Escape from Singapore!
So the squadron leader comes in and says we’re going to get off this island. He said, 'I’ve got a boat.', which we thought was ridiculous. He said, we will march down to a place where he said he knows where there is a ship. He said 'We will get off this island.' So we get down to a ship breakers yard, and there’s this hulk right by the side of the dock; everything had been stripped off, it was just a hull. There was some coal in the boiler and the propellers would turn. So, we all piled on board. We took a few Chinese women and kids and Malayans and whatever on board this ‘ship’. We started stoking it up and we sailed out of Singapore Harbour. We said 'Where are we going, sir?' He said, 'Well, there’s a sergeant navigator on board and he’s got this school atlas and apparently if you come into Singapore and turn right you come to Java.'
At this, the audience laughed.
This is true, I’m telling you! Turn right and you come to Java! Well, the coal ran out so on went kit bags and anything we could lay our hands on. The Japs came over and bombed us, missed us of course, 27 bombers, a waste of bombs really on a little ship like that, but never mind. Anyway, we had ran out of fuel and we finished up bobbing about in the South China Sea.
.jpg "Singapore Map")
Referring to the mapm Chick went on: This little island is Singapore and as you can see you come out of there, and it’s perfectly right, you come out of Singapore, turn right, and you come to Java! We got to Java – eventually. We were bobbing about on this little ship. There was plenty to eat mind – we’d got plenty of food on board. Anyway, after a while there was a smudge of smoke on the horizon. We didn’t know if it were a Jap or whatever, luckily for us it was a tug coming out of Batavia. I call it ‘Batavia’, which is the old fashioned name for Jakarta[i].
So this tug dragged us into Batavia. When we got there they said, 'Who you are you?' We said RAF. They said, we can’t feed you, we can do nothing for you, there’s 50 quid (£50), come back every day and report at 12 o’clock, which we did. We were staying in a school actually, so we report every day, 12 o’clock, and nothing happened. Three of us had met these Dutch girls, we had a great time, their parents were there. I was single so it was great. They had a swimming pool and we had a smashing time. It got to quarter to 12 and we said we’ll not bother, so we didn’t go. We did go eventually, the next day at 12 o’clock, but everybody had gone. There was three of us out of the whole squadron left. So three of us, out of the whole 205 squadron, were left in Java. So, what happened? Again, shambles.