Eaten by the Japanese
The Memoir of an Unknown Indian Prisoner of War
by John Baptist Crasta
Edited with a biographical introduction and three essays
by Richard Crasta
Copyright 2011 Invisible Man Press
Published by Invisible Man Press on Smashwords
Brief Praise for Eaten by the Japanese
“A tale of unmitigated horror. A handsome tribute to a man of courage and rectitude.” –Khushwant Singh
“A classic in military history, telling the story of men trapped in a world of torture, starvation, and death"—Roger Mansell, War historian, in Tameme Magazine
“The theater of the absurd . . . war as seen from the smoking trenches. Written without rancour or hatred, of archival value to historians. Bloodcurdling references to acts of cannibalism. Crasta’s memoir should find a cherished place in all major libraries.” --Dr. Arunachalam Kumar, Author, in Morning News.
“Striking and raw, an antidote to myth. Something to be treasured. This is the kind of record that this generation is losing fast, and we need to hold on to this. It made me think of what had happened to my own father's memoirs, which were lost.”--Barry Fruchter, Ph.D., Professor of Literature, New York.
“In Eaten as a memoir, you see the horror of war, without a trace of artifice, through the eyes of one who was there, the writing a simple act of catharsis with no reasonable expectation that anything would come of it. Too bad this memoir was discovered so many years after the event. It deserves to be ranked with the best.” Mark Ledbetter, Professor of Linguistics, Amazon.com 5-star review
Publishing History
First published in India in 1998 in a limited edition by Invisible Man Books, this book was then published in a fully revised and annotated edition with new epilogues by Invisible Man Press, Inc, New York in 1999.
This 2011 e-book edition includes a new essay by Richard Crasta in addition to the original three essays, and additional biographical material. Richard Crasta is the son of the late John Baptist Crasta (who died in 1999); he is also the publisher, editor, and annotator of this book, besides contributing a part of the contents. Richard Crasta is the publisher of the Invisible Man Press, Inc., New York.
All Rights Reserved by the Invisible Man Press. This book may not be sold in any form other than its current shape and form, and may not be duplicated (except for short quotes in literary reviews).
If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about formatting, content, and affordability, please contact the co-author/publisher at rc@richardcrasta.com with the title of this book in the subject line. Thank you for supporting this tiny independent press that has for over 13 years braved exceptional challenges to express itself without self-censorship or censorship by the Establishment.
For more information on this and forthcoming Invisible Man Books, please visit http://www.richardcrasta.com
Disclaimer and Co-author’s Request
This book was published by Richard Crasta (editor and minor co-author, and author of The Revised Kama Sutra and other books) on the basis of a handwritten manuscript of John Baptist Crasta. Richard Crasta takes the responsibility for all the subjective interpretations and the essays that follow the main memoir, and requests that his father and this book be judged solely on the basis of the actual memoir, and not on the basis of subjective interpretations made by his son and publisher in the notes, introduction, and appended essays. Please note however that the Footnotes and the Notes (two separate chapters) contain some very significant additional clarifying information that helps place a few of the events in context.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Invisible Beginnings: A Short Early History of John Baptist Crasta
The Main Book: Eaten by the Japanese, by John Baptist Crasta
The Second Voyage of the Torture Ship
Peace, Rioting, and the Good Australians
War Crimes and the Return Home
Fathers and Sons--A Tale of Literature, Reinvention, and Redemption
The Defence Minister and the Politically Incorrect Soldier
About the Author and the Minor Co-Author
A Personal Message from the Co-author and Other Books by Him
Author’s Dedication
For my mother, Nathalia
Invisible Beginnings: A Short Early History of John Baptist Crasta
[Adapted from a Speech given by Richard Crasta, the minor co-author, editor, and publisher, on the occasion of the launch of the first edition of this book on December 30, 1997, simultaneously with his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.]
But we mustn’t go too far back, must we, we mustn’t go too far back in anybody’s life. Particularly when they’re poor.—Martin Amis, London Fields.
But I must, Martin, I must. I must go back to “the terrible smells, the terrible jolts” [Amis again], especially because my father was what some of his relatives might have called poor. And because he was my father, and because the story of his pain, his relative hardships, and his survival is all the more heroic to me precisely because of the terrible smells some writers would like to shrink from. And also because his old age prevents him from speaking for himself.
