Great World - stories

1) Snowy Williams

NX78041 (NX12032) - WILLIAMS, George Frederick (Snow), Pte.- A Company, 8 Platoon

He was of small stature, blond hair & was quite a character.

"I had quite a lot to do with Snowy, as we worked together in the "Great World" Working Parties and also on "F" Force.

I feel certain that he arrived in Singapore in the last lot of Reo's (Nominal Roll says "4 Rnf A", so Garry is not quite right. We did collect 6th Reinforcements. Ed.). He and Athol Hyde-Cates were good mates.

He was a World War 1 Veteran and could turn on the yarns of his experiences for hours on end. He was known to most of the mob as "The Little Digger".

I must tell a story about Snowy that happened in the "Great World”. We were at a godown, where there happened to be gramophone needles. These were pretty good for the purpose of bartering or selling. Anyhow, we all helped ourselves and put them in our bags and, wherever we thought that the Nips could not find them. Snowy chose to put his needles in his boots. It was a fair march back to camp, but, believe it or not, they decided to search the Work Party on arrival at Camp. They found some of the needles, and some got away with them and Snowy was one of these last. But Boy! he suffered for it, as before my eyes, off came the boots, plenty of needles, but he was bleeding like a stuck pig. He gathered all the needles together and that smile of victory beamed all over his face.

To those people, who did not know Snowy Williams, you certainly missed out on knowing a real good bloke.

(Source: Garry Evans, Makan No. 254, May/Jun, 1980)

2) Knocked down 9 times

NX50687 - HARDMAN, John Kethel (Curly), Pte. - HQ Company, Transport Platoon
DX602 - GROUNDS, Sidney Aloysius (Sid), Pte. - A Company, 7 Platoon

"Curly told me some stories about himself and Sid, particularly about a fight he had at the "Great World" Camp with some bloke; during the fight Sid stood Curly on his feet each occasion he was knocked down, and this was 9 times but in the end Curly finished up sitting on the other chaps head."

(Source: Jack Fell - Makan No. 258, Dec, 1980)

3) Raw peanut spirits

QX20492 - SUTHERLAND, Donald George Sinclair (Don), Pte. - D Company, 18 Platoon

"Cannot remember whether it was Virginia House or Nestle's House, I was taken back to the Great World after eating raw peanuts spirits (?). Our officer told the Jap that I was suffering from malaria, and I made the trip in a rickshaw."

(Source: Don Sutherland - Makan No. 265, April/June, 1982)

4) POWs shared the fun

NX60319 - BROOKS, John William (Jack), Pte. - A Company, 7 Platoon
NX43059 - CUTLER, Norman Leslie (Mick), Pte. - A Company, 8 Platoon
NX29780 - FISHER, Mervyn Richard Errol (Dick), Pte. - A Company, 8 Platoon

"The three of us were real good mates in the Army and through our P.O.W. days. We worked together, ate together, slept together, and what we scrounged, we shared.

They recalled the time, that they were working on the wharves at Singapore for the Japanese, when Mick Cutler "liberated" some sausages from a freezer and hid them under his pith helmet. When a Japanese guard knocked the helmet off, Mick had stood there with the strings of sausages hanging over his ears. Then there was the time that they stole soap from the guards and itched and scratched all night after using it. Next day they discovered that they had got dog soap.

They were grim days, but some funny things happened. Meeting again has done us the world of good."

(Source: Makan No. 260, Mar/Apr, 1981 - from a SMH Article, 1969)

5) Nip navy heading south

Des Gee - 9/9/1998

NX37420 - GEE, Desmond Hugh (Des), Pte. - HQ Company, Carrier Platoon
NX42596 - GOLDING (Rash), Josiah Buddy (Joshua Golding) (Buddy), Pte. - D Company, 18 Platoon

"About 20 years ago there was an article in the Melbourne Herald which was the afternoon paper in those days. The chronicle of events was that in the early days of the war in the Pacific there was the Battle of the Coral Sea which resulted in heavy losses on both sides. The Allied forces were keen to follow up what was left of the Japanese navy, but could not locate them. They then received a report from Changi that an Australian soldier had spotted a huge convoy of ships heading S.S.E. at high speed. The Allied forces with that information lay in wait and in the ensuing Battle of Midway just about destroyed the Nip navy.

