Escape from Singapore to Sumatra, Indonesia via Tugboat

The contributor's father, Cecil William Lamond Prime (known as "Bill"), was a bombardier in World War II who was sent to East Asia to fight against the Japanese. He joined a convoy in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and attended a training camp in Mumbai (referred to as Bombay), India.

The contributor stated that, once it was understood that the situation was dire, his father was ordered to travel to Singapore with no map and a Fiat motorcycle. He was then secretly selected by officers to escape rather than fight. The contributor noted that orders then changed at the last minute and, along with others, his father had to make his own way out of Singapore.

The contributor shared that his father had shot a man in the jungle and kept items from the man. The contributor's father had intended to return these items to the man's family but felt unable to find the family after learning about how prisoners of war were treated by the Japanese.

The escapees found a Chinese-owned tugboat and made their way to Sumatra, Indonesia, and this information is evidenced by the "Straits Settlements" document (photographs in the correlated image uploads number 7). The contributor's father had a bullet in his leg for over a month during this escape, and the escapees used tea leaves to make themselves look non-white. The contributor's father, who was 23-24 at the time of these experiences, eventually served on the HMS Tenedos and HMAS Hobart.

During much of her husband's time in East Asia, Phyllis Prime, the contributor's mother, believed that she was a widow. The contributor's mother was an Auxiliary Territorial Service physical training instructor. Neither of the contributor's parents spoke much about their experiences of World War II.