Besides, the account that follows is the gripping, sad, and yet life-affirming tale of a simple soldier caught in the middle of a war he was probably unsuited for, did not want, and sometimes failed to understand. And it is somewhat short on biographical or atmospheric details which might enhance our understanding of its protagonist, his background, and his point of view. Let that be my opportunity, though I make no apologies or disguises for my utter subjectivity.
John Baptist Crasta (Prabhu was the ancestral family name, which he did not use), whose son I claim to be in more ways than one, was born on 31 March 1910, in Kinnigoli, India—a remarkable achievement, because nothing has, does, or ever will happen in Kinnigoli. Luckily for it, the village has a road connecting it to the larger port-town of Mangalore, in the monsoon-drenched Southwestern pocket of India where little of earth-shaking importance has happened since the beginning of time, and where, during the first half of the 20th Century, tigers still roamed the surrounding villages and occasionally strayed into town, snacking on domestic animals and people, once biting off the fingers of a man preoccupied with answering the call of nature in the Great Outdoors at night.
My father was the firstborn of eight children, the others being Lucy, Antony, Aloysius or Louis, Ignatius, Bonaventure or Bonu, Margaret, and Gerald. Make that eight thin children. “We came from a family of thin people,” said Uncle Louis recently, himself pretty thin despite ascending in mid-career to the world of medium-fat cats.
The Crasta children may have been thin in body, but their lives were thick with rosaries. “No rosary, no rice,” was their Mater’s domestic diktat: her inverted version of “No taxation without representation.” Religious piety was a staple among these Konkani-speaking descendants of converted Catholics, refugees from the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa of the late seventeenth century, and survivors of Tipu Sultan’s persecutions over a century later. And here, in a province long used to paternalistic British rule, in this verdant corner of a country where life was nasty, brutish, and often cut short by snake bites and other arbitrary acts of nature, Catholic priests exercised awesome power over their flock, threatening hell and eternal damnation to sinners and moral stutterers. The priests were dictators, declared the town’s unofficial philosopher, raconteur, and freelance social analyst Dennis Britto.
My father’s own father, Alex Dominic Crasta, was often absent from his life, working and living an inaccessible seventy miles from home in the mountainous jungles of the Western Ghats. “At one time, he owned four or five gadangs [toddy shops],” Uncle Louis remembers, adding the juicy detail that his father was a teetotaler. In my father’s fuzzier memory, it is his mother who is awarded the credit for shaping his childhood. “My mother, my saviour,” he characterized her recently in a quavering voice while gazing at her photograph, tears welling up his eyes.
Her name was Nathalia, and she was both a housewife and a provider. She would feed all her children first, and then eat the leftovers, if any (a not uncommon habit among Indian mothers; my mother, bless her, often did likewise, eating the chicken bones after all of us had wolfed down the lion’s share of the meal she had lovingly and painstakingly prepared). One day, as she was massaging Baby Louis according to local custom, her two-year-old second son, Antony, had toddled off into an open well and drowned, despite her jumping in after him to save him. Later, still another son, Ignatius, succumbed to the bite of a rabid dog, there being no effective medicine for rabies at that time, at least none accessible to the indigent citizens of Kinnigoli.
“They took me away and didn’t let me see the body,” Uncle Bonu recalled later. “But I could hear them weeping loudly, inconsolably. Then they killed the dog.”
“He was sado—simple and straight, never talked ill of anybody, never got into fights,” my uncle Louis says of my father. When it came time to attend high school, my father walked the twenty miles to Mangalore, over hills, through roaring streams and patches of jungle, stopping at the “big houses”—meaning, the houses of the well-heeled—for a little free refueling, a glass of water and a piece of jaggery or large pieces of brown sugar, to revive his flagging energy. He found himself a room as a private boarder in Mangalore while attending Saint Aloysius College High School. One day, when his mother heard that he was sick, she, being too poor to afford the bus fare, carried Baby Gerald on her arm and walked the twenty miles to Mangalore to see him.
