A York man's memoir about his time as a Japanese prisoner of war has been published in time for VJ Day, reports MAXINE GORDON

SEVENTY years ago, Eric Markham was fighting for his life - struggling to survive in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Far East.

He had arrived in Singapore in 1941 as a young signals clerk – after being asked by the army whether he wanted to be sent somewhere “hot” or “cold”.

Months after arriving, Singapore fell to the Japanese and Eric became a POW.

Forced to live on restricted rations of rice and a few vegetables and carry out gruelling work building camps and constructing the infamous Burmese railway, Eric suffered from malnutrition, as well as beriberi, dysentery, malaria and tropical ulcers during his four years of captivity.

His toughest struggle was against smallpox, which left his body covered in a mass of red blisters. Afraid the disease would spread, the Japanese commanders ordered that Eric be isolated - as far away as possible from everyone else. Eric wrote an account of those dark hours.

“I was put on a stretcher and carried into the surrounding bush country, to a tiny kennel made of bamboo. I was laid inside this little cell-like place with my ever-needed bed pan and a bottle of fresh drinking water. I was left alone to my thoughts. I had been banished to this place to die.”

But he didn’t die, and by the third day, was brought back to camp and more comfortable surroundings. The medical officers proclaimed his survival a miracle - defying all medical text books.

It was great timing too - the Japanese were about to surrender. In early August 1945, the allies had dropped their atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A week later, the Second World War was over.

That day has since been marked as VJ Day (Victory Over Japan Day) – and commemorations will be taking place in London on Saturday in honour of men like Eric, the so-called “Forgotten Army”.

York Press:

FIRM FRIENDS: Eric, left, aged 20 as a Territorial Army recruit with his friend Bob Russell

His two daughters, Rosalind Bowden and Jane McKinlay, will be taking part in the events at Horse Guards Parade and Westminster Abbey in his memory. Eric died in 2009, aged 90. His widow, Mary, aged 92, lives at Skelton, just outside York.

To coincide with the 70th anniversary of V-J Day, the family have published Eric’s war memoirs.

Eric, who was born in Darlington and settled in York in the 1970s, began writing the account soon after being demobbed. Eric remained poorly for several years after the war, with recurring bouts of tropical diseases that needed specialist treatment in hospital. Daughter Rosalind explains: “He experienced a quite horrific war and after his return, during one of several stays in hospital, he was advised by one of his doctors to write down an account of his experiences - probably as a form of therapy to help combat what has now become known as post-traumatic stress.”

Her father was a quiet man who rarely spoke of the war - which is why his written account is all the more precious, she says.

The 200 page book - filled with photographs and maps to help illustrate Eric’s story - has been published privately to share with the family as well as the Imperial War Museum, other military museums and reference libraries.

Eric had been a keen walker in his youth, regularly climbing in the Dales and Lake District. Rosalind believes this fitness helped him survive the privations of the far east. She said: “He had a basic fitness and strength of character that seemed to be able to cope with it.”

Eric writes that although he had been an enthusiastic walker, nothing could prepare him for his treks through Thailand while working on the Burma-Thailand railway. “Our march continued through the day in blazing sunshine, with a temperature which must have been over 100 degrees in the shade. By afternoon, the strain was beginning to tell and many were collapsing by the roadside.”

Eric became weaker by the day and struggled with work on the construction of the railway, felling jungle and building embankments. “I found this to be such hard labour that after a few days my legs became weak. Each day they became worse. Eventually they became so bad that one of the Japs, strangely out of character, noticed me stumbling and sent me back to camp.”

A few days later, Eric’s legs gave way completely. He was taken to the camp hospital suffering from total paralysis. However after two weeks’ rest, Eric began to recover.

At 6ft 1in, Eric was a big man, normally weighing around 12 stones. When the Japanese surrendered, he was a shadow of himself at just seven stone.

He spent the next four months recovering in hospitals in Rangoon and India before being flown back to England, weighing a healthy 13 stone.

Before he left, a doctor gave him a mirror, telling him to look at his face. It was deeply marked, ravaged by his small pox lesions. He met his wife Mary soon after his return. She didn’t mind his skin. “I liked his personality,” she says, adding she was “blessed” to have 63 happy years of marriage.

Eric’s parents – Walter and Annie, who ran Markham’s Grocery and Wine shop in Darlington’s Market Place – had feared the worst for their son. They had been told he was “missing” and presumed him dead. They received limited correspondence, including one note which stated: “Dear Father and Mother, I am a Prisoner of War and quite well and unhurt. Please do not worry.”

There was no date on the postcard.

 

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BADGE OF HONOUR: Some of Eric Markham's medals from his service in the far east

Rosalind says she hopes this year’s VJ Day celebration encourages people to remember the sacrifices of those who fought in the Far East. She said: “People consider VE Day as the end of the Second World War, but the war ended with VJ Day on August 15. That upsets Japanese POW veterans and their families. It feels as if their terrible ordeal has largely been forgotten.”

Hopefully Eric Markham’s memoirs will play their part in helping us all remember.