Navy News
Direct from the front-line, the official newspaper of the Royal Navy, Navy News, brings you the latest news, features and award winning photos every month.
Just the Japanese commanding officer remained behind to tell the astonished Allied prisoners that they were now free - that the Second World War was over.
After witnessing atrocities during the fall of Singapore and suffering two and a half years of humiliation and punishments of torture, beatings, starvation, disease and forced-labour as a prisoner, Sergeant Fraser’s immediate nightmare was finally over.
However his grandson, Royal Navy chaplain Mark Dalton, said he carried the mental scars of his ordeal with him for the rest of his life. He passed away in 1999 at the age of 82.
In one memorable incident, a brave Irish officer ordered all the prisoners to sit in the parade ground and refuse to work until the Japanese handed over food parcels sent by the Red Cross. After a stand-off overnight, the Japanese relented and handed over the packages they had been withholding.
Chaplain Dalton said: “He speaks of how he remembers hearing some of his friends being tortured, by bamboo splinters being inserted under their nails. Just think - that could have been you. How do you continue and go on? Lots of men lost all hope and just died, but he did not.
“I think the consolation is that even in the most desperate times, all things will pass given time. It’s that great line from the Book of Esther in the Old Testament: ‘And it came to pass’.”
After his return home, Chaplain Dalton said his grandfather continued to suffer, much of the time in silence.
“I think my gran bore the brunt of it – his nightmares for instance,” he added. “It’s what today we would understand as post-traumatic stress disorder.
“In some of his darker periods, he’d have an outburst of anger – of hatred so intense it was almost as if he was back in the camp again.
“It raises an interesting question on the nature of forgiveness. He’d never have a Japanese car for instance. For forgiveness to be truly something, it needs an understanding and recognition on behalf of those who did the wrong. Did he ever forgive them? I would say that is between him and God ultimately.
“Seventy-five years is quite a milestone. I think now it should be about giving recognition, not just to those in the war, who did and did not return, but also to those families who endured their own private battles for years afterwards.”
The Imperial War Museum oral history project can be found here www.iwm.org.uk
Direct from the front-line, the official newspaper of the Royal Navy, Navy News, brings you the latest news, features and award winning photos every month.