Bob Chant - Hell in the Pacific

DESPITE 60 years having passed since Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, Kongorong's Bob Chant can still remember the three and a half years of "hell on earth" he suffered as a prisoner of war (POW) during World War II.

Looking out the window of an RSL Darby and Joan flat, he vividly recalls the moment he knew the war had come to an end and the relief he felt at the news he might soon return home to his new wife.

Overworked and under-nourished, the young corporal had been digging trenches and tunnels in the incessant rain around Singapore's notorious Changi Prison.

A native Malay courier approached his working party, announcing that everyone had to finish work and head back to camp.

Having picked up some of the Malay language during his captivity, Mr Chant downed his pick and surprised the guards by knowing what was going on.

As they were marching back to camp, a truck laden with fellow POWs drove past flying a small Union Jack flag.

"I'd say it was the greatest moment of my life, marching back to Changi," Mr Chant says.

"When we saw the little Union Jack on the back of the truck we knew for sure that it was all over."

After spending more than five years overseas, and often hearing rumours that Australia had been invaded while in captivity, Mr Chant eagerly awaited his return to family and friends.

"We couldn't get on the boat quick enough, that's what it amounted to - we couldn't wait to get home," he says.

Many of his wartime memories were recorded in a diary he kept secretly throughout his internment, rolled up and concealed in the bamboo struts of the atap POW camp huts.

Despite being under the constant threat of being discovered by camp guards, Mr Chant diligently filled the pages of his tattered and torn ledger with carefully scripted notes and a unique collection of verse by fellow inmates.

Tens of thousands of Allied POWs suffered foul mistreatment and unbearable conditions in the camps, many forced to work despite exhaustion and sickness.

In the tropical heat, diseases such as beriberi, malaria, fever and dysentery ran rampant through the camps, taking its toll on the under-nourished POWs who often had little more to live on than sparse rations of rice.

An adventurous and spirited young man, Mr Chant enlisted early on in the war, hoping to see action overseas in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.

Fatefully, he was posted to the British colonies in Malaya to defend the Empire's strategically important stronghold in Southeast Asia.

Serving in the 2/2 Motor Transport Company, he drove troops back and forth to the front lines but the Allies were soon overwhelmed and eventually capitulated with the fall of Singapore in early 1942. About 60,000 Allied soldiers were taken prisoner.

During his captivity in A Force, Mr Chant had spent time moving back and forth between prison camps in Singapore and serving in working parties along the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway line.

Over the next three and a half years, Mr Chant received news of his mates who hadn't survived and witnessed many of his over-worked comrades succumb to the horrendous conditions.

They were told by their captors that they were nothing and if they didn't work, they would be killed; if they were sick, they'd be on half rations.

He attributes his own survival during these difficult years to his tough upbringing on the family farm in Kongorong, where he was expected to pull his own weight and keep up with his elder brothers.

He also credits sheer luck on a number of occasions, surviving a rare operation on a hernia without anesthetic and being pulled off a transport ship to Japan which was subsequently torpedoed and sunk.

"You had to have a bit of luck in that situation and I've always been fairly lucky in my life - very lucky during the war," Mr Chant says.

"I just missed death by a miracle."

Although he finds it hard to forgive and forget, Mr Chant is encouraged by the number of young Australians taking an interest in finding out more about the war and the sacrifices made by previous generations.

"I think there's more interest now than ever," he says.

"I'm glad young people are taking an interest in that sort of thing because we're all getting older now and passing on, so there's not many of us around to tell our stories."