I read the article and I have to admit that I found it hard to understand, It goes against all the stories I had grown up knowing about the horrors that the Australian soldiers faced at the hands of the Japanese. Starvation and ill treatment were the order of the day, Imprisoned in cages for some misdemeanor. Building railways , working with very little food, skeletons doing hard manual work, falling by the wayside and either they died or got up and tried again. I have to honestly say that I believe what was told following those dreadful days when they were finally released and saved.
In all my decades on this earth, never have I read an article that has so upset, angered, infuriated and frustrated me than this piece of leftist socialist demented PROPAGANDA from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about the conditions our soldiers endured during times of war.
According to the author of this piece, Joey Watson, things were rather peachy dandy in Changi. The article quoted Stan Arneil, Changi survivor in the piece:
When asked about his POW experience in Changi for an ABC radio program in 1980, survivor Stan Arneil said that when compared to his time working on the Thai-Burma railway, Changi "was absolutely fantastic".
Yet, when I read Mr Arneil’s piece on Changi he said “ Changi remained the main prison camp in south-east Asia. Compared to the hell of the Burma–Thailand Railway, Changi could seem, as one said, like “heaven”.
Hmmmmm…
“ We arrived here last night at 1 am and were bedded down in new huts at Changi at 4 am. We have at last fallen into a prisoner’s paradise but I am so tired am not able to write any more today.”
Sergeant Stan Arneil, 2/30th Battalion
(on returning to Changi from the Burma–Thailand Railway, 21 December 1943
Is it not strange that the ABC have manipulated the words of a man who went on to be remembered as:
“ Working on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway while a prisoner and his time in the Changi prisoner-of-war camp, where more than one in three prisoners died during their incarceration. In addition to the author's diary, the book includes photographs taken by another prisoner of war, George "Changi" Aspinall. Both Arneil and Aspinall faced death if their captors had discovered that they were writing about or photographing their experiences.”
Certainly sounds like a fantastic experience, one he enjoyed every minute of….
The article goes on to quote Dr Dapin.about the Vietnam War era.
‘Dr Dapin believes that the mateship myth, constructed soon after the war, came from prisoners desperate to create meaning from their horrific POW experience.
"You get to a point where the men in the camps have literally nothing else, no possessions, no clothes, no food, all they have is each other,"
SURVIVAL depended on relying on each other.
I truly wonder how many returned servicemen would share the views as presented on this rather confusing article, written by a person born somewhere after the end of the Vietnam War, long after the end of the Second World War who is suddenly an expert in all things historic and misconstruing well intentioned words.
The modern MSM at work. PROPOGANDA.
To read Joey’s article you would think it was all tea parties and all the chaps having a great time with the Officers still running the show. All buddies together meeting up for Happy hour in the evening after helping build roads and railways etc.The ABC should be ashamed of themselves for even considering allowing this chap to put forward such slander.
How do they think the men who were in this situation for years will feel when they hear about this?
I can remember reading or being told that when they were rescued they had to be put into hospital before any family member could see them because they were so emaciated and starved . These poor ill treated soldiers had to be fed so that they looked somewhat human before facing their loved ones.
Ask them, was it a picnic?
Or I am I the one who is all wrong and been misinformed about the brave men who suffered such awful treatment, not for months but years!!!! Somehow I don't think I was misinformed, I believe what was reported all those years ago. I believe they suffered all sorts of ill treatment and torture and it is such an act of disrespect to those brave men who endured those years of capture that I have to repeat that the ABC is so wrong to have even given space to such an article.
If you want a “ How Dare You “ moment, this is it.
ABC HOW DARE YOU?
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