Re: Building the Burma Railway by Hand

Date: March 11, 2004

"BLOOMINGTON
Brooklyn Center man knows a different kind of war

By John Klun Sun Newspapers

Rather than battles, assaults and glorious triumphs, Jim Whittacker’s personal memories of World War II involve disease, beatings, and backbreaking labor.

Whittacker, of Brooklyn Center, was captured by the Japanese Army while serving in the British Army off the coast of Sumatra. Stationed in Malaya in 1941, he and a small group of soldiers fled to the island in a small boat after the Japanese took Singapore. Some natives of Sumatra betrayed him and his group and turned them over to the Japanese Army.

After apprehending him, his captors took him to Burma, where he spent 3 1/2 years in a prison camp building a railroad by hand.

The railroad, meant to connect Thailand to India to enable Japanese troops to engage the Indian Army, was the real line upon which the movie “The Bridge on the River Qwai” was based.

Whittacker and his fellow prisoners built a wooden bypass bridge, rather than the famed steel-structured bridge. The work was all by hand, he said. The prisoners were poorly fed, poorly cared for, and beaten on a regular basis.

“We lost an awful lot of guys,” he said.

Of his group of 500 prisoners taken to Burma, 140 died. Malaria, dysentery, and lethal tropical ulcers were common. Whittacker experienced them all, in addition to beriberi, a sometimes-lethal disease caused by vitamin deficiency.

“I had my fair share of beatings, too,” he said.

On one occasion, a guard was angry that a group of prisoners had laughed at him, so he lined them up facing each other and made them beat each other.

On another occasion, Whittacker personally had done something to anger a guard. He had to stand at attention while 50 of his colleagues passed by him, each beating him on the head.

“My head was ringing after that,” he said.

The Japanese soldiers tried to make the prisoners believe that they were worthless and not worthy of living.

“They told us we were worthless remnants of a decadent race, and we should have killed ourselves rather than be prisoners,” he said. “I didn’t see any mass suicides by the Japanese.”

During his time in the camps, Whittacker survived eight bombings by British and American forces. The goal was to knock out the railroad, but some bombs hit the prisoner camps, killing Allied prisoners. Toward the end of their imprisonment, the prisoners were ordered to dig a six-foot deep ditch around their camp, surrounding by a bamboo wall. Whittacker said he thought the ditch was simply intended to keep them from fleeing the camp. He learned later from war documents that the ditch was a mass grave, intended for him and his fellow prisoners. The Japanese planned to kill them all, rather than turn them over to the Allied forces.

“Fortunately, the atom bomb saved the lives of all the prisoners,” he said.

American transport aircraft came to take the prisoners out of the camp in 1945. After getting a 48-day leave, Whittacker continued in the British Army, but never left England to serve. He offered to go back to Japan, and also to Palestine, where there was conflict. The British Army wouldn’t send him abroad, however.

“I felt I’d missed the whole dang war,” he said. “I felt kind of guilty about being a prisoner.”

Whittacker came to the United States in 1948 with his wife, Audrey, and their 8-month-old son, Lloyd. They had been invited and sponsored by Lloyd Willey, a United States marine who was a POW with Whittacker. Whittacker spent his career working for railroad in the United States, retiring in 1981. Audrey died in 1986.

Whittacker’s son followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the United States Marines and fighting in Vietnam. Whittacker said he didn’t really encourage Lloyd to join the military.

“I suppose he spent his youth listening to my stories,” he said.

Although Whittacker talks about his POW experience dispassionately, often in public, he has had some lingering effects from the experience. He tends to hoard things, he said, and he still cringes when he suddenly hears Japanese being spoken – especially loudly.

Looking back, however, he’d do it again. Even in the current wars, he said, he’d join if he were young enough.

“War’s a terrible thing,” he said, “but it’s exciting when you’re young.”

Whittacker will speak of his POW experience at Richfield High School, 7001 Harriet Ave. S., Richfield, on Thursday, March 18. His is the first of a series of presentations in the community’s “War & Peace” program. Sponsored by Richfield Recreation Services, the Fred Babcock VFW, the Richfield American Legion, Augsburg Park Library, Richfield Public Schools, and the Historical Group of St. Cloud State, the series includes two others. Major Gen. Doyle E. Larson will speak about peacekeeping missions around the world. Col. Kenneth O. Wofford will speak of his experience as a Tuskegee airman during World War II.

The presentations are free and open to the public.

What’s Next

The intergenerational “War & Peace” program will feature three speakers in Richfield in the next two months:

• Jim Whittaker, signalman in the British Army – Thursday, March 18, 10:17 a.m. Richfield High School, 7001 Harriet Ave.

• Major General Doyle E. Larson, former commanding general of security service – Thursday, April 15, 6:30 p.m. Richfield Community Center, 7000 Nicollet Ave.

• Col. Kenneth O. Wofford, Tuskegee airman in World War II – Tuesday, April 27, 10:17 a.m. Richfield High School, 7001 Harriet Ave.

All three events are free and open to the public.
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