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Transcript Of Recorded Interview
Sgt. Arthur Francis Freer 7945175
3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards)
And
Author Of The Book - Nunshigum On the Road to Mandalay
Page 3
.....Gandhi,
Mahatma Gandhi, I was overseeing guard commander of him once and I was
told that I mustn’t turn my back on him. I believe that and 20 years
or so later, Richard Attenborough made out he was a saint. When I saw the
film (Gandhi) I couldn’t reconcile that with what I had heard about
him by our education sergeants from the Education Corp in India, giving
us talks and they gave us absolute rules, hard and fast, as to what we
should do and what we shouldn’t do, and one thing was that we should
never turn our back on Gandhi’s followers, and we believed it. Simerly
I believed he was a saint when Richard Attenborough got hold of him.
.....Subhas Chandra Bose was the political leader, a point of interest, you’ve
heard of Aung San Suu Kyi? This lady in Burma who is a political leader,
and being suppressed, Aung San Suu Kyi, everyone thinks she’s lovely.
Her father was on our list of instant elimination, his name was Aung San,
I forget the other names, but he was on our list, to be shot on sight,
because he was working with the Japanese in Rangoon. He cooperated, I wouldn’t
say he was a dynamic leader of aggression on behalf of the Japanese, but
he certainly cooperated with them and worked with them, politically he
was working to enable them to run Burma, that’s a fact, changes your
assessment of values a bit.
.....I was in quite a number of hospitals during my time in Burma; I ended up
in 3 BGH at Poona. I was also a wireless instructor at a depot there for
nine or ten months. I got to know some of the teachers at a girl’s
school. There was a Burmese lady, Miss Shaw, Katy Shaw, she was in her
late 40’s I’d think, and she was the daughter of a Burmese
member of parliament in Rangoon.
.....I was in hospital for three months before I was shipped out. I was delayed
being put on a troop ship because I was bad for two or three months because
of my illnesses, the trots mostly. I had some of the worst agonies thrust
on me. I had a Anal Fissure (An anal fissure is a break or tear in the
skin of the anal canal.), but because I was running 30 odd times a day
to the toilet, the motions went through me like water, but as soon as I
got back to a normal bowl action, it was sheer agony I was split open,
and then an M.O. while I was in hospital, near Calcutta receiving treatment,
pushed a machine with three or four prongs up my backside and cranked it
open with a screw, the M.O. who had just come out the day before from England
was chatting with one of the other doctors about his trip out, and he kept
on cranking it open, and he split me again. I was at one side of the hospital
and my screams were heard by a surgeon who was operating at the other side
of the hospital, and he said, ‘I want to know who screamed, and what
caused it?’ the next day they came and asked me what happened and
I told them. That officer was put on a plane that same day and sent back
to England, being told that he was not wanted out here, he doesn’t
consider the patients. It gave me a great joy that some senior officer
had acted strongly and condemned a man for doing that sort of thing to
me. It was agony; I go hot and cold at the thought of it. It was absolute
agony. I’ve never screamed so loud in all my life, I was in Calcutta,
they may have heard me in Bombay.
.....Later I was sent home as a hospital patient on the troop ship, I was excused
all duties and there were, I think 80 or 100 of the regiment going home,
officially as passengers and they were made to do all sorts of duties.
.....After the war the nightmares started, every night for twenty years before
it slowed down, I used to wake up waving my arms around a bit, my wife
used to go crazy; twenty years; and today the soldiers have counselling.
When I read some of the causality lists, sad as it is; my regimental list
of casualties was enormous. The colonel’s wife, she had lists of
casualties that went on and on and on; half a million troops and half a
million support troops.
Formation signs