Brian Best - Secret Letters from the Railway: The Remarkable Record of a Japanese POW

Goh Chor Boon, Living Hell , Asiapac Singapore 1999

John Coast, Railway of Death , Simpkin Marshall 1961

Peter N.Davies, The Man Behind the Bridge Colonel Toosey and the River Kwai, Athlone Press 1991

Ernest Gordon, Miracle on the River Kwai , Collins 1963

Hardie, Dr Robert, The Burma-Siam Railway Secret Diary of Dr.Robert Hardie 1942 45 , Imperial War Museum 1983

Harries, Meiron and Susie, Soldiers of the Sun The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army 1865 1945 , Heinemann 1991

Kinvig, Clifford, River Kwai Railway The Story of the Burma-Siam Railroad , Brassey 1992

Lushington, Lieutenant Colonel Franklin, Yeoman Service A Short History of the Kent Yeomanry 1939 45 , The Medici Society 1947

Rivett, Rohan, Behind Bamboo , Angus & Robertson 1946

Stabolgi, Lord, RN, Singapore and After , Hutchinson 1942

Towle, Philip, Margaret Kosuge and Yoichi Kibata (eds.) Japanese Prisoners of War , Hambledon, 2000

Apart from attending the Victory Parade through London, this was about the last connection Charles had with the military. His application to wear the Territorial Army Long Service medal was refused, as he had missed out on its entitlement by a few months. Disappointed rather than surprised, he made a conscious effort to put his war experiences behind him and to focus on the future with Louise. He never joined a veterans association nor participated in any reunions. Instead, he went about making up for lost time and rebuilding his life.

Louises parents had died and their house had been left to her, which was a helpful start for the couple. Charles returned to the City and in May 1947 joined the stockbroking firm of L. Messel & Co., with whom he remained for the rest of his working life, eventually becoming a partner.

To their utter joy, Louise gave birth to a daughter, Margaret, in December 1948 and they felt their happiness to be complete. The family were living in Shirley, near Croydon, but later moved out to Tenterden in Kent, when Charles retired.

One of his objectives was to travel the world. In 1973, Charles and Louise visited Thailand. Charles wanted to travel the same route he had taken as a POW and to show his wife the places about which he had written so much. Learning of his visit, the Foreign Office arranged for the British Embassy in Bangkok to lay on a car and chauffeur. They were driven to Kanchanaburi, where they visited the large and beautifully maintained main POW Cemetery. They then went to Chungkai, Nong Pladuk, and, of course, Tamarkan.

Here they walked over the bridge, which had been repaired and strengthened after the war, ironically, by the Japanese. Sitting on the bank, with the bridge to their left, was the spot where the POWs were allowed their short yasme. The sun was just as fierce, the mountains just the same but a deep peace had replaced the noise and chaos of 1943.

Charles spoke of those terrible days without rancour but was deeply moved by his visit. He was also fascinated by one of the original locomotives used by the Japanese and the Road/Rail diesel lorries, with trucks, which were used during the railways construction and were now a permanent exhibit.

They hired a motor riverboat and set off down the river to Chungkai. Here they visited the cemetery and stood by the headstone of RSM Coles, whom Charles had helped bury. They later visited Nong Pladuk and found that the site of the camp was given over to a field of sugar cane.

They paid a second visit to Kanchanaburi, this time by train, which they caught at Nong Pladuk and travelled to the Bridge and, again, enjoyed the tranquility by the river. A final appointment in Bangkok saw Charles meeting Boon Pong and his daughter. In August 1945, Boon Pongs activities were exposed and he was arrested by the Japanese, imprisoned and sentenced to death. Fortunately, he was saved by the cessation of the war. When the Queen visited Thailand in 1972, she invited Boon Pong to dinner aboard the Britannia . For many years until he died, Boon Pong exchanged Christmas cards with Charles and his family.

In December 1975, Charless former CO and hero, Philip Toosey, died in his sleep.

In 1979, the couple once again visited the Far East, this time Singapore and Malaysia. Charles showed Louise the places he had so graphically described in his letters. The YMCA Building, which had been the HQ of the Japanese Kempitai and the scene of much brutality. Another place to avoid in 1942 was Changi Post Office, which was used by the renegade Sikhs, who had lost no opportunity to impress upon the British POWs that there had been a change in status. At the rather neglected Singapore Railway Station, Charles stood on the very railway platform from where he and thousands of prisoners began their terrible three and a half-day journey to Ban Pong. Changi Prison still looked as grim and forbidding, while the nearby Roberts Barracks were peaceful in their quiet surroundings. They visited Bukit Timah and saw the reservoir, which is now within the exclusive Singapore Country Club. At the impressive Kranji War Cemetery, Charles paid his respects to those comrades of the 135th Field Regiment who were buried there. Leaving Singapore Island, they drove over the Causeway and into Malaysia and headed for Penang.

On the way, Charles stopped at the exact point where his battery had fired from the edge of a rubber plantation across a field of pineapples at the advancing Japanese.

Now retired, Charless interest in steam trains continued. In 1980, a journey on the Trans-Canada railway was something of a deciding moment for Charles for, on his return, he became a member and helper of the Kent and East Sussex Railway based at Tenterden. It was no surprise to the family when, at the age of seventy-three, he announced that he was taking an engine drivers course and went off to the Bluebell Railway, Sussex for a four day course. He arrived back home tired and happy he was a qualified steam train driver.