PP/MCR/251

Five year diary for 1942-1946 of Major I R McIntosh. 1 page for each day. (Only the mss. entries for 1942-1945 have been copied) 1 January 1942 - 31 December 1945

Ts. personal experience account, entitled "Round the World in 77 Months", of Lieutenant-Colonel I R McIntosh. 216pp ND

Ts. memoir, entitled "The Day The Americans Came", of Lieutenant-Colonel I R McIntosh. 7pp ND (ca. 1955)

I R "Ronnie" McIntosh, who was born in 1907 and commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1927, was serving in India in July 1939 as adjutant of the 22nd Mountain Regiment. This Regiment formed part of Force "Emu", a composite Brigade of units serving in India which were under orders to proceed to Malaya if there was any marked deterioration in the international situation, and by 11 August the Regiment therefore found themselves in Singapore. The following year was largely devoted to converting the Regiment from animal to mechanized transport: the training of drivers posed many problems and it was not until November 1941 that they finally had all their vehicles. Like many others who were in the same position, McIntosh notes that in Singapore it was difficult to appreciate there was a war in Europe (Memoirs, pp.18-20). From January to June 1941 McIntosh was a temporary Major in command of the 21st Mountain Battery, initially stationed at Mersing in Johore and then at Kota Bahru in Kelantan. In June 1941 he was appointed Brigade Major Royal Artillery to Brigadier A E Rusher, the C.R.A. 11th Indian Division, who had his headquarters at Sungei Patani in Kedah, some twenty miles from Penang, and McIntosh was still in this post when the Japanese invasion of Malaya began in December. His account of the campaign (pp.50-69) makes depressing reading, with its recital of continual military reverses for the Allies in face of Japan's total air and naval superiority and, so far as the 11th Indian Division RAHQ were concerned, frequent and often hurried withdrawals at night over quite substantial distances on roads packed with traffic (pp.55 and 61 for example). McIntosh lost all his diaries during the retreat, but from early 1942 he wrote up entries on odd scraps of paper (transcribed after the war into his 5 year diary and then destroyed) and these cover the final days of the fighting on Singapore Island. Following their capitulation he writes that they had a "very quiet night, after the ceaseless noise of battle" (Diary, 15 February 1942).

Throughout his period of captivity McIntosh kept a diary on whatever paper he could find (also transcribed into the 5 year book) and this, together with his memoir, which was apparently begun before liberation, provides a very detailed record of his life as a prisoner of war. After a few days with all the other Allied prisoners of war at Changi, the officers and men of the 11th Indian Division artillery units were moved to Changi Jail, but in early March they were transferred to Birdwood camp in Changi, where McIntosh remained until he left for Formosa in October 1942. He did not keep a daily diary at Changi and the entries are brief, concentrating on their more memorable meals and on highlights in the camp's entertainments programme. In his memoirs McIntosh comments that, when compared with what they were to experience later, at Birdwood camp they were "very well off" (p.78). The memoirs do, however, include a very full account of the famous Selerang Incident in early September (pp. 85-98): in his diary he merely states that returning to their usual quarters after signing the non-escape declaration "seemed just like going home" (6 September). In late October the 11th Indian Division learnt that they were required by the Japanese to supply 1100 officers and men for an overseas party, and McIntosh was among those who were embarked on the England Maru on 25 October for what proved to be a three week voyage to Formosa. Conditions below decks in the England Maru were "indescribable", with a chronic shortage of latrines, and, although the prisoners gradually organised their mealtimes and periods of recreation on deck to their best possible advantage, two of them had nonetheless died before the ship reached her destination (D 25 October - 14 November, M pp. 102-110).

McIntosh's first camp in Formosa was at Taihoku, the capital, and one of the Japanese camp authorities' first actions was to take away the prisoners' books and give them wooden clogs instead (p.112). In his memoirs McIntosh describes the accommodation provided in the camp (pp.113-4) and summarizes conditions there, with particular reference to food, mail and medical facilities, Church services and entertainment (pp. 115-27). The prisoners' obsession with food emerges clearly from his diary entries: variations in their ration scales are carefully noted, reference is made on several occasions (5 February, 6 March 1943) to his intense hunger and his receipt of a Red Cross parcel is also recorded (11 April). Another major issue at Taihoku was whether the officer prisoners of war should work. From the outset the Japanese camp commandant made it evident that, if they did not work, they would get no extra rations and so the officers agreed to voluntary work (28 November, 7 December 1942). Although they were not made to work on wet days, some of their fatigues, such as levelling ground and making ditches, were quite strenuous and they were often kept at work for long sessions. Other, lesser irritations at Taihoku included the cold weather which persisted until March 1943 and unnecessarily long or inconvenient rollcalls demanded by the Japanese (3 April 1943 for instance). In his diary on 21 July 1943 McIntosh notes that thirteen prisoners in their party had died since leaving Changi.

