Remembering an FE PoW
23 11 2007Fewer and fewer people recognise the acronym FE PoW, five letters that cover a multitude of sins, years of damnation and harrowing stories of survival, determination and resistance.
The Times at least has journalists who recognise the significance of FE PoW, so I was gratified to read today the belated obituary of one of the men and women who bore that label.
Battery Sergeant Major Robert Billingham, Royal Artillery, was among thousands of British troops captured by the Japanese at Hong Kong during World War 2.
They became Far East Prisoners of War (FE PoWs), along with many tens of thousands more Allied service personnel and civilians captured in other parts of the Far East campaigns.
BSM Billingham was among those who not only suffered horrendously at the hands of the Japanese, but also found themselves struggling to survive when transports on which they were being shipped were sunk by Allied forces.
He saved several men from drowning when the ship on which he was being transported, the Lisbon Maru, was sunk, and survived the war himself.
BSM Billingham died on October 9, aged 97. Read his obituary and remember the letters, FE PoW, and the men and women they represent.
What a brave man!
Sadly this sounds like an early example of ‘friendly fire’.
When I was a child, I remember several of our neighbours who had joined up were taken prisoner in the Far East. None of them returned home.
How lovely that BSM Billingham lived long enough to see proper recognition of the bravery shown and the enormous sacrifices made
I would say that although perhaps semantically accurate, it is not entirely fair calling this act “friendly fire”.
The LM was an armed Japanese merchant ship carrying a large contingent of Japanese army troops. She was spotted by a US submarine (Grouper) and correctly identified as a valid enemy target (i.e. an enemy owned ship transporting troops, armamements, war materials).
There was no outward indication that she was a POW carrier, no Red Cross markings (which might have been appropriate given the state of many of the men) and no men on deck - they were transported in the holds.
She was clearly and correctly identified as an enemy target.
Neither Robert Billingham, nor any of the other survivors that I have spoken to held the Americans responsible - indeed some were retrosepctively encouraged to know that Allied Forces were in the area.
Robert was most definitely a hero.