The George Adams Interview Part Five

The George Adams Interview – Part Five

By actiondesksheffield

People in story: George Adams
Location of story: England, South Africa, Canada, Singapore, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
Background to story: Royal Air Force

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk – Sheffield’ Team on behalf of George Adams, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Adams fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
Other parts to this story can be found at:
INDEX:
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This is a transcript taken from audio footage made by the Department of Sound Recordings at the
Imperial War Museum,
Lambeth Road,
LONDON SE1 6H7.
It has been copied almost exactly as recorded, therefore the terminology and grammar are as spoken and have not been manipulated in any way. Where place names that could not be found in an atlas, and/or unfamiliar terminology are mentioned, phonetic spellings are used and are subject to alteration.
On some occasions, sentences were not completed; the following symbol is used to denote that: ……………………
Only repetition has been suppressed.
Bill Ross – BBC People’s War Story Editor.
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Int: It was an R.A.F. transit camp was it?
GA: Yeah, an R.A.F., yeah. He said, “Right, there’s no aircraft for them, we’ll form them up into sections, for ground gunning, guards, anything. If war comes, they can take over, relieve the army on posts, then the army can go and do the job they are there to do. All we’d got – we’d no showers, we’d nothing really, it was a right poverty stricken place, but he’d a marvellous personality. All we’d got were stone troughs, concrete troughs I should say, with a tap at either end. So you used to just sit under the tap and shower from the tap once or twice a day. The food was excellent, he saw to that.
He drilled us day after day after day. We used Silita Gold Course, and he hammered us up and down that golf course.
Int: Just foot drill?
GA: Foot drill and marching, until……… he reckoned we were better than the marines.
Int: How many were there?
GA: Oh there’d be about, not all of them, some of the people on the camp were staying on the camp and moving out to Silita Airfield. They’d got jobs at Silita Airfield. I should think there’d be about a hundred and fifty of us, who were all tradesmen, and no more aircraft. He was brilliant that chap. A soon as the N.A.A.F.I. wagon appeared with the tea – “Right lads, stop everything.” He’d come and sit with yer, he’d talk to yer, but he was the same with the officers. The discipline for the officers was just the same. He was terrible with the officers because he expected more from them. He hadn’t got a very good crowd of officers, they were quite nice chaps, I suppose, but they’d come off plantations and they’d been in business there, things like that and he used to treat them shocking at times.
Int: Were they permanently attached to the camp, these officers?
GA: Yes.
Int: Not R.A.F. Flying officers or anything?
GA: No, they were general duty people.
Reel 4:
GA: ………………..knowledge of arms, stripping various guns, everything, all Lewis Guns, Tommy Guns, so that you’d a complete knowledge of all the armaments you were using, and how to correct any of the faults, and stoppages and things like that. You’d do the normal armament training that the army would get.
Int: Which you hadn’t had at that level.
GA: Which we hadn’t had at that level, no.
Int: Who was training you?
GA: Well, part of the time, he was in the background, but he also had several people that had done this, in the RAF; corporals, sergeants, and the senior was a warrant officer, and they were there as instructors. It was more or less like how the R.A.F. regiment commenced, on a similar patter to that, and you went right through the lot.
Int: Were you enjoying this training, or would you have rather been fitting?
GA: We’d have rather been on aircraft, that’s what we were sent there for really, but it was quite a good camp. The food was good and he certainly looked after us. He took a lot of time up really on that camp.
Int: Now you mentioned the officers he had there running the camp weren’t as good. Now, I know you had trouble with a couple of them………………
GA: That was at another place.
Int: You hadn’t had any problems……………..
GA: Just the occasional strange things happened. You were probably on guard, there was one officer there who liked to creep round. Even before it was dark, he liked to creep round. If you were on guard, you’d see him and you knew very well who it was, and then he’d come up behind you and he’d stick a cane in yer back and, “I’m a Japanese,” all that sort of ……………….. you know, you’d laugh it off and ignore it.
Int: Now, you got there in September, how long were you there for?
GA: We were in that transit camp right through until the Japanese started. Just before the Japanese landed at Kota Baharu we were there.
Int: And so, throughout that time you’d been on infantry training.
GA: More or less, yes.
Int: So you must have been getting quite trained.
