Peggy Shepard 1920 – 2008 and Rowland Dalton Lake 1914 - 1943
Rowland Dalton Lake 1914 – 1943
Peggy Shepard married Rowland Dalton Lake in December 1940 but was unfortunately widowed during the war following Rowland's capture by the Japanese..
Rowland was born in Chichester in the fourth quarter of 1915 vol 2b page 552. He was born to Walter E Lake and Kate E Lake nee Cowd who were married in the district of Westbourne Sussex in the fourth Quarter of 1914 vol 2b page 939. His father Walter Rowland Lake was born in Chichester Q3 1886 vol 2b page 937. His mother was Kate Elizabeth Cowd born in Portsea Hampshire Q2 1885 vol 2b page 537. Walter and Kate married in Westbourne Q4 1914 vol 2b page 939. Rowland had one sibling, Oscar E Lake born in Chichester Q4 1917 vol 2b page 474. Both his parents and his brother outlived Rowland who died in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in 1943. He is buried on the Indonesian island of Ambon.
The War Cemetery on Ambon was constructed on the site of a former camp for Australian, British and Dutch prisoners of war, some of whom had been transferred from Java in 1943.
Soon after the war the remains of prisoners of war from Haruku and other camps on the island were also removed to Ambon and in 1961, at the request of the Indonesian Government, the remains of 503 graves in Makassar War Cemetery on the island of Celebes were added to the cemetery. I have not been able to discover where Rowland was actually held as a POW although the indications are that it was in one of several POW camps on the island. The cemetery had been constructed on the site of a former Japanese POW camp for British, Dutch and Australian prisoners.
I have found the following account from the brother-in-law of a former RAF technician Brynley Owen Thomas who was held on Ambon island. I have removed some of the more lurid passages but it is possible that Rowland was one of the 200 or so RAF servicemen mentioned in the account.
“... the R.A.F. prisoners were put in the jail compound where the Javanese males had been imprisoned and then shot. They were in the prison for over a year and quite a few of the British boys died of Beriberi and other diseases. Then they were taken to a port and all two hundred of them were put into a ship's hold. They found out that they were going to 'Ambon Island', North Java, and sailing only by night. During their stay on Ambon they were forced to construct a run-way for Japanese planes. As the year passed the Americans were getting stronger in the Pacific area, and one day an American plane flew over and dropped leaflets warning that they would be bombing the Island one day soon. ...”
Another account, this time referring to the group of RAF prisoners held on the tiny island of Haruku may also be the story of Rowland’s incarceration. In fact until further research shows otherwise I think that this is the most likely account.
“...One of the major tragedies amongst the horrific stories of the Far East prisoners of war in Japanese hands during the Second World War is that of the drafts from Java to the Molucca Archipelago or 'Spice Islands'. One of these parties was a large group whose destination was the tiny island of Haruku (Haroekoe) just east of Ambon and it is this draft that is described in the following. It is reckoned only about one-third of the group returned to Java.
The Haruku draft was assembled in April 1943 when a parade was formed at Jaarmarkt Camp in Sourabaya, Java and 2,070 so-called 'fit' men, i.e. those who were not lame or seriously ill at that stage, were chosen to board ships to what was at that stage an unknown destination.
The band of 2,070 men forming C Group, consisting mainly of RAF and a smaller Dutch contingent was then herded on to the Amagi Maru and the Matsukawa Maru where they had to endure appalling cramped and filthy conditions with limited food and water on the two-week voyage. The group included dysentery carriers and the severe over-crowding in the ships was causing this to spread fast. A halt at Ambon was closely followed by orders to unload the cargo of decomposing oranges.
A further stop at Amahai saw them unloading petrol drums, bombs and other such dangerous items over a gruelling 36-hour period. However, they were not to remain at this location but were transported via small motorboats on to a muddy shore with rain-drenched vegetation that was Haruku. Exhausted, they were then forced to complete the building of the bamboo huts that were to house them for, as it turned out, the next sixteen months. This is known as the "nutmeg island" of the "Spice" group. They were to be deployed as slave labour - these men in the bloom of their youth, many of them highly-trained and skilled in technical applications - air crew, fitters and armourers, aircraft engineers and radio operators.
Their task was to be the building of an airstrip - a potential Japanese launch pad to Australia, but unfortunately a hump of coral graced the surface of the island and had to be hacked away by hand to make the land level, using a native hand tool called a pachul, or pickaxe, and a chisel. Added to the parlous state of health due to months of starvation, which led to serious conditions such as beriberi, pellagra, malaria caused by mosquitoes and the scourge of dysentery that was to run like wildfire through the temporary population of this island, there were now the tropical ulcers which could be caused by a small scratch from a piece of flying coral or the casual blow of a guard's rotan (bamboo pole) and which could fester to huge proportions, as well as the blinding sun to contend with as it reflected mercilessly off the pale coral that the men were forced to excavate.
Over the next few months, dysentery was to claim 1 in 5 of those POWs who were taken to Haruku, as over the weeks a total of almost 400 men were carried with decreasing ceremony to 'Boot Hill' on the shores of that would-be paradise island, there to be laid to final rest close to the sandy shores. On 1st August 1944, the gates of the Pelauw camp on Haruku were shut for the last time as the final party were moved to Ambon. The airstrip with its inbuilt "design faults" effected by covert POW-devised sabotage was never really used by the Japanese who had not reckoned on the Americans out-flanking them in the Banda Sea....”
