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Australia

Lloyd Charles Daniels was born on the 2nd January 1922 at Cooroy QLD. He was the eldest son of 4 children born to his parents Charles and Lillian Daniels. His sister Enid was born in 1923 followed by brother Roy in 1924 and another brother Clive in 1927. Clive served in the Army in WW2.

Lloyd’s schooling took place at Gympie Central School and North Arm State School. Lloyd’s father Charlie was a baker so Lloyd learned his trade from him. Charlie served in the WW1.

Lloyd was living with his parents at Maroochydore QLD when he enlisted for WW2 at Brisbane on the 25th June 1940 aged 18. His service number was QX9960, his rank Private and he was assigned to the No. 1 Company Signals, 8th Division, 22nd Brigade.

His initial training took place at Fort Lytton in Brisbane from July to September 1940. In October he spent several weeks at the Sydney Showgrounds which was used for training, accommodation and embarkation of troops. The unit moved to Bathurst NSW where they completed their training from November 1940 to January 1941.

The 8th Division was formed in July 1940 with three infantry brigades assigned to the division the 22nd, 23rd and 24th. While it had initially been planned for the 8th Division to deploy to the Middle East, as the possibility of war with Japan loomed, the 22nd Brigade was sent instead to Malaya. According to the Australian War Memorial records of the 2nd Echelon Malaya, the 8th Division boarded HMT Queen Mary (QX1) on the 2nd February 1941 then the ship embarked from Sydney on the 4th February for Malaya.

Upon arrival in Malaya on the 18th February 1941 Lloyd proceeded by train to the 8th Division barracks at Kuala Lumpur. He was transferred to the 1st Field Bakery and records show that as of 26th February the 1st Field Bakery was based in Singapore with 1 Officer and 28 other ranks. On the 8th December 1941 the Japanese Imperial Force invaded northern Malaya and quickly advanced southward. The strength of the 8th Division on 31st December 1941 was 14,398 against the invading Japanese force of 26,000. They were hopelessly outnumbered.

In January 1942 the 22nd Brigade was sent to guard the north end of the Johore–Singapore Causeway which linked the Malayan Peninsula to Singapore, as Allied forces retreated. The 8th Division were given the task of defending the prime invasion points on the north side of the island, in a terrain dominated by mangrove swamps and forest. From 3rd February 1942, the Australian positions were shelled by Japanese artillery. Shelling and air attacks intensified over the next five days, destroying communications between Allied units and their commanders.

During the defence of Singapore on 14th February 1942, Lloyd was wounded in the leg and taken to the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore. An hour after his arrival at the hospital it was overrun by the Japanese troops and 200 hundred staff and patients were massacred. Lloyd survived.

By the morning of 15th February 1942, the Japanese had broken through the last line of defence in the north and food and some kinds of ammunition had begun to run out. The Allied Command formally surrendered to the Japanese at 5.15pm that day and 20 year old Lloyd, along with the rest of the 8th Division and Allied Forces, was taken prisoner and sent to Selarang Barracks at Changi. These barracks were built to house 1,000 so it was grossly overcrowded with the 15,000 prisoners that were now camped there.

For much of its existence Changi was not one camp but rather a collection of up to seven prisoner of war and internee camps, occupying an area of approximately 25 square kilometres. Its name came from the peninsula on which it stood, at the east end of Singapore Island. Prior to the war the Changi Peninsula had been the British Army's principal base area in Singapore. As a result, the site boasted an extensive and well-constructed military infrastructure, including three major barracks – Selarang, Roberts and Kitchener – as well as many other smaller camps. Singapore's civilian prison, Changi Gaol, was also on the peninsula.

An incident, known as the “Selarang Square Squueze”, started on 30th August 1942 after the Japanese recaptured 4 POW (prisoners of war) who had escaped from the Selarang Barracks camps. They required that the other prisoners sign a pledge not to escape which was in contravention of the Geneva Convention. After the PsOW refused to sign, they were forced to crowd in the open areas around the barracks square for nearly five days with little water and no sanitation. The executions of the recaptured PsOW failed to break the men. However, on 5th September their Commanders gave the order for them to sign the pledge when their men started to fall ill and die from dysentery. Upon signing the pledge, the men were allowed to return to the barracks buildings.