It is harder for a rich man to enter Heaven than for a camel to enter the eye of a needle (or for the rich man to enter the eye of a camel too, perhaps?), or so the Bible says; but it was always pretty easy for a rich man to enter St. Aloysius College and its high school, and to escape the whipping the padres gave to the fiscally and morally unlucky. After all, the college towered over property donated by the local squire, its chapel being a magnet, every Sunday, for the town's un-whipped cream of Catholic society. My father, though not one of India’s wretched poor, was consigned by his family income to its struggling lower middle class. And often, because he had not paid his two-rupee monthly school fees on time, he was kicked out of his St. Aloysius High School classes by the Italian Jesuits who then ruled over this little piece of the Indian empire, and who were the Official local representatives of Jesus Christ, friend of the poor.
Thanks to a last-minute loan, my father paid his examination fees and obtained his high school diploma. Mangalore still being a one-hundred-bullock-cart, fifteen-horse-carriage, seven-Model-T-Ford town with limited employment opportunities, most local high school graduates at that time had a habit of heading for the nearest metropolis, Bombay, to find a job. Thanks to the invitation of a family friend, Ignatius, my father hopped on to Karachi instead. Little did he know that he would go on to become a well-traveled man, though at least a quarter of that mileage was forced upon him by the Japanese.
After five years of assorted labor in Karachi, including, at one time, shoveling coals for a coal retailer, he joined the Army in 1933.
The next year, he learned of the death of his father. On Easter Sunday, 1934, my grandfather caught pneumonia, and it was decided to take him to the nearest hospital in Mangalore twenty miles away. The mode of transportation? The bullock cart of a friend. However, the cart’s owner did the Christian or Mangalorean Catholic thing: he decided not to miss his Easter revels of booze and delicious pork and mutton curries. Festive meals, which occurred about four or five times a year at Christmas, Easter, the parish feast, Our Lady’s Nativity, and wedding celebrations, were not to be sneezed at in those lean times. It was nightfall before the cart started for Mangalore with its human cargo, including one slightly sozzled driver. When it reached Father Muller’s Hospital the next morning, Dr. L.P. Fernandes, the head doctor, lifted the sheet, checked my grandfather’s pulse, and said, “There’s no point admitting him. He is dead.” My grandfather’s body, having joined The Dead shortly after the time that his friend had celebrated Jesus Christ’s rising from it, was upgraded to taxi class on the return trip to his Kinnigoli graveyard.
The death was a blow to the family, especially because widows suffered many inconveniences and a steep fall in social status at the time—though luckily, because my grandmother was a Christian, she was not required to shave her head. Also, in the absence of income, the coffee estate land that Alex Dominic had been sanctioned reverted to the government for nonpayment of dues. My dutiful father, who had already been partly supporting the family, now lived even more frugally, sending all his savings to help support his mother and younger siblings.
And perhaps the perfectly silly end to my grandfather’s life did make my father resolve that he would not easily become Death’s victim? Possibly, for he narrowly escaped a devastating earthquake that struck Quetta the following year. And then, six years later, he found himself in a war, but survived, against all odds, to write this memoir, and kept it safe for 51 years through dozens of army transfers until his son, by then a published author, discovered it and published it himself.
Perhaps it was not just God, but Life, too, which must have had a soft spot for my father, for he survived it all, including fifty years of a humble post-war existence in which his only vehicle was a bicycle with a bell. Not only that, he saw many of his social, financial, and military superiors to their graves.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you my father, John Baptist Crasta, the author on a bicycle.
Additional Biographical Note Added to the 2012 Edition
Key Dates in John B. Crasta’s Life
1910: Born in Kinnigoli, Mangalore.
1933: Joins the British Indian Army at the age of 23.
1942: 15 February, the British surrender Singapore, and John Baptist Crasta becomes a Prisoner of War of the Japanese.
1945: 19 August, officially informed by the Japanese that the war is over.
1945: December 4, returns to India.
1947: At 37, he is married to 19-year-old Christine, a fellow Konkani Mangalorean Catholic, on December 27
1948: Tour of duty in the India Pakistan war over Kashmir
1949: His first child, Franklin, is born
1958: His fourth and last child (and only daughter), Meena, is born when he is 48 years old; she would always be his favorite.
