[social engineering; see also Batu Lintang camp] The author, as an officer in the British Royal Artillery, was a prisoner of war in Japanese hands from 1942-02-15 to the capitulation in August 1945. During that time, he was engaged with some fellow prisoners on much useful engineering work, including the design and construction of artificial limbs, and in order to equip a workshop for these tasks he secretly made a small lathe.

…Much had happened in that year, but one short story must suffice to show how the prisoners had learned to seize opportunities and outwit their guards.

A few officers had systematically stolen tools from the Japanese, while out with working parties, and had smuggled them back into camp, but it was so inconvenient to have to hide them whenever a guard appeared in the hut that it was decided to establish a workshop. A Japanese NCO who acted as an interpreter, was engaged in conversation after a roll-call parade, and persuaded to draw the Japanese characters representing “man”, “dog”, “tree”, “house”, etc; the word “workshop” was easily included and the character was carefully noted. It was copied onto a piece of wood, and the next changing of the guard awaited. After the last round of the guards, the sign “Workshop” was hung up in the officers’ hut, and the tools neatly arranged so that the new guard found a small joiner’s shop functioning and took it for granted.

…An endless stream of jobs poured into the workshop. They varied from repairs to cooking utensils to making sewing machine needles, from repairs to microscopes to making special splints, and at the same time experiments were being carried out with an artificial leg designed by the author. The patient was able to walk with the new limb, which had a link-motion instead of a hinge in the knee, and jigs and templates were prepared in order to facilitate production.

Everyone learnt to improvise, and to salvage anything that could be of any conceivable use. Much useful scrap was handed in to the workshop. One officer brought along some gear wheels which were part of a set of change-wheels and were found to fit the 3-1⁄2-inch lathe, while another dug up and gave the author some artillery instruments (known as “transceivers”) which had been part of the coast-defence guns; from them some precision gears and stainless-steel shafts were obtained.

…The author had given much thought to making the best use of the small precision gears, and he decided that a small and reasonably accurate screw-cutting lathe, with a large range of accessories, would fill a growing need and would in any case allow much essential work to be continued if at any time the Japanese were to take away the larger machines. It was important, therefore, that the proposed machine should not be seen by the Japanese, that it should be small enough to hide and transport in a canvas pack, that it should be capable of fairly heavy work on large diameters, and that the essential parts should be made quickly while some machines were available.

…The author had a word with the officer in charge of the British personnel in the Japanese workshop, and he had the piece cut to the required length. The Japanese would have been suspicious if an exact length had been specified, and if a large piece had been requested, some weary prisoner would have had the task of carrying it. The work was marked out from a dimensioned sketch, and the author drilled and chipped away with a cold chisel, all the surplus metal.

…The lathe was mounted on a wooden base and fastened down on the bench in contact with backstops by a single woodscrew through the front of the base at the headstock end. The motor was pivoted on its fixing lugs, so that its weight kept the belt tight, and yet the arrangements permitted the lathe to be removed quickly in the event of a Japanese guard coming into the workshop. When not in use the machine was housed in a wooden box with a drop-front, kept on a shelf in the tool cupboard, and experience showed that it could be whipped off the bench and moved about 4 feet into its box in a matter of seconds.

In their searches of the camp for wireless radio sets—searches which became more frequent as the war turned in the Allies’ favour—the Japanese were furious if they uncovered anything, no matter how innocuous, which they suspected had been hidden from them, so if everyone were ordered out on parade at an unusual time the author left cupboard doors open with the toolboxes on view.

The Japanese Command had been changed by now and the camp was completely reorganized. Rations were worse than ever, and many petty restrictions, which seemed calculated to annoy, were imposed on the prisoners, and it became necessary to proceed very cautiously to avoid beatings. The Japanese used to punish prisoners for breaking rules by locking them up, handcuffed, in a cell with practically no food. An officer of the British Staff managed to get possession of the handcuff key for about half an hour and sent it to the author who measured it, made a lead pattern of the peculiar thread within the sleeve, and returned the key unmarked. Two days later, British Headquarters had 5 handcuff keys and they were henceforth able to release the “criminals” for several hours a day.

…Allied bombers were now in evidence, and the Japanese reacted to the threat of invasion by imposing more restrictions on the camp. Rations were still further reduced, and nearly every man who was not actually in hospital or crippled was taken to work as a navvy on military defensive points. There were many rumours of what was in store for the prisoners, and one of the least gruesome was that, at the first sign of Allied activity, they would be herded within the walls of Changi jail. Any bombarding of Singapore would probably have resulted in the power supply to the camp being cut off, and with it the carefully organized radio news service, which at such a time might have been the means of receiving important instructions from the Allied forces.

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