NX8312

Private

Frank Yorkston Tyas

1918/07/12 - Born

Son of Reginald Tyas, 7 Epping Ave, Eastwood, New South Wales

Occupation Clerk

Australian Army Medical Corps

8th Field Ambulance

2/3rd Motor Ambulance Convoy Malaya

Service

1941/05/08 - Enlisted Ingleburn Military Camp, New South Wales

The 2/3rd Motor Ambulance Convoy Malaya was a Australian Army Second World War. It was formed in early 1941 in Australia, composed largely of experienced men, with many being World War I veterans.

Sailed for Malaya between March and June 1941, arriving around April 1941.

The 2/3rd Motor Ambulance Convoy Malaya was allocated to serve with the 3rd Indian Corps, supplied and rationed by British Malaya Command, and attached to the Australian 8th Division for administration and discipline.

During the Japanese attacking Malaya on the 8th December 1941, the convoy worked continuously under heavy artillery and aerial fire. They navigated dangerous terrain to evacuate wounded troops during the retreat down the Malay Peninsula.

The causeway which joined Malaya to Singapore was blown on the 31st January 1942, to stop the Japanese advance into the island of Singapore.

Believing the Japanese would attack on the North East coast via Pulau Ubin, Percival reinforced that coastline, but the Japanese bluffed Percival and attacked the North West coast on the 9th February and soon gained a foothold pushing the Australian troops back. By the 15th February 1942 the Reservoirs which supplied Singapore City were under threat and Percival decided to surrender.

Singapore Surrender by Leo Rawlings

Japanese PoW

1942/02/15 - Captured Singapore

Changi Camp

In late June 1943, the authorities in Singapore assembled medical units of prisoners which they sent up to Thailand to minister to the coolies. The first to go, designated ‘K’ Force, was a party of 30 medical officers and 200 orderlies drawn from the remaining British and Australian medical specialists at Changi, with a few Dutch included as well.

1943/06/25 - ‘K’ Force left Singapore, being informed before departure that since they were going to well equipped hospitals in the north, it would not be necessary for them to take medical equipment with them.

Commander Major Crawford J.V.E. attached R.A.M.C.

PoW No. 9559

When arriving at Kanchanburi they discovered that they would be treating the coolie forces. The force was split up into parties of one medical officer and four other ranks and distributed among the various coolie camps along the railroad. The earlier misleading information meant, without medical equipment they could do very little for their pitiful charges.

One Australian Military Officer with ‘K’ Force was later reported to be burying 30 Tamils a day. Another reported that the grave digging was always done by the medical personnel and owing to the increased death rate and lack of staff there were at one time 500 coolies buried in one grave at Nikhe. Coolie hospitals were finally established at Kanchanaburi in the south, at Wanyai, Kinsaiyok, Konkoita and near the border at Nikhe where it is thought that as many as 1,750 coolie patients died.

Some ‘K’ Force personnel were not allocated to coolie camps at all. One party of two medical officers and a dental officer were dispatched to an anti-cholera unit at Wanyai where they had to dig swill pits and drains to carry water from the river to the camp as well as work in the laboratory.

The ‘K’ and ‘L’ Forces were in fact part of a Japanese medical organisation run by Major Kudo, known as the Kudo Butai which had already established a series of primitive coolie hospitals at ban Pong, Kanchanaburi, Wanyai, Tamajo and Nikhe in Thailand at at Tarden, Apalon, Mezali and Anakwin in Burma. The two hospitals at Kanchanaburi in Thailand and those at Apalon and Anakwin in Burma were larger base hospitals. ‘K’ Force personnel were already working in these hospitals and about 60% of the ‘L’ Force staff were now allocated to them, the remainder supplementing the doctors and orderlies in the POWs own hospitals. They were detailed into parties irrespective of which Force they had originally belonged to and were frequently moved about by rail, river and foot.

1943/10/25 - Train Tracks from Thailand and Burma joined near Konkoita, Thailand

By August 1944, the ‘K’ and ‘L’ Forces had been replaced in their medical role by dressers recruited from the Malayan Medical Service who were trained on a two-week course by Japanese doctors at Kanchanaburi. Later some locally qualified doctors were also brought up to the coolie hospitals; altogether over 700 medical staff of one sort or another were brought up from Malaya for this work. The Japanese camp staff were not universally poor but varied greatly in ability and conscientiousness.