive. The Japanese would select people for treatment by valuing them on how they worked. Brutalities were endured frequently by the prisoners as they were bashed quite often. He says that the Japanese would bash the prisoners with bamboo as punishment, and in July 1943 he endured a bashing that resulted with him having two badly swollen legs.

Clifford was discharged on the 15th of May in 1946 from N/10 FLD PK W/SHOPS. He was a soldier for nearly five years. After the War, Clifford went on to live a long life in South Australia, passing away on the 13th of December, 1996 at the age of 76 years old from causes unknown. He passed away in his hometown of Nuriootpa and is buried in the Nuriootpa cemetery. His grave is in section SJ, Row 6, Block 104, Plot 17. Clifford Cecil Geier has his name in multiple memorials including Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, District of Nuriootpa Roll of Honour WW2.