James Whittaker