From April 1943 large work parties began to be sent out from Changi to other camps to work on projects. For the purpose of maintaining accurate records each group was given a letter of the alphabet. “A” Force was sent to Burma with Forces “B” to “E” being sent to Borneo, Japan and Eastern Thailand. “F” Force consisted of 7,000 men, of which 3,662 were Australians, the others were British and Dutch. Most of the men of “F” Force were already suffering from sickness such as dysentery. The purpose of this force was to assist in the construction of the 415km Burma-Thailand Railway linking Bangkok with Rangoon. The railway was constructed simultaneously from both ends...Thanbyuzyat in Burma and Nong Pladuk in Thailand. Lloyd was sent in one of these parties to work on the railway.

The Japanese drew on two sources of labour for this project...the first group comprised roughly 200,000 local men, women and children. The second group comprised Allied PsOW, most of whom were British, Australian and Dutch soldiers. About 60,000 were sent to work on the railway, 13,000 of them were Australian. The first of thirteen trains carrying F Force left Singapore on April 18th, 1943. Each train contained approximately 700 men crowded into 23 rice trucks that were completely enclosed with no ventilation...28 men to each truck. As the heat intensified the trucks became like ovens causing severe thirst for the men. The last train departed on April 26th, 1943. Each train took five days to make the journey from Singapore to Ban Pong, Thailand. Upon arrival at Ban Pong the PsOW faced a 300km march to their destination up country which took 2 and a half weeks. They marched from 7pm to 7am to avoid the oppressive heat during the day.

The prisoners were housed in over 70 camps along the railway route with most of the Australians being at Shimo Songkurai, “F” Force No. 1 Camp, which was 19kms from the Thai-Burma border. There were 3 other “F” Force camps in that 19km stretch...1 was Australian and the other 2 housed British PsOW. Nieke Camp was the headquarters for “F” Force from early May till mid-June 1943. Conditions in the camps were horrendous, filth and squalor, particularly at the more remote sites where resupply of food, equipment and medical supplies was difficult. The 'attap' huts, as they were called, were made from bamboo and palm leaves and were not water-proof. Hence with the monsoonal rains the men lived and slept in dripping wet

conditions on narrow platforms about 2ft each...just above the mud. The mortality rate was very high. More than a quarter of Allied PsOW would die by the end of war...3,000 of them Australian, and nearly half of the Asian labourers. The main causes of death were maltreatment, starvation, overwork and disease.

“F” Force worked in the area just north of Konkoita right up to just north of Three Pagoda Pass. Konkoita was the meeting point of the railway on 16th

October 1943. They had the job of constructing a stretch of about 60kms of railway. At Songkurai they worked on a 15km stretch which included the famous wooden bridge across the River Kwai...Songkurai Bridge. This area was the most isolated of western Thailand. The work itself was gruelling and dangerous. Apart from building bridges, it involved clearing jungle, then constructing embankments or cuttings on steep hills to ensure the gradient of the track was gentle enough for the trains. The Japanese and conscripted Korean guards forced the prisoners to toil to exhaustion day after day...14-18 hours a day. They savagely beat anyone who they decided was not working hard enough and demanded that even the seriously ill work. The diet primarily consisted of a thin gruel made from rice and a very small amount of vegetables. By the end of the war all the survivors looked like living skeletons. Poor diet contributed to the prevalence of serious diseases, such as beri-beri, cholera, malaria, dysentery and flesh-eating tropical ulcers.

The railway took 12 months to build with final completion on 16th October 1943. More than 20% of the Australian prisoners who worked on the railway died. “F” Force suffered the highest casualties and by November 1943, around 2,200 of the 7,000 men had died from sickness and malnutrition.

During his 8 months of working on the railway from April to November 1943, Lloyd was hospitalised 3 times...in May with dysentery, in July with malaria and in August with infected scabies. He was sent to Tanbaya Camp Hospital which was the hospital for “F” Force.

When Lloyd left Changi prison in April 1943 to work on the railway he weighed 12 stone...when he returned in November 1943 he weighed 6 stone.

