Japanese Captivity WJ ‘Bill’ Jackman

In response to an article in the Gurkha Museum newsletter about the experience of Gurkhas in Japanese captivity, Brigadier Bruce Jackman wrote this email to the editor on 1st Novembner 2025:

My uncle (father’s brother), WJ (‘Bill’) Jackman, was the Inspector of Schools in Malaya/Singapore when the Japanese invaded. He was enlisted into a militia that was raised from all men of military service (including planters etc). He was captured at Singapore and spent time in Changi before he was sent to the Burma Death Railway. His eldest daughter (who lives near me in Bristol) has a piece of paper on which her father drew a map of the Death Railway on which he had marked each of the camps along the railway that the POWs had to build to house themselves. Against each camp he had listed the various diseases he suffered in each – malaria, dysentery, yellow fever etc – yet he survived.

He, along with all the other POWs, were transported to Ceylon in 1945 when they were released. There he met my father who had been working in Far East HQ, Delhi, as Head of E Group (Escape Group), whose job it was to locate and infiltrate Japanese POW camps, and try to arrange escapes – so he had been aware of his brother’s plight.

One of the people Pa helped escape from Hong Kong was Dougie Clague, later Sir Douglas Clague, who many of us would have known in Hong Kong in the ‘70s when he was Chairman of Hutchinson’s International and President of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. He escaped from a POW camp in Kowloon through the sewers and got over Lion Rock, which was then the border with China. When I was CO 2/2GR in ’79/80 he and his wife, Lynne, lived in a magnificent house at Beas River, very close to the quarter where I lived.

Additional information:

Photo of WJ (‘Bill’) Jackman:

Short biography:

• Taught at Kuala Kangsar Malay College from Jul 1937. (Kenneth Luke also on staff)
• Member of (2nd Lt) Federated Malay States Volunteer Force, 1st Perak Batallion, Ser No 5470
• Married 25 Oct 1940
• On leave in Kashmir Sep 1941 when war in Far East breaks out
• CWJ returned to Singapore via Calcutta. Ship (SS Taisang) torpedoed close to Singapore. Spent several hours in water before being rescued.
• Captured @ fall of Singapore to Japanese 15/2/42. Detained in Changi.
• 1st official notification of POW Jan 43. First POW postcard from CWJ in Aug 43
• MRJ stayed with Ray & Joan/Rosemary & Edward Hunt for some months teaching at a school in Darjeeling India but then returned UK end Aug 1942.Tempy work as speech therapist to stroke victims then War Office in Oxford (MI5 decamped to Blenheim Palace. Worked with Marjorie Hutchinson) from Apr 43 to Aug 45
• Assigned in Nov 42 to No 2 Group in Thailand. Various camps Changkai, Wun Lun, Tarkalin, Wan Po, Takunun up to Kilo 226) until railway completed in Oct 43. Returned to Chungkai in Mar44 and remained until Mar 45 then via Kamburi until Jun 45 when moved to Nakon Nyok (east of Bangkok) until liberation in Aug 45.
• Released Aug 45
• Returned UK via India in troopship Empire Pride Oct 45
• Returned to Malaya in May 46

Click on the following links to download related documents as shown:

• Bill’s letter from the King.
• Bill’s letter from the Secretary of State.
• Bill’s POW camps and comments.
• Bill’s sketch map of POW camp and comments.
• Bill’s war itinerary and comments.
• Burma Railway POW camps.