Charge Sister A M Williams

Charge Sister A M Williams

A part biography of AM (Tommy) Williams' military service. She helped prisoners of war from Changi and Kranji, in Singapore.

Two printed sheets

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MMilsonGW937875-240119-140001, MMilsonGW937875-240119-140002

[underlined] Charge Sister A.M. (Tommy) WILLIAMS, R.N.Z.A.F, A.A.R.C. [/underlined]
Service Number 824320

After her brother Denys joined the R.A.F. (and was killed two years later off the coast of Trincomalee, Sri Lanka) and her brother Bernard enlisted in the N.Z. Army, Nursing Sister Amy (Tommy) Williams applied to join the New Zealand Army Nursing Service and although most interested in being sent to the Middle East, she was sent to Fiji where she said that she had the best of both worlds as she was by then New Zealand Army seconded to the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Whilst enjoying her work in the Pacific (eventually flying over 78,000 miles around the Pacific) she returned to New Zealand as a Tutor Sister for the R.N.Z.A.F., setting up a programme and training orderlies in an ex-American Naval Hospital in Auckland which had been taken over by the R.N.Z.A.F.

In September 1945 Charge Sister Williams was chosen to be part of the R.N.Z.A.F. 41 Squadron P.O.W. Evacuation flight to Singapore. This trip took 10 days, flying in a Douglas Dakota C467 via the New Hebrides, Bougainville, Biac, Muatai and Laubuan, with the flight finally arriving the day the surrender of the Japanese Army was signed in Singapore.

She spoke of seeing the sun setting over a Brunei Bay totally filled with a huge assortment of submarines, cargo vessels, flying boats, aircraft carriers and mine sweepers.

Two days later Prisoners Of War from Changi and Kranji Prison Camps were arriving in the city and they were her first priority. Finding fresh food was a problem so she immediately went out to see what she could find. (The P.O.W.s had only received Red Cross Parcels in the previous six weeks – the first they had received during their incarceration, and whilst looking better for the food from these supplies, they were still skeletal.) On her way back to the Cathay Building (where the P.O.W.s were staying) she ran into a huge lineup of Admirals and Generals who were busy saying goodbye to Lord Mountbatten (who had been in Singapore for the signing of the Japanese Surrender). In order to salute such luminaries, she had to hurriedly stuff fish and ice cream into her battlejacket [sic]!

At first there were no beds for the N.Z. P.O.W.’s so they slept in chairs or on the floor, but luckily they soon moved into a beautiful house on Amber Road, owned by a Chinese merchant, where the men could be better cared for (with F/O Watts in charge of catering).

One of the first POW’s to arrive turned out to be the husband of a friend and she was delighted to be able to give him photographs and news of his family.

On 16.9.1945 Charge Sister Williams, along with F/L R.D. Millar, D.F.M. (who only days before had been a P.O.W. in Changi Prison Camp), S. Wemyss (NZ Govt Film Studio) and 2 war correspondents, were asked to go to Batavia to evacuate New Zealanders (including women from Tjideng Women’s Internment Camp). There was almost no information on conditions in Batavia from serviceability of aerodromes, weather forecasts, whereabouts of P.O.W.s and civil internees etc. Luckily the aerodrome was serviceable, and they were in fact the first repatriation flight to land in Batavia, the first land plane to land (just 3/4 of an hour after the aerodrome had been taken over by the R.A.F.) and were the second Allied aircraft to land in Java after the surrender of the Japanese. Upon arrival the crew were met by Japanese officers – with much bowing and scraping, before being whisked away in limousines and taken to the Hotel des Indes – at that time still an opulent 5 star hotel. Sister Williams found herself to be the first white woman in Java after the war ended and was much discomforted at being surrounded by Japanese officers who were yet to sign the surrender documents (scheduled for the next day) and were free to move around and were living in the annexes of the hotel. When the Japanese Officer Count Yamaguehi asked to meet Charge Sister Williams she found it very difficult to agree to meet him.

Whilst arrangements were made for the repatriation of P.O.W.’s from Cycle Camp, she tried to answer all the questions fired at her from men who had had no news for 3-5 years. Then it was on to Chedang (Tjideng Womens' Internment Camp) which had housed 10,000 prisoners, to find the two New Zealand women P.O.W.s. (F/L R.D. Millar noted that he considered that the conditions the women and children in this camp endured were worse

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[Please Note:- Here follows a transcription from the second page of this document, an image of which is not included in the Item. The missing text recovered from a word document by the donor]

[than anything he had encountered in any of the many Japanese camps in which he had been interred.)

Another journey was to Bangkok where she was able to meet with some of the men who had survived the Siam Railway. Again Sister Williams was peppered with questions about life in N.Z. Their drive from Bangkok back to the airport was in a truck heavily laden with P.O.W.s, and driven by a very frightened Japanese driver. Arriving back in Singapore with plane loads of P.O.W.s did pose some accommodation problems but beds were found and the P.O.W.s were quickly repatriated back to New Zealand. “It was a great privilege to be the first to meet our boys and in some cases be able to give them first hand information about their nearest and dearest at home and it was very interesting to see how quickly they responded to good food, a good bed and above all – freedom”.

On another trip back to Batavia the repatriation group heard of some Cable and Wireless employees trapped in Bandeong but there seemed no way to get to them. When they were offered a Japanese plane and Japanese crew, the group reluctantly decided to use them – although they were sick at the thought of the flight, given the stories of the “kamakazi” pilots and the mountains to cross before they got to their destination. After takeoff [sic] one of the group, Pilot Ted Edwards decided to take the controls (which he had never seen before). His efforts were much appreciated!