1965: Retires from the Army at age 55, the official retirement age at the time. Returns to Mangalore.
1986: Visits the U.S. to see his son, Richard and his family, and briefly makes a trip to Canada to see a friend, Ignatius—this is his first foreign trip after his return from captivity forty years earlier, in 1946.
1997: Eaten by the Japanese, the first edition, is published, and presented to him during his 50th wedding anniversary celebration.
1999: Dies in October, at the age of 89, after falling and breaking his hip.
2000: Eaten by the Japanese, the second edition is published and has a quiet launch in New Delhi.
The Main Book: Eaten by the Japanese, by John Baptist Crasta
When Britain, fighting the Second World War, began to mobilize its Indian resources of whatever kind—vegetable, mineral, or animal—my unit, 12 FB, was mobilized at Ambala early in 1941. In early March 1941, orders were received to proceed overseas. Although the destination was a secret, on the day of the move, 13 March 1941, I came to know that it would be Singapore. At that time, any man who got a posting to Singapore was considered the luckiest; and naturally, I was overjoyed. We left by a special troop-carrying train and arrived in Bombay on 16 March 1941. On the same day, we embarked on the H.T. Neurihor—a fine trooper of maybe twelve to fourteen thousand tons. With us were several other units of draftees, making a total of roughly 15,000 men. In the same convoy was another transport carrying the 9th Indian Division.
I was allotted a second class cabin. The accommodation, food, and recreational arrangements were excellent. After a few hours of zigzag sailing, our convoy headed southwards, thus confirming my previous information regarding our destination. Along with me was a fellow-passenger who had lived in Singapore before. He started his cock and bull stories about the fascinations of Malaya and the amusements in store for us. As we sailed, we could see in the Indian Ocean huge fish—dolphins and other forms of sea life—cutting somersaults in the blue waters, diving and coming up again. Sometimes, one of these monsters would race over the surface of the water, and others would follow. We also saw huge whales, as big as mountains, moving easily. It was a grand sight.
We reached Singapore on 26 March 1941 and disembarked. We were taken to No.7, M.R.C., Bidadure, about 8 miles from the harbor.
Our first impression of Singapore was that of a dreamland—picturesque scenery, beautiful tiled buildings against a green background, wide cemented roads, trams, buses, and cars.
Arrangements in the M.R.C. were not satisfactory. We were provided with tents to be pitched on uneven ground covered with grass. We had to level the ground ourselves. Also, the full scale of rations was not issued. For instance meat, which is authorized for service personnel in the field, was not issued for several days until after our arrival. The reason was that the camp staff was quite irresponsible and was only trying to make a fortune. The camp Subedar Major, Head Clerk, Quarter Master Jemadar, and Jemadar Adjutant were all in cahoots.
A month passed and no orders of posting were received. On approaching our Administrative Headquarters (HQ 125PC), we were told to wait for a few days more. Orders were subsequently received for the despatch of a subsection (roughly 13 men) to Kuala Krai. The rest of 12 FB was moved to Buller Camp, a place seven to eight miles away.
Buller Camp was on the tip of a small hill—a quiet place amidst trees. We were attached to 35 LMC for discipline and were given rental accommodation near this unit. Our bakers were to work in the RASC (Royal Army Service Corps) Bakery at Alexandria a mile away.
This bakery was machine-fitted and electrically run. It turned out thirty to forty thousand loaves daily, kneading and baking automatically. The loaves turned out were not as tasty and fine as those hand-kneaded and baked in field ovens. Our bakers worked two shifts—one day and one night.
I had little work to do. I was in the lines for the whole day, and when the Jemadar was ill or out, I was supervising the men in the bakery. This idle life did not please me as I wanted a responsible job in a big office. I applied for a transfer to the 2nd Echelon HQ 125 PS. However, they did not agree, and transferred me to 202 SPS on 10 September 1941.