GA: Oh yes, we did have a break at different periods, but it didn’t last long. It was always done when Gregson was out of the way, strangely enough.
INT: So what would a break be?
GA: Well, a break would be………..I’ll give you one example: Gregson was out of the camp and they must have known it from higher authority; we were told to assemble; two trucks would pick us up, take us over to Salita, which was the main base, to the joiner’s shop there. We couldn’t understand this because nobody got out of his clutches, unless you were called onto aircraft to make up if they anyone dropped short on squadrons. So, we all went to Salita into the joiner’s shop, where they were completing the stuff we’d been doing in our joiner’s shop.
Int: The tanks and the guns.
GA: Aircraft, dummy aircraft and things like that. He was quite a case, the officer in charge there. You wouldn’t have thought he was an officer if he hadn’t had a uniform; he was a very rough sort of bloke. Quite a nice chap really, I suppose. How he wangled it, I don’t know to this day; he must have had some higher authority behind him to order us out of out camp.
Int: Did you all go or just a few of you?
GA: The bulk of us went over there, and we got over there. He was all smiles; “Grigson’ll not get yer back this time.” That was the attitude. He’d tried it once before but never managed it.
Anyway, we were working away in the joiner’s shop, we had a tea break. The N.A.A.F.I. wagon came round and we sat outside. I think it was after what they call ‘Tif’ at lunchtime. He came and sat with us and said, “Y’see, I told yer, yer’ll not be going back, yer’ll be here now and yer’ll be back here tomorrow.” Whilst we were sat there, the phone rang, and one of my friends who was sat next to hem sez, “That’ll be Joe sir, we’ll be back in ten minutes.” He went to the phone and sure enough, it was.
Apparently, there was a big shouting match – Joe was doing the shouting - he wasn’t. But the trucks’ll be over in a quarter of an hour and we should be on them, and that was that. No one ever attempted anything like it again. That was the sort of man Gregson was, there was no milking him, he had a tremendous amount of power.
Int: You’d have rather stayed…………………….
GA: Not making dummy guns, not really, no. I think we were rather proud to be with him, most of us; not making dummy guns and dummy aircraft, we’d have been quite prepared and happy to join squadrons, things like that.
Int: Did you get much chance for recreation while you were there, did you get out into the city or…….?
GA: Oh yes, we’d go into the city, we used to go………any free afternoon, we’d go to the pool at Salita, there was a big outdoor pool there on the straits. Swimming, we were alright with that. We hadn’t got into any of the camp activities, outside our camp, like the cricket or the football. We were sort of isolated there, it was strange really. But, we had the free run to go down to Salita and …………….
Int: Where abouts was the camp in relation to the island, y’know, north, south, east or west, could you just er…………..?
GA: It was, as I remember it, north east of the island, only about half an hour’s walk from Salita air base. Changi was further north, where of course the prison camp was, when the Japanese took over, and the naval base was coming west from Changi and slightly further north than us.
Int: How did you mix with the local Singaporeans and the Malaysians, how did you get on with them?
GA: We got on very well with the Chinese and the Malays, they were quite alright, we’d no problems there.
Int: Did you see much of them?
GA: Oh yes, we used to go down into the local village for haircuts, and things like that, and we were quite friendly with quite a few people down there, quite nice people. Our only problem was the business people, I think, and whatever book I’ve picked up and read, it’s always the same. We were ostracised by a lot of the white businesses. They didn’t want to know yer. We were the soldiery and they were……
Int: Did you notice that at the time?
GA: Yes, it was obvious right at the start.
Int: Were you allowed to go to the clubs and things, that the Europeans used?
GA: I never went, but, the planters were very good, they were very nice people.
Int: So, it was the business class………..
GA: It was the business clan that was the biggest problem. That’s what we found and no matter what book we pick up, it comes out all the way through.
Int: When did you realise yourself what sort of threat the Japanese were, and what was going to happen?
GA: We hadn’t been there long when really, the feeling was that it was building up. Through the papers we picked things up. It was building up in America. America was applying sanctions, and we knew that they’d moved into French Indo-China, and we felt sure we were going to get a similar occurrence to what happened in Europe, they’d start to spread out from there. I think everyone felt sure that this was what would happen.
Int: Did you think that Singapore was a great fortress? I mean, it was supposed to be.
