The Saigon-Thailand Database
A POW's completed liberation questionaire
On 22 June 1943, about two-thirds of the Saigon Battalion prisoners were ordered to leave Saigon to be transported to an unknown destination. A week later, with their commanding officer Lt-Col Francis E. Hugonin, they reached their new home in the desolate, disease-ridden jungles of Thailand. They had a day to build a camp for themselves, before being set to work on the Burma Railway.
In recent years, Jean Roberts and Frank Clark (both of whose fathers had been at Saigon) have scoured the National Archives at Kew for records of these seven hundred men. The result of their labours is the database shown below.
This remarkable document shows which camps most of these men were in for the rest of the war (at least among those who came home to tell the tale). Over two hundred, however, did not return: a great many died on the railway, and another fifty or so survived that ordeal only to die at sea on the hellship the Kachidoki Maru; others who had been on that ship were 'rescued' by Japanese trawlers and were set to work in coal mines and zinc foundries in Japan – where some of them witnessed the dropping of the atomic bombs.
The real strength of this database is the collation of so much information from the liberation questionnaires that were completed by the returning prisoners at the end of the war. Here we see them describe the daily sabotage on the docks, the tragedy of failed escape attempts, and the often breathtaking bravery of their comrades. The glowing tributes on the first page to their commanding officer, Lt-Col Hugonin, stand out in particular.
In recent years, Jean Roberts and Frank Clark (both of whose fathers had been at Saigon) have scoured the National Archives at Kew for records of these seven hundred men. The result of their labours is the database shown below.
This remarkable document shows which camps most of these men were in for the rest of the war (at least among those who came home to tell the tale). Over two hundred, however, did not return: a great many died on the railway, and another fifty or so survived that ordeal only to die at sea on the hellship the Kachidoki Maru; others who had been on that ship were 'rescued' by Japanese trawlers and were set to work in coal mines and zinc foundries in Japan – where some of them witnessed the dropping of the atomic bombs.
The real strength of this database is the collation of so much information from the liberation questionnaires that were completed by the returning prisoners at the end of the war. Here we see them describe the daily sabotage on the docks, the tragedy of failed escape attempts, and the often breathtaking bravery of their comrades. The glowing tributes on the first page to their commanding officer, Lt-Col Hugonin, stand out in particular.
Like any database of this nature, it is a 'living' document. New information, insights and clarifications will continue to come to light for many years to come, and the version of the database that appears on this page (and on the download icon below) will periodically be updated to reflect this.
| The Saigon-Thailand Database |