Life in Singapore was very gay. Money was easily earned and spent. A Singapore dollar (worth one rupee eight annas in Indian currency) was worth nothing. The nightlife of Singapore presented several attractions. One could see Chinese rickshawwallahs moving to and fro with their passengers, and neatly dressed men and women making towards cabarets and cinema houses. Crowds waiting in front of soda water fountains in Chinese shops decorated with colored lights, and men having tea in hotels—all were out to spend a carefree evening after the day’s work. Particular mention may be made of amusement halls named New World, Happy World, Great World etc., to which huge crowds started flocking after 8 PM. The entrance ticket was 10 cents. Within the enclosure, however, one found beer shops served by Chinese girls, cinema shows, drama, ballet, dancing, and the Malayan dance pageantry.
It was a peaceful crowd. The Chinese who formed the majority were a peace-loving people, as were the Malays. Malay music is sweet. Houses of ill fame and prostitution were rampant in Singapore. In a locality called Jallai Bassa, Chinese pros[1] would line up looking as attractive as possible with rouge, lipstick, and face powder, waiting for clients to choose them. After having been chosen, the girl would lead the man to her apartment.
Things were not too dear, although money was spent as easily as earned.
Life for the troops in Malaya left nothing to be desired. Electrified huts were provided for accommodation. There was plenty of water and good scenery. Food was ample and wholesome. Beer and liquor were made available in moderate quantities in canteens, and other amusements such as camp cinemas and picnics were arranged. Discipline was not too exacting.
Even in the topmost circles, war was not expected in Malaya, especially after the commencement of the German-Russian hostilities. Would Japan be so foolhardy as to wage a war against the might of Britain (India automatically included) and her allies the Australians and perhaps the Americans, when she was already engaged in a war with China? It was improbable and so the civilians and the military continued in their revelry. In the middle of 1941 Japanese troops and navy began their southward advance, occupying Saigon and other strategic positions in Indo-China. The French authorities, for obvious reasons, were compelled to yield.
In SPT, I had a very busy time. The section comprised roughly of sixty men. In addition, a POL (Petrol, Oil and Lubricants) section, Bakery section, and a Labor Detail had to be administered. Captain NNK was the senior officer with Lt. L.G.B. Fleming and Lt. Allen, who were later relieved by Lt. D. McCarthy as assistants. As Head Clerk, I had to reorganize the whole office, which was in a complete mess due to a lack of trained clerks. I was, therefore, forced to work nearly sixteen hours a day. The function of our section was to supply rations to the whole of 11 Division and certain non-Division units in addition to performing the duties of Station Transport Officer. The Depot was situated in the thick of rubber trees, a mile or two from Division HQ. Our staff was overworked.
The enemy was making feverish preparations for the attack, whereas our indifference to the imminent danger did not diminish. The gay life of the civilians and the military continued.
A notable event was a state visit from one of the high dignitaries of the neighboring State, Thailand, to Malaya. This gentleman, as the representative of a friendly independent power, was given a royal welcome and taken round the defences of Singapore. He expressed great satisfaction at what he saw. Thailand reiterated its determination to maintain absolute neutrality and to resist to the utmost any power who might encroach on her territory. This assurance gave great satisfaction to the British General Staff, who counted on Thailand’s neutrality and resistance even in the “doubtful probability” of the Japanese invading Malaya through Thailand.
At the end of November 1941, it appeared that war was imminent. “Degree of Readiness” orders were issued. The Japanese started pouring into Thailand with the active cooperation of the Thai Government. The Military Command ordered the moving of certain units into Thailand. These units penetrated nearly twenty-five miles, and clashes started on 7 December 1941. Another invasion party tried landing in a sea craft at Kota Baharu. On the 8th morning at about 7 am, a huge explosion was heard near our Depot; and on seeing the staff’s concern, our Officer-in-charge (Captain W.J.P.) was heard saying that our RAF was practicing; whereas, what had actually happened was that the SRT aerodrome was being hammered by the Japanese bombers! The telephones started ringing. Only then was it officially announced that war had been declared.
No words can describe the confusion that prevailed. I was ordered to move to Bukit Mertajam, where Captain NNK had already gone to start an Advance Base Supply Depot. The days that followed were of high nervous tension. We saw lorries and motorcycles moving at top speed, conveying defeated men, both Indian and British, retreating. They had apparently abandoned their armies. Groups of soldiers were retreating on foot, their faces aghast with fear, their clothes and boots tattered and torn. They appeared badly shaken. They had only a few words to say, words like: Oh, the Japanese are terrible. We are gone. There is no hope.