In August 1943 nearly all the officer prisoners were suddenly moved to another camp in Formosa at Shirakawa, and McIntosh's first impression was that it was "definitely absolute heaven after last camp" (20, 21 August). McIntosh was to remain at Shirakawa for exactly eighteen months and his diary suggests that again food and fatigues were the vital ingredients of camp life. Just a few days after his arrival at Shirakawa he recorded "the food here is nowhere near what we got at the last camp" (27 August 1943) and odd diary entries throughout 1944 reveal the extent of his hunger (6 January, 15 April and 23 August for example). In May 1944 he notes that he ate an egg for the first time in eighteen months and that same month some Red Cross parcels were received (12 and 18 May), but in August the rice ration was cut and in January 1945 the 200 odd prisoners were warned that soon their only source of vegetables would be the prison farm and that, even if they had Red Cross money to spend, food might not be available locally (7 and 24 January). Fatigues for the officers also proved once more to be a contentious matter. Up to the summer of 1944 they were employed on a wide variety of menial tasks, but, when the Japanese demanded a declaration from the officer prisoners that they were undertaking the work voluntarily, their refusal to sign led to the introduction and enforcement of many petty regulations and restrictions (M pp. 134-8, D 12 June, 14,25, 31 August 1944). Yet McIntosh adds "how inexplicable these people are!" since at the same time issues of sweets were made to the prisoners (15 June, 8 July 1944). During 1943 the prisoners were very occasionally allowed to send letters or cards home, but McIntosh received no mail. His first letters were "AT LAST" delivered to him on 29 March 1944 and by 14 September he notes that he had received 42 letters from his family and friends. The inadequate diet and other privations led to frequent illness and some deaths among the prisoners and by 2 February 1945 there were 26 graves in the camp cemetery.

The winter of 1944-45 was also marked by frequent air raid alerts and air raids in the vicinity of the camp which the prisoners found inconvenient though also a satisfying indication of Allied air power.

After a fortnight of rumours most of the officers left Shirakawa on 19 February 1945 and embarked at the port of Keelung in the Melbourne Maru. Several frustrating days in appalling accommodation in this vessel followed and then on 27 February they were transhipped to the Winchester Maru. "The nights are hell" recorded McIntosh, as the ship had no lights in her hold, just an abundance of lice but they completed the passage to Japan safely and were taken to a camp at Miata (M pp. 144-7, D 19 February-10 March). In view of their general poor health the new arrivals were excused work until the beginning of April, and the principal features of McIntosh's brief stay in the camp were the fact that he remained "terribly hungry" (23, 26 March) and the air raid alarms, when they were forced to take shelter in a mineshaft (pp. 147-53). At the end of April 1945 McIntosh was among the party of about one hundred prisoners of war from Miata who made a short journey by boat and a longer, but comparatively comfortable one, by rail to the camp at Mukden in Manchuria, where he was to stay until his liberation. At the time of his arrival Mukden was "a big camp almost entirely ORs" (29 April), the majority being Americans, but a party of senior British officers arrived during May. Officers were not required to work in this camp, but the flies were bad, and everyone was hungry (8 August) and looking for means of supplementing their rations. McIntosh was increasingly depressed by the monotony of his life and, in his diary entry for 7 June, notes "I can't visualize the state of being free" (see also M pp. 155-60).

Mukden was liberated on 16 August by a small American force who landed by parachute and shortly afterwards units of the Russian Army arrived to complete the transfer of power from the Japanese. The liberation of the camp and McIntosh's subsequent journey home via the Pacific and North America are described in considerable detail in his letters home (M pp. 170-216, where they are reproduced in full) and his very first letter includes an interesting resume of his life as a prisoner of war (pp. 161-9). Within a few days of their liberation the released prisoners at last had enough to eat, which led in some cases to undesirable excess, while "the amount of beer in camp would float a battleship" (26 August). McIntosh finally left Mukden camp on 10 September and sailed from Dairen to Okinawa in the American hospital ship Relief. On 20 September they were flown to Manila in the Philippines, where he had to endure a delay of almost three weeks, during which the former prisoners became very impatient, before embarking in the American transport Marine Shark for passage to the United States. From San Francisco, where they were warmly received, McIntosh crossed to the east coast by the Canadian Pacific Railway and he landed from the Queen Mary at Southampton on 18 November 1945.

Ms. commonplace book of Major I.R. McIntosh 327pp August 1942-16 August 1945

For most of the period of his captivity McIntosh kept what he refers to in his diary as an "odds and ends" notebook, which in fact includes a mass of information about many aspects of his life as a prisoner of war. At the back of the notebook is a very useful basic index to its contents. Among the valuable details given in the book are lists and notes of moments of his fellow officer prisoners of war in the different camps, diagrams of the layout of the camps, transcripts of the Japanese rules and regulations for prisoners of war issued at various times during their captivity, copies of letters of complaint submitted to the Japanese camp authorities and of minutes of meetings with visiting Red Cross delegates. The notebook also contains details of ration scales and the contents of Red Cross parcels, examples of labels on Japanese food and cigarette tins and packets, information about his recreational pursuits and transcripts of the twenty letters which he was allowed to write home from Shirakawa. Other interesting entries include McIntosh's answers to questionnaires circulated by the Japanese camp authorities, his list of the things that he most wanted to do after his liberation and favourite recipes and meals for which his fellow prisoners hankered.