GA: I think: let me put it like this: I think people who’d been there quite a long time, did. People who’d gone there over the last twelve months, no, for a start, we’d no aircraft to work on, so immediately, we thought, “Well, they must be in a right state here.” Also, they got – the squadrons weren’t very strong really, they’d got the Bledheims, the fighter squadron were Buffaloes, American fighter aircraft. They were terribly slow. You just didn’t get this feeling that yer got at home where………….arms were building up, aircraft were building up and, there was just nothing happening really.
Int: What did you think about the Japanese as a serious opponent, as opposed to the Germans or something like that, I mean, did you realise how dangerous they’d be as an opponent?
GA: Well, here again, the people who had been out there quite a long time, they were cock-a-hoop, they thought it’d be a walkover. They were Japanese, we were white. This is the feeling they’d got, and we hadn’t got that feeling.
Int: Did that include Gregson?
GA: I think it did. He never used to say much, but he knew we could be in trouble. I feel pretty sure, from some of the odd things he did say. We did too, we thought, “They’ve not got much here,” Until the repulse and the Prince Of Wales came out there, we’d only got a tiny fleet; probably the odd Australian cruiser and destroyer, one or two of our destroyers etc., we’d got nothing really, until they came out there.
Int: Besides, I mean, you were being trained for this infantry roll, were there any other preparations that you were aware of, for war in Singapore, proper preparations as opposed to……………?
GA: well, there was supposed to be a defensive line being built in South Johor, but nothing really ever came of it for the simple reason that the business people didn’t like their territory being disturbed; plantations and tin mines, they just argued against this sort of thing all the time.
Int: So, there wasn’t much evidence.
GA: Not really, apart from the fact that they were packing quite a few troops onto the island, but that was all, there were no aircraft moving in, it was stable. We were never fetched out to work on aircraft all the time we were there.
Int: So, as soon as you got there in September, you were aware of the threat, the build up, what was the first thing you knew of the Japanese attack?
GA: Well we knew they were in French Indo-China, we knew they were moving out into Thailand, or would do. We felt sure this would happen, but, two or three days before it started, things were getting very tense, the A.R.P. was being put into effect, the Air Raid Precaution, but not with what you’d call any urgency. It was sort of, if it interfered with life, in the city, then they sort of didn’t want to know about it. It wasn’t very urgent, it wasn’t urgent enough, but you could see it building up, and a few days before it started, we were sent out to Faber oil tanks, that was overlooking Mount Faber overlooking the harbour where they stored the tanks on the hill, and then that was pumped down to the docks for re-fuelling.
Int: What were you doing there? The whole of X party went up there.
GA: No, just one section. Others, probably a dozen of us went up there. That was to man defences for this oil depot.
Int: So you were actually being used as Gregson had planned.
GA: That’s right, yes.
Int: When did you go up there, what month would that be?
GA: It started on the seventh of December, we were up there on the fifth, I think it was.
Int: And what positions did you take up, what were the state of the…………..?
GA: The army was up there when we went there and immediately, they came out and we took over the positions they put in.
Int: What were the positions like?
GA: Just a normal dug-out with a gun post, sandbagged round the top.
Int: Just one post?
GA: At the top of the hill, yes. Then you’d two men on that and then you’d two men patrolling round the tanks, all the time. Really, we hadn’t got enough men up there. We were always a bit short because they were sent out to so many positions.
It was a matter of, you’d your own food to cook, everything to do as well as being on guard, and you didn’t get much sleep at all, y’know. You were really pushing it there.
Int: How did you find out about Pearl Harbor?
GA: Well, on the night of the seventh, we were on guard, it was round about midnight, when they made the first night attack on Singapore City, and that was a bombing raid. We knew what would happen then – “Here we go, it’s started.” Then the radio next morning announced the attack on Pearl Harbor and we knew we were really in it then. Then they announced that landings were being put in up at Kota Baharu, and they were fighting from prepared positions. We stayed there for a few more days. I don’t know who replaced us; I don’t think anyone did. We went back to transit camp, and then as I remember……….
Int: The same transit camp?
GA: Yeah, as I remember, I think we had about 24 hours there, and then our section was sent out to the Malayan Volunteer Defence Quarters down on the waterfront, and we moved down there.
Int: To defend it?
GA: Yes, just in case there was any fifth column, anything like that.
Pt 6:
Pr-BR