Bicycle Camp Batavia (1942)

My father, Carl W Patterson, Royal Navy Engine Room Artificer 5th Class, had his ship HMS Jupiter sunk by a mine during the Battle of the Java Sea.  After three days in the water, he came ashore at Kragan and was taken prisoner by the Japanese.  After transfer to the Haruku Camp (Ambon) in May 1943, he was later shipped to Surabaya in Dec 1944, then by rail in cattle trucks to Jakarta and the Mater Dolorosa Hospital.  In May 1945 he was transferred to Bicycle Camp, then to Bandung in June 1945 and back to Bicycle Camp in August 1945 until liberation and transfer to Singapore by Mechanised Landing Craft in September 1945.

He wrote, 

"Eventually a contingent of recuperated patients including myself, transferred to Cycle Camp, previously a regular Dutch Army barracks, somewhere in the city. Undoubtedly, this was to allow space for another batch of the POWs returning from Ambon and Haruku in similar states of health as we were on arrival. Apart from the prevalence of bed bugs (a Heath Robinson dis infesting facility erected for lice, never seemed to be in use) the barrack accommodation was tolerable. There was a regular cookhouse where eventually I worked each morning, and there was minimum Japanese presence within the camp. There were regular working parties detailed from the morning roll call parade. Although much improved in health, I often found the work taxing to my strength. On one occasion, we were offloading bags of rice (which buckled my knees when dumped on my shoulders) from a ship and having to cross a narrow plank between ship and wharf. Looking down on the drop to the water below, each crossing over the plank was almost a life-or-death threat; not a good day at the office! The compensation was the five-cent note paid for every working party. When at the docks, I always took the opportunity to buy a goose egg - or what I have always assumed to be a goose egg! They appeared to have been buried in the ground and were green in colour and solid inside. At the time, I reasoned that although the taste was not of the best, it was the most nutritional value I could get for my money. As practiced in most of the animal world, food was not for hoarding and the eggs hurriedly eaten immediately on purchase. Dealing with civilians was not allowed and the transactions were always covert affairs.
One working party, of which I was part, had to transfer supplies from trucks into the basement of a building. Part of the supplies was boxed trays of condensed milk. This was too good a chance to miss, and although the smell of condensed milk is quite distinctive, we succeeded in consuming an entire case of it without discovery. The incriminating evidence of crate and empty tins safely hidden away, we were slightly sick from having had an overdose of sweetness. Such was the casual attitude of the Japanese by that stage of the war that when the midday break came along, we were generously given some cans of condensed milk. Much to their surprise, we did not appear to be wildly grateful for their donation!"

In the comforts of our homes, it is beyond our understanding how these men survived their abysmal conditions of hard labour whilst suffering malnutrition, malaria, dysentery, beri-beri, pellagra and tropical sores, the latter often leading to amputation of limbs. 

We are to be eternally grateful for their sacrifices, which have afforded us the freedoms that we enjoy today.