Page 31 - RADC Bulletin 2021

HISTORY
Two Men Went to War – a feature film
The late Maj (Retd) V Ward
Unlike my friend Ian Maine, Curator of the Aldershot Military Museum, who went to the very hot African continent on location as a film advisor (a remake of ‘The Four Feathers’), I went as an observer/advisor on a different UK company film shoot at Longmoor Camp, Hampshire on a very cold, bleak and misty December day. Some of the action of the title film, Scene 400 took place on the drill square, followed by Scene 401 in an icy cold Army classroom. This second world war film has been in the making for nine weeks, finally locating at Aylesbury and RAF Halton.
What is it about wartime action that affects our psyche? It is no coincidence that at a time when most Britons will never personally experience war – films, books and TV programmes about war have never been more popular. This particular film company is spending a fortune but has yet to find a distributor. However, the plot is writ large and this is a true adventure film in the making.
In May 1940 two members of the Army Dental Corps, one a drill sergeant – Peter King (age 27) and a dental mechanic – Private Leslie Cuthbertson (age 19), not normally aggressive and both in a non- combatant corps, decided that life was very dull so became amateur commandos. In
an attempt to forestall claims of desertion
they involved the Prime Minister Winston Churchill and when they ultimately faced a court-martial, they were lauded in the national press for their exploits.
Stationed in Aldershot they took up physical training, exercising after hours in the locality. At an appropriate time when on picket duty, Sgt King raided the armoury and QM stored for guns, grenades and supplies whence they made their way by train to Fowey, Cornwall. After more self-denial and training they hired a motor boat and on 28 April 1942 made a difficult stormy passage to the French coast where they landed at night 32 hours later, knowing not where. Sgt King had written to Winston Churchill outlining
a statement or warlike intent which caused great furore and inquiry at the War Office and Military Intelligence.
In Normandy they took shelter in a cavehole and spent two subsequent nights looking for ‘targets.’ They sabotaged a railway line with two grenades but had to retire quickly when a German patrol of two men fired upon them. They returned fire with their ill-gotten revolvers and fled back to the coast. Chased back to their boat they cast off eventually running out of fuel enduring two weeks adrift. Worst was to come – no fresh water and foul weather. They were eventually spotted by a RAF Whitley bomber which gave their position until they were picked
up, more dead than alive, by a Norwegian destroyer and taken to Plymouth.
Interogation, court martial and punishment followed, all reported eagerly by the press who treated the men as heroes. Sgt King was reduced to the rank of Corporal and Cuthbertson got 28 days detention in the Army cooler.
It will be interesting to see how the film company present this one small step in the long march of WW2. I attended two major scenes, both of them shot full of errors in the interest of dramatic licence e.g. AD Corps soldiers drilling in full service marching order – Sgt King wearing WW1 medal ribbons – and much more nonsense!
However, the Dental Corps by nature of its profession has little opportunity to raise interest in the public eye. This episode, after a book and TV short drama, will make the media again as a feature film and I hope, presented not as an historical farce but
a true drama of two brave but foolhardy men. The postscript – King transferred to the Lovatt Scouts with a commission and won a Military Cross. He then emigrated to New Zealand, commissioned in the Army winning a DSO in Korea as acting Major. Cuthbertson became a warrant officer in the APTC. Demobbed he went into business, becoming Deputy Lord Mayor of Newcastle- upon-Tyne in 1967.
The Lisbon
Maru
Maj (Retd) J Sharp
On 27 September 1942 the Lisbon Maru, a Japanese armed freighter with Japanese troops on board, sailed from Hong Kong bound for Japan. It also carried 1,816 British prisoners of war held in atrocious conditions. In their number were 3 AD Corps personnel. Cramped, airless, and in unimaginable squalor they were incarcerated below deck in three cargo holds. The freighter bore no markings to indicate their presence.
On 1 October an American submarine, the USS Grouper, on patrol off the Zhoushan archipelago in the East China Sea, engaged the Lisbon Maru holing it below the waterline. Although initially taken under tow, the line snapped and the ship drifted and foundered. The Japanese evacuated their troops, battened down the hatches over the holds and left a guard force to prevent the prisoners from escaping. For 24 hours the prisoners were held in sub-human conditions in darkness with no food, water, fresh air or
sanitation; and dysentery was rife.
There was a breakout before the ship sank
the next day and many of the prisoners of war escaped from the two forward holds, some of whom were cut down by machine- gun fire. Most of those in the third hold, by then below the waterline, tragically drowned.
Those who did escape were shot at in the water as they attempted to swim to the shore; many were killed or wounded but local Chinese fishermen courageously rescued 384 of the survivors. Later, the Japanese recaptured all but three.
Of the original 1,816 men on board 828 died in this terrible atrocity and a further 200 or more succumbed from their sufferings within a few months.
Of the 3 AD Corps personnel on board,
2, 7538255 Private Wilfred Brockley and 7536269 Sergeant Gerald F. Taylor perished in the sinking of the Lisbon Maru. The third, an unnamed AD Corps member, was re- captured and subsequently died in captivity.
On Sunday 3rd October 2021, a long awaited and overdue memorial to all who perished in this atrocity was dedicated and unveiled at The National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas.
The RADC was represented by both Colonels Commandant, Col I. Amberton and Col J.Q. Anderson, Chief Dental Officer (Army), Col T.J. Davies QHDS, and Regimental Secretary Maj. (Retd) J. Sharp.
Col Amberton, as Representative Colonel Commandant laid a wreath on behalf of the RADC.
RADC BULLETIN 2021 29