Left Hand Page

‘Endurance’ by Hank F Quin. Evening Standard Correspondent. Includes personal account of the Battle of Kranji (second day of the Battle of Singapore, 9th February), on race course near Bukit Timah Road.
Continued from page 52-53

each moment to be my last. I got through. Very weak and dizzy not knowing what I was doing and hardly realising where I was going I staggered on determined to get there. It was noisy I remember – sporadic rifle and machine gun fire sounded very close. I came to some houses, but heard movement in front and did not dare to go straight forward. I moved round them carefully and reached the other side. A voice came out of the darkness: ‘Halt – who goes there, who the hell’s that?’. God I was glad to hear that voice. I passed out.’

The Infantry Sub. had reached the friendly shelter of his own lines, he had set himself a seemingly impossible task and had achieved it. For thirty nine hours he and his men had laid unmoving, exposed to terrible discomfort and hardship and then for five hours they had played with death in a long and arduous trek back to their own lines. They had accounted for at least twelve Japanese and probably disabled many more. Of the other men of the Infantry Subaltern’s party only two returned to tell the tale of their adventure – the Lance Corporal and Private who had stayed to attend the wounded man until he died and had then given themselves up to the Japanese as prisoners. The remainder gave their lives gallantly for their country.

–

Right Hand Page

Draft of ‘The Chunkel’, camp magazine, number one, volume one

THE CHUNKEL, NUMBER ONE, VOLUME ONE.
PUBLISHED AT INTERVALS.
Business Manager: Jack Wood
Editor: Alan Roberts
Art Editor: Ronald Searle
Editorial board: George Sprod, Bernard Champion. Jack Fowler

EDITORIAL

Why?

We make no apology for rushing into print. Somebody had to do it sooner or later.

A magazine in a prison camp is a dubious venture. It can cause a furore or just a tired yawn, or degenerate into an official document. It may even succeed – as we hope to do – in being interesting, progressive, possibly slightly radical, and yet contain itself within the bounds of a silent censorship.

We have not been censored. We have not even been approved. But we feel we bask under Nelson’s blind eye.

Those who – running their eyes over the editorial board – anticipate a slightly spicy scurrility or at best an irresponsible outspokeness will be disappointed. We shall try to be reasonable without being merely pathetic. Our aim will be to enlighten and amuse and, within the limits necessarily imposed by our status as prisoners of war, to provide forum for the expression of all progressive opinion.

OPINION

After nearly five years of world war all humankind yearns for a just and lasting peace which it no longer believes possible. Paralysing thought and action is the disillusionment of a generation which shared Wilson’s vision of a brave new world and then lived to see the tragedy of the post-war years.

Is it all to happen again? Those who think have no illusions. Those who think in isolation