It is noted in his service records that he was declared “missing” on 16th July 1942 and that his family were notified of this. It is noted a year later on 9th July 1943 that he was now a “prisoner of war”. For 12 months his family had no idea if he was alive and if he was, where

Upon his return to Changi in late 1943 Lloyd worked on roads and aerodrome works initially and later on preparing defence earthworks and dugouts for the use of the Japanese troops on the island. This was his life for almost 2 years until the Japanese signed the surrender document on the 2nd September 1945.

Changi prison was liberated on the 5th September 1945 by the 5th Indian Division and on the 12th September, Lloyd was the only Queenslander in the first group of 135 PsOW of the 8th Division who left Singapore on 9 Catalina flying boats bound for Australia. They stopped over at Labuan North Borneo then flew on to Darwin NT arriving there on the 14th. They arrived at Cairns QLD at 3.30pm on the 15th September where they were taken to the 116th Army General Hospital at Gungarra. The hospital organised a dance in Cairns and Lloyd’s first dance was with his sister Enid whom he hadn’t seen in 3 and a half years. The Catalinas left Cairns on 16th September landing at 3pm at Rose Bay Flying Base at Sydney NSW to the cheers of a huge crowd gathered to welcome them home. Lloyd and his fellow ex-PsOW were given refreshments by the Red Cross before being taken to the 113th AGH (Australian General Hospital), Yaralla Military Hospital, at Concord NSW where family members were waiting to greet them. On 1st November Lloyd was transferred to the 102nd Australian Convalescent Depot at Tallebudgera QLD. He then spent 5 days at the 112th AGH (Greenslopes Military Hospital) at Greenslopes QLD. He was discharged from the Army on 4th December 1945.

On the 8th June 1946 Lloyd married Ethel Joyce Watts (known as Joyce) at Kelvin Grove in Brisbane QLD. The following year they welcomed their daughter Gail and then their son Russell in 1950.

In February 1947 Lloyd became the proprietor of the Cotton Tree Bakery at Maroochydore on a trial basis before buying it. However, by June 1948 he had to close the bakery due to not having sufficient funds to buy it even though it was paying its way.

The family lived at Cape Cleveland and Double Island Point over the next several years then on 9th February 1955, Joyce died.

Lloyd married Joyce’s sister Olive on the 12th April 1958 at Albert Street Methodist Church in Brisbane. They welcomed 3 sons,,,Alan 1960, Gregory 1962 and Raymond 1965. Sadly, Olive died on 14th May 1978.

Lloyd married Johanna Louise Richardson in 1984.

After surviving death on a daily basis for over 3 years during the war, on the 5th August 1987, death came suddenly to Lloyd from heart failure while on board his boat on Moreton Bay. He was 65. His ashes were scattered on Moreton Bay and a memorial plaque to Lloyd is found on his father’s grave in the Maryborough Cemetery QLD.

Lloyd’s name appears, along with 23 others from the 1st Field Bakery WW2, on the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial at Ballarat VIC...only 10 were returned to Australia. Lloyd was the only Queenslander.

Lloyd’s name also appears on the Maroochydore RSL Roll of Honour.

Lloyd Charles Daniels was awarded for service in WW2 the Australia Service Medal, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939-1945, 1939-1945 Star, Pacific Star and the Burma Star.

On a personal note...I pay tribute to the courage and bravery of Lloyd in facing, and surviving, the horrors of being a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese for just over 3 and a half years...but also...facing and surviving the loss of 2 wives. Lloyd was my second cousin.

My deepest thanks to Lloyd’s niece Sandy Stewart for supplying some of the information used in this biography and some of the photos used on his  profile page.

Respectfully submitted by Sue Smith 1st February 2022.

SOURCES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_Division_(Australia)

http://www.230battalion.org.au/History/POW/FForce/FForceMain.htm

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/burma-thailand-railway

https://www.cofepow.org.uk/armed-forces-stories-list/the-f-force

https://www.historynet.com/death-life-three-pagoda-pass.htm

https://www.britain-at-war.org.uk/WW2/Death_Railway/html/section_3d.htm

https://www.britain-at-war.org.uk/ww2/Death_Railway/html/songkurai.htm

https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/pow/changi