Title:INTERVIEWS WITH G WOODWARD AND H O’NEILL [Allocated Title]
Film Number:RHC 30
Other titles:INTERVIEWS WITH IN-PENSIONERS AT THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, CHELSEA [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: G Woodward was a member of The -Royal Army Service Corps, and talks about his service as a master baker. H O'Neill was a member of The Royal Artillery, and talks about his experiences as a Far East Prisoner of War.
Description: I. Mr Woodward was a Master Baker with the RASC and left as a WOl in 1952. He describes the work of Army bakery both in static establishments, using coke fired ovens, and in the field using oil fired ovens which, in batches of three, could produce a total of 3,000 lbs of bread within four hours of starting to set up the mobile bakery.
II. Mr O'Neill enlisted in the TA in March 1938 with the Royal Artillery and served during and after the war in field Regiments equipped with 25 pounder guns. He went to Singapore in the troopship Dominion Monarch shortly before the Japanese ttached Pearl Harbour. The field regiment in which he served advanced as far as Siam and then, in the face of strong Japanese attacks, carried out a fighting retreat, suffering many casualties, back to Singapore, where they were eventually forced to surrender on the beach in front of Raffles Hotel. Mr O'Neill describes his experiences as a POW on working/parties, first in Singapore and then up country where he worked in a Blacksmith shop for the construction of the Burma/Siam railway. He talks about. a strike of POWs in protest against the ill treatment of some of them, and how this form of protest gave him the conviction that he would survive his captivity. By 1945, the prisoners were having to carry heavy teak railway sleepers and baskets of earth for the construction of the railway from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a half-hour break for a small quantity of rice: malaria and dysentery were frequent. Mr O'Neill gives an account of the real story of the Bridge on the River Kwai. The new railway bridge was finished before the monsoon started, but when the rain came large quantities of debris piled up against the road bridge which was swept away, to be followed by the railway bridge. After the war, Mr O'Neill left the army for a/short time and then returned to it, serving first in Palestine (where his unit was helping the Palestine Police)and then in Hong Kong.
Alternative Title:INTERVIEWS WITH IN-PENSIONERS AT THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, CHELSEA [Allocated Series Title]