Each day that passed saw more and more troops running backwards. We in Bukit Mertajam stood calm. Thousands of tons of stores were being received by rail from Singapore and had to be cleared and stored. Penang, about twenty miles from Bukit Mertajam, could be heard being mercilessly pounded by Japanese bombers. We had no air force to give them combat. The Japanese were determined to take Penang at any cost and so bombarded it mercilessly, killing thousands of civilians. The military, hardly a brigade, retreated to the mainland without loss, leaving the civilians to their fate. By 13 December 1941 Penang was taken, and on the morning of 16 December 1941, the enemy arrived at SPT. Our troops, after giving a hard battle at Alor Setar, retreated. In this the Leicester and Gurkha Battalions gave a good fight but were nearly wiped out. The same morning, Col. A.E.S., our Administrative Head, came to our depot and ordered us to retreat after destroying all supplies. A detail of Sappers & Miners was ordered to burn down a dump of 600,000 gallons of petrol and we got ready to move by 9 am. Just then, the Commanding Officer, RIASC (Royal Indian Army Service Corps)19th Division, Lt. Col. G.M. Lytton, came there and wanted three days’ rations for the whole Division. He was not aware of the OC RASC’s (Officer Commanding Royal Army Services Corps’) order to move. This showed that there was no liaison between the two. Each of the services was trying to override the other.
We started at about 10 AM (Capt. NNK and myself in a car, last of all) and arrived in Ipoh the same afternoon to find the town being heavily bombarded by the Japanese. We stayed with the personnel of 205 SPS (Captains D.J. Mellon and P.W. Howell) for two days. Great confusion prevailed owing to frequent enemy raids whereas our own air force was never seen giving battle.
After the enemy planes had completely vanished, we could, however, see a couple of Brewster Buffaloes[2] cutting somersaults in the air, only to disappear again in the event of any sign of approaching Japanese planes. The personnel of 205 SPS and troops who had come to draw supplies would, when the air raid signal sounded, run helter skelter: some into the trenches and some into the jungles as far as their feet could carry them. At later stages, the Air Raid Precaution system completely broke down. The volunteers, apparently having tired of the whole business, threw away their whistles and looked for shelter themselves.
On 19 December 1941, we left for Kuala Kubu Baharu where we opened a Ration Dump with the cooperation of the District Officer, Perak. The troops holding positions in the vicinity were being catered for by us. One of the most decisive battles was being fought on the banks of the Perak River. For a week, nothing untoward happened.
At the end of December 1941, more troops could be seen retreating south every day, some from the eastern coast where they had been holding an aerodrome. Our own ration strength was gradually being reduced daily, with the result that by the 5th or 6th January 1942, nobody came to draw rations. Where had they gone and what was the matter? If everybody had retreated, were we the only men to be left; and why didn’t we receive orders for our move as well? These thoughts struck me and I mentioned these to my officer, Capt. NNK. He, however, seemed least perturbed and replied that if the situation was really dangerous, we would be ordered to evacuate. In any case, unless we heard from the O.C., Royal Army Service Corps, Kuala Lumpur, he said, we would have to stay there even if it meant falling into enemy hands! Incidentally, telephone connections had also broken down. How could we get in touch with Kuala Lumpur, or they with us? On the 7 January 1942, I became restless and again prevailed upon my Commanding Officer that something must be done, and that, too, immediately. He, therefore, agreed to send me and a Viceroy’s Commissioned Officer to Kuala Lumpur to get orders from the OC RASC. The OC was very glad to see us and said that the situation was very dangerous, the enemy was only four miles from our dump and that we must “run” immediately. He was sorry he could not send us a message owing to breakdown of communications, but he blamed the Commander, RIASC 11 Division, who according to him ought to have issued us movement orders.
The Viceroy’s Commissioned Officer returned to Kuala Kubu Baharu with these instructions, but now there was no time to burn the rations. The civil authorities had evacuated the station a week earlier. So, a portion of the rations were distributed to the Chinese civilians and the rest handed over to the Kuber of the Sikh Gurdwar with instructions to hand over the rations to the military in case anyone called.