If as I suspect Rowland was among the Haruku group then he only endured this camp for less than two months before probably becoming one of those who succumbed to dysentery.
It is possible to inspect the Japanese Index cards of Allied POW’s which are stored at the National Archives at Kew and are held under file reference WO345. If Rowland is mentioned in these then he will be in box 30 (King M – Lawrence)
The War Cemetery on Ambon was constructed on the site of a former camp for Australian, British and Dutch prisoners of war, some of whom had been transferred from Java in 1943.
Soon after the war the remains of prisoners of war from Haruku and other camps on the island were also removed to Ambon and in 1961, at the request of the Indonesian Government, the remains of 503 graves in Makassar War Cemetery on the island of Celebes were added to the cemetery. I have not been able to discover where Rowland was actually held as a POW although the indications are that it was in one of several POW camps on the island. The cemetery had been constructed on the site of a former Japanese POW camp for British, Dutch and Australian prisoners.
I have found the following account from the brother-in-law of a former RAF technician Brynley Owen Thomas who was held on Ambon island. I have removed some of the more lurid passages but it is possible that Rowland was one of the 200 or so RAF servicemen mentioned in the account.
“... the R.A.F. prisoners were put in the jail compound where the Javanese males had been imprisoned and then shot. They were in the prison for over a year and quite a few of the British boys died of Beriberi and other diseases. Then they were taken to a port and all two hundred of them were put into a ship's hold. They found out that they were going to 'Ambon Island', North Java, and sailing only by night. During their stay on Ambon they were forced to construct a run-way for Japanese planes. As the year passed the Americans were getting stronger in the Pacific area, and one day an American plane flew over and dropped leaflets warning that they would be bombing the Island one day soon. ...”
Another account, this time referring to the group of RAF prisoners held on the tiny island of Haruku may also be the story of Rowland’s incarceration. In fact until further research shows otherwise I think that this is the most likely account.
“...One of the major tragedies amongst the horrific stories of the Far East prisoners of war in Japanese hands during the Second World War is that of the drafts from Java to the Molucca Archipelago or 'Spice Islands'. One of these parties was a large group whose destination was the tiny island of Haruku (Haroekoe) just east of Ambon and it is this draft that is described in the following. It is reckoned only about one-third of the group returned to Java.
The Haruku draft was assembled in April 1943 when a parade was formed at Jaarmarkt Camp in Sourabaya, Java and 2,070 so-called 'fit' men, i.e. those who were not lame or seriously ill at that stage, were chosen to board ships to what was at that stage an unknown destination.
The band of 2,070 men forming C Group, consisting mainly of RAF and a smaller Dutch contingent was then herded on to the Amagi Maru and the Matsukawa Maru where they had to endure appalling cramped and filthy conditions with limited food and water on the two-week voyage. The group included dysentery carriers and the severe over-crowding in the ships was causing this to spread fast. A halt at Ambon was closely followed by orders to unload the cargo of decomposing oranges.
A further stop at Amahai saw them unloading petrol drums, bombs and other such dangerous items over a gruelling 36-hour period. However, they were not to remain at this location but were transported via small motorboats on to a muddy shore with rain-drenched vegetation that was Haruku. Exhausted, they were then forced to complete the building of the bamboo huts that were to house them for, as it turned out, the next sixteen months. This is known as the "nutmeg island" of the "Spice" group. They were to be deployed as slave labour - these men in the bloom of their youth, many of them highly-trained and skilled in technical applications - air crew, fitters and armourers, aircraft engineers and radio operators.
Their task was to be the building of an airstrip - a potential Japanese launch pad to Australia, but unfortunately a hump of coral graced the surface of the island and had to be hacked away by hand to make the land level, using a native hand tool called a pachul, or pickaxe, and a chisel. Added to the parlous state of health due to months of starvation, which led to serious conditions such as beriberi, pellagra, malaria caused by mosquitoes and the scourge of dysentery that was to run like wildfire through the temporary population of this island, there were now the tropical ulcers which could be caused by a small scratch from a piece of flying coral or the casual blow of a guard's rotan (bamboo pole) and which could fester to huge proportions, as well as the blinding sun to contend with as it reflected mercilessly off the pale coral that the men were forced to excavate.
Over the next few months, dysentery was to claim 1 in 5 of those POWs who were taken to Haruku, as over the weeks a total of almost 400 men were carried with decreasing ceremony to 'Boot Hill' on the shores of that would-be paradise island, there to be laid to final rest close to the sandy shores. On 1st August 1944, the gates of the Pelauw camp on Haruku were shut for the last time as the final party were moved to Ambon. The airstrip with its inbuilt "design faults" effected by covert POW-devised sabotage was never really used by the Japanese who had not reckoned on the Americans out-flanking them in the Banda Sea....”
If as I suspect Rowland was among the Haruku group then he only endured this camp for less than two months before probably becoming one of those who succumbed to dysentery.
It is possible to inspect the Japanese Index cards of Allied POW’s which are stored at the National Archives at Kew and are held under file reference WO345. If Rowland is mentioned in these then he will be in box 30 (King M – Lawrence)