The Melbourne Herald gave no details of who or how or where this information was gathered and as far as I can remember there are no survivors other than myself who knows all the details.

When working party I was in at the Great World most times we worked at Virginia House, a storage place for cigarettes and other stores. During work there I became friendly with Joe Golding and one day he showed me a little passage which led to an attic on the very top floor. The entrance to this passage cunningly concealed with crates a I do not believe the nips ever discovered it. I just wandered into it one day about 2.30pm and you could see the southern part of the harbour and out to the horizon and when I looked out there on the horizon it seemed the whole nip navy was steaming past at great speed. There were aircraft carriers, battleships, destroyers, supply ships and a big destroyer racing up and down the convoy at great speed.

I informed Sgt. Rex Rowe what I had seen and I believe he told Lt. Winter or Lt. O'Rourke or both and of course they passed it onto the people at Changi.

This is the first time I have discussed since the war and I am not seeking publicity or anything else so if for any reason whatsoever toss this in the waste paper."

Des Gee - 22/9/1998

"We first met on the wharf one day when loading a ship with bales of rubber and during lunch a few of us were walking around looking for anything of value when Joe emerged from a concrete bomb shelter. He was holding a hand grenade. He asked what he should do with it and I suggested he pull the pin but hold the spring and then wedge it into a gap between the bales of rubber which he said he did.

Joe and I became friends and he was very keen to escape and saw in me an ally to his plans. I was rather more cautious than Joe and after watching the naval and aircraft from that attic in Virginia House I concluded that such moments were too constant to get away in any small boat and I held the view that local people when confronted would be no help going overland.

We were in F Force together and when we got to the last camp on the railway Joe was going and nothing I could say was going to stop him. To use his own words he said he would rather die escaping than die in that camp. Perhaps he was right. I was not keen on going and I felt I was too weak to go anyway."

Des Gee - 30/9/1998

NX4512 - CUMBERLAND, William Arthur, Pte. - HQ Company, Carrier Platoon
NX37420 - GEE, Desmond Hugh (Des), Pte. - HQ Company, Carrier Platoon
NX31969 - NEWMAN, Robert Alfred (Bob), Cpl. - HQ Company, Carrier Platoon

"Bull Cumberland, Bob Newman, me a and a few others were in the first working party and we were camped in a Singapore Defence Corps camp before moving to Great World. The area there we were sleeping in was a small theatre and there was some electronic stuff under the stage which was quickly moved and sent back to Changi no doubt for spare parts.

That attic I wrote of at Virginia House was the only place that day that anyone could have seen what I saw. There was another place nearby which was a cigarette factory with a water tank on the top floor which could be used as a lookout tower which I did a couple of times but on that particular day there were no people working there."

(Source: Des Gee, series of letters sent to Makan editor in 1998)

6) 21st birthday

NX37655 (NX33257) - McBURNEY, Ronald James (Ron), Pte. - A Company, 7 Platoon

Ron was another of the young brigade and on his 21st birthday he was a member of a Working Party camped in The Great World Amusement Park in Singapore. He says, “A number of other 2/30th Bn fellows were also there. Our work consisted mainly of unloading boats, emptying godowns and warehouses. Some days or nights the scrounge was very good; if we were lucky enough to arrive back in camp with the spoils, it helped to make life a little more pleasant.
The night of my 21st birthday, 14/7/1942, with several other mates from the Unit, 5 of whom are now deceased, so will not disclose their names, I had a small celebration with some rum, which found its way from Bukit Timah Racecourse, a part tin of condensed milk from Nestles House, Singapore and a drop of hot water from the cookhouse. The result, hot rum and milk on a hot balmy Singapore night, a birthday I shall never forget.
(Source: Ron McBurney, Makan No. 236 Sept/October, 1977)

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Last updated 29/08/2022