Armidale resident, 94 year old Bill Humphrey, survived being a POW of the Japanese during World War II.
After getting an infection whilst working on the infamous Burma Railway, Bill found himself in isolation with another POW. To pass the time, Bill discussed his dream to one day build his own house. The other POW was a draftsman, and used a piece of grease proof paper to sketch the design for a house. After the war, Bill used the sketches when he built his first house at Mann Street in Armidale, creating a life for himself, his wife Marjorie and their six children.
Bill doesn’t like to dwell on his time as a POW and hasn’t let it define his life, never once letting the brutality that he faced at the hands of the Japanese get in the way.
Born and raised in Tenterfield, Bill joined the army with a couple of mates from Tamworth when he was 21. After training in Bathurst, Bill soon found himself in Singapore with the 2nd/30th battalion who were amongst the first battalions to face the Japanese. Singapore fell to the Japanese on February 15, 1942 with Bill and his fellow soldiers taken prisoner a few days later.
“I have no regrets about the army, it was exciting,” said Bill
“In Singapore we were in the front line and it was four days before I had a chance to get my shoes off.
“If we only had a few extra guns and reinforcements we would have been alright.”
Once Bill was captured he stayed in a camp on Singapore Island and was then placed in a working party that put cigarettes and pineapple juice on boats to Japan. Later he was back in Singapore at Changi on another working party, building a shrine in the city. The Japanese began to build a railway line from Burma to Malaya and Bill was in a working party on the Burma end in horrendous conditions.
“I think we lost half of the 4,000 men building that railway line,” said Bill.
“They were lost mostly from Cholera, Malaria and malnutrition.”
Bill, who was a carpenter by trade, was noticed by the Japanese and was ordered to build a scaffold. As a reward for the work he did, they gave him a cigar.
Bill spent ten months building the Burma to Malaya railway line for the Japanese.
“I think the worst thing was when the prisoners died, they didn’t give us any time to bury them,” said Bill.
“They would build a fire out of bamboo about 100 yards away, with four to five bodies a day burnt on the fire.
“The smoke would come over where we were 24 hours a day.
“There was a Catholic Priest in the camps and he had made bamboo caskets and was going to bury some of the bodies; he burnt their serial numbers on the bamboo.”
After working on the railway line, Bill arrived back at Changi in Singapore and his commanding officer, Major General Frederick “Black Jack’ Galleghan couldn’t believe the condition they were in, asking “who has done this to my men?”
War in the Pacific ended after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Bill and his fellow prisoners were released from Changi after the Japanese surrendered.
“We couldn’t be sent home straight away; they had to arrange transport, and they had to get us looking reasonably fit and dressed,” said Bill.
“We finally had as much food as we wanted.
“I came home by boat, on the Esperance Bay, it stopped at Darwin and then came down the Queensland coast, taking well over a month. They wanted to get us fit and I spent most of the time eating; when I got home I was 11 stone.”
Bill returned home to Tenterfield and married Marjorie Laing in December of 1946. Marjorie’s mother and Bill’s brother thought they would make a good match and they were right. Bill moved back to Armidale and resumed the carpentry work he had started before the war. He bought a block of land in Mann Street near Allingham Street and built his first house from the drawings he had made with his fellow POW during the war.
“When the deeds came through for the land Bill asked me what I thought about him first building a garage on the block, so we could live in the garage while he constructed the house before and after work,” said Marjorie.
“By that time I was pregnant with Anne, our first daughter, and I thought it was a great idea to live in the garage until we had our house.
“We finally moved into the house, and for a while, every spare minute was devoted to it.
“Lots of people at that time were making do while they built their houses.
“We were so happy after the war. Everyone was striving to make a new life. The neighbours who were around us were so helpful.”
Bill and Marjorie raised six children (four girls and two boys), Anne, David, Jane, Christopher, Sally and Gillian who all attended St Mary’s Catholic School, then De La Salle College or St Ursula’s.
The Humphrey family moved from their Mann Street house to a new house that Bill built in Allingham Street, where they still live.
“The gasworks were always flooding in Mann Street, so we moved to Allingham Street where we put electricity on,” said Marjorie.
Bill had a thriving building business, constructing over 70 homes in Armidale. He also refurbished the old PLC School buildings in Brown Street into a nursing home, and built the retirement units at Autumn Lodge.
Bill retired at the age of 67 and spent his leisure time playing golf and attending to his magnificent garden.
“I want to forget the war years, I don’t go to marches or Anzac Day,” said Bill.
“I joined Legacy for a couple of months and found that it wasn’t my cup of tea.”
After the war, all Bill wanted to do was look after his wife and children, make a home and have a quiet life.
Marjorie involved herself more in community events and Bill dedicated his life to his family and his business.
“Bill never talked much about his time during the war; they were not good memories and we had so much to talk about: the children, the business and the town,” said Marjorie.
“He had his tough times; his mother died when he was young, then he went to the war; and when it was over we wanted to be happy.”
Story: Jo Harrison