During her five weeks in Singapore Charge Sister Williams lead a life filled with great happiness, great sadness, danger, dancing, chatting about everyday life in New Zealand in the Japanese Prison Camps and organizing the finding and repatriation of men, women and children back to Singapore and then to New Zealand.

When the flow of male P.O.W.s lessened she was able to help look after the women and children who had arrived in Singapore and were billeted at Raffles Hotel and looked after by ladies from the Y.W.C.A.. She had felt very humble when meeting the women and children in the camps as she was so very clean and healthy and they were in such bad shape.

One day she was introduced to a couple whose two children had gone missing when their ship was torpedoed on its way to Sumatra. She was able to tell them that the [sic] she had in fact just spoken with the children, who were alive in Java and just awaiting repatriation to Singapore. She said that at times she felt like Alice in Wonderland after she had walked through the Looking Glass and noted that the attitude and demeanour of the P.O.W.’s were such that you would never have realised how they had coped over the last few years. She would go from visiting horrifying prison camps during the day to dining and dancing with the P.O.W.s in the evening as the recent prisoners ran headlong to regain a sense of “the old days”. Sister Williams spoke of finding herself “in the Mysterious Far East, not as a tourist but as an adventurer, because we did not have a clue as to where we were going or what we would find when, and if we got there”. Her devotion to the P.O.W.s gained her the name “The Angel of Mercy”.

Sister Williams said of Tjieng Women’s Internment Camp, “In Batavia and Bandoeng I visited several camps but it is about one women’s camp that I would like to speak. In this camp there were over 9,000 British and Dutch women, two of whom were New Zealanders, and who were subsequently evacuated. I visited this camp on September the 16th (1945) and found conditions indescribable. In one room only twelve feet by eight feet, a New Zealand woman spent two years with ten other women of ages ranging from early twenties to late sixties. However, due to an outbreak of either cholera or dysentery, three women died without medical aid of any kind. In this small room their belongings plus foodstuffs were kept in this confined space (one square metre each), and stuffy tropical atmosphere a crude wood fireplace was installed and meals were prepared. In a house, the size of a New Zealand Government House, one hundred and fifty women and children were housed for three and a half years. The indignities that these women suffered at the hands of the Japs. were appalling. They were starved and beaten, in some cases had their heads shaved, and at one stage had to bury their own dead.”

“It was difficult to believe that these women had suffered such privation and hardship, for when I arrived they all looked so smart and fresh and well-groomed, even to cosmetics]

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and nail polish, and this was their concession to victory. They had each saved one good frock and some cosmetics in order to put on a brave face to the World when the Allies arrived. Nothing that I can say would describe the spirit these women exhibited.

“In Bangkok I found our P.O.W.’s had themselves well organised in true New Zealand fashion within a few hours of their freedom.

“These men and women have come through the ordeal with flying colours and I find words inadequate to express my admiration for the grand philosophy, ideals and tolerance, and I feel New Zealand will be a better country for having these fine citizens in circulation again.”*

Daily broadcasts were sent to New Zealand from the R.N.Z.A.F. radio station in Singapore informing families at home of the names of recovered P.O.W.s and internees and when they were travelling back to New Zealand. Some of the P.O.W.s also spoke of their experiences.

The return flight to New Zealand with several invalids in “litters” was by today’s standards long, but uneventful, stopping at Lubuan, Darwin, Townsville and Brisbane before landing at Whenuapai.

On return to New Zealand (8.45 pm 04.11.1945) Charge Sister A.M. Williams and F/Lt Ron Millar spoke of their experiences in a broadcast to all NZ stations. ("From Prison to Paradise" – How New Zealand Prisoners of War were recovered from the East.) (unable to track this broadcast down)

In1946 Charge Sister Williams was awarded the Associate Royal Red Cross Medal.

Reference:
– Film – See footage recently released – Weekly-Review-No.215 --- New-Zealand-Cameraman-in-Singapore_Short Film_NZ On Screen_files. Includes footage of Changi Prison Camp, Women in PoW Camps, PoW’s speaking and views of Singapore and Bangkok in September 1945. (Note the Japanese pilot standing behind Charge Sister Williams – the only plane they could get their hands on was indeed piloted by a Japanese pilot. The R.N.Z.A.F. officer seen escorting Miss Bridgeman into her car is F/L R.D. Millar, D.F.M.) Film shot by S. Wemyss?)
– Photograph -RNZAF Research Collection Negative #PR7681 1945 – Sister Williams and Flight Lieutenant R.D. Millar
– Newspaper Archive – MM. FLIGHT TASK COMPLETED RETURN TO WELLINGTON
- Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 102, 27 October 1945, Page 9-
– Narrative for the War Office – R.D. Millar, D.F.M. (N.Z. National Archives)
– Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero Archive – Short Wave recordings

D583a “Singapore POW 21/9/45 Pt 1 of 2”
D5853b “Singapore duplicate copy pt 1 27/9/45 10pm
D5854a “Singapore Duplicate copy pt 2 6/10/45 10pm
UCDR156/1 tk 15 Mr J.B. Henderson of Cable Wireless talks about Hospital conditions and food rationing in a Prisoner of War Camp in Java
UCDR 156/1 tk 13 Messages home to New Zealand from some prisoners of war, broadcast over the New Zealand Air Force radio station in Singapore, after being brought out from Bangkok and Palembang, Sumatra the day before.

Post war Charge Sister Tommy Williams and Flight Lieutenant Ron Millar married but the marriage did not last.

One day in the 1980’s she was out on a forest walk with the Forest and Bird Society and got talking with a Dutch woman. It turned out that the woman had been in one of the Japanese Camps in Java and had never talked to anyone of her experience, ever. That day she was finally able to talk about it, with someone who understood. They never met again but I suspect it was a life changing moment for both of them.

Sister A. M. (Tommy) Williams died on 14 June 1993.