Posted on 07/17/2011 6:22:02 PM PDT by Zakeet
A WAR hero's medals have revealed the untold story of a Scottish soldier who survived three years of suffering building the notorious Burma Railway. Kenneth McLeod, who has died aged 92, was captured by the Japanese in the Second World War and was one of the last surviving veterans who worked on the bridge over the River Kwai.
Now his daughter and son are donating his war medals, Glengarry bonnet and sporran to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders museum at Stirling Castle, where he was based more than 70 years ago.
Mr McLeod, of Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, was sent to Singapore as a young officer with the Argylls and was training in jungle warfare in Malaya when Japanese forces landed unexpectedly in the north.
He fought with the 2nd Battalion at the Battle of Slim River but was cut off behind enemy lines.
With a group of stragglers and carrying a wounded man for two days, he set off towards Singapore.
They had marched 100 miles before being ambushed.
He escaped into the jungle, but surrendered when his name was called out to save the others from being shot.
Both his legs became paralysed from poisoning and he was hospitalised in Kuala Lumpur. After recovering, he volunteered to go to Siam rather than return to Singapore with the wounded prisoners. This meant he was in No 1 work party which built two bamboo camps before starting the wooden bridge on the north side of the River Kwai at Tamarkan, immortalised in the epic film The Bridge on the River Kwai starring Alec Guinness.
Mr McLeod sabotaged his work by farming termite eggs which he placed at each joint and at the base of every upright.
After the railway was completed, the Japanese segregated Mr McLeod and the other officers from the enlisted men and marched them away. He later discovered they were all to be murdered.
Their lives were saved with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, forcing the Japanese surrender.
Some 90,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied POWs died building the Burma Railway.
Speaking at a remembrance service in 2005, Mr McLeod, a committed Christian, said it was unsurprising the route was named the Railway of Death.
He recalled: "Many of my friends and colleagues did not survive, but two things helped me to keep going and not give up, and these were faith and hope."
His daughter, Moira Johnston, said yesterday: "As children we would hear the funny stories from the army but not much about anything else. He kept those experiences to himself."
As children we would hear the funny stories from the army but not much about anything else. He kept those experiences to himself.
That’s the phrase that stuck out to me, too. It’s true of most WWII vets I’ve known.
I’m glad guys like Mr. McLeod were on our side.
“As children we would hear the funny stories from the army but not much about anything else. He kept those experiences to himself.”
I think this is true for many children of WWII vets. We would ask my dad “What did you do in the War?” He always said he dug foxholes. Perhaps he did, but it turned out he did quite a few other things as well that he only told us a few months before he died several years ago.
All of them were such heroes. And part of what made them so was their humility and their sense of duty.
God bless them wherever they are in God’s universe.
Here is one guy who is glad Harry Truman dropped the big one.
Leave it to one of my fellow Scots to sabotage the most notorious bridge in history. Good job, buddy, good job.
I second that.
Very proud of our nation for the Manhattan project. It saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.
I walked by the grave of Frank Spedding last week while on my universities campus at Iowa State. Mr Spedding was one of the leaders in processing uranium for the Manhattan Project.
Great men and women.
I also visited the famous bridge when I was serving in the Army and on the Cobra Gold 1986 Joint Exercise. Having seen the movie before the actual visit I found it to be a very powerful experience that I will never forget. God bless all those who served in ours and our allies military.
“That’s the phrase that stuck out to me, too. It’s true of most WWII vets I’ve known.”
It was true of my father too, a combat medic in Europe. He became a lifer, and in due course volunteered for Viet Nam. When he came back he would wake my mother up with occasional nightmares . . . about WWII. RVN had churned it all up somehow.
They are both gone now. I miss them so.
Yep - same with my dad. Never talked about the war itself. Much later in life, we learned (not from him) that he had jumped off the back of his troop truck with his BAR and neutralized an attempted ambush by the Germans.
So many heros did such heroic things. Mr. McLeod is one of them. All unappreciated by the latest generation, or a good portion thereof.
As a teen I discovered that neighbor of mine had been in the Baatan death march. He told (edited I’m sure) tales of torture and deprivation. He was always a real heavy-set guy and said many times that, “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again”.
Amazing what those guys endured.
My dad told 2 stories, one about his dislike of Eisenhower which probably saved his life and another about having to ditch into the ocean, said they had to push him out and eating sand when he finally got to land.
When he died my brother’s Air Force friend went through his medals and was amazed and very respectful, he wrote it all down and they gave them to me but I could tell my brother wanted them and gave them him so I still don’t know much about his service.
So many of the WWII vets in our town were Baatan survivors and when I was young and ignorant I was sitting across from a man and it looked like he had just injured his thumbs so I asked what happened.
He told me that he had been tied up by the Japs by his thumbs for stealing a chicken, then he went on to tell me about the rats and the roaches and the crickets that they ate.
I didn’t know until I was an adult that the town drunk that everyone took care of was a Bataan hero and had saved many lives. The cops picked him up about once a week so he could get some good meals and a shower.
I dabble in history a little, but I never knew this.
My Dad was a WW II vet in the Army Air Force who served stateside. He always said that if the US hadn’t dropped the bomb, he would have been sent overseas and there would have been a million US casualties in subduing the Japanese.
Yes, the left always trots out the number of people that died when the A-bombs went off. However, they will never mention that about 200,000 people a month were dying in all the slave labor camps and POW camps in Japan and in all the areas under Japanese rule.
Yes, the left always trots out the number of people that died when the A-bombs went off. However, they will never mention that about 200,000 people a month were dying in all the slave labor camps and POW camps in Japan and in all the areas under Japanese rule.
A man that I know from church a few years ago, was on Guadalcanal from day one. He never told any stories about the war, but was always bright and cheerful. I recieved an email the other day that he has stomach cancer. So sad, another hero whose days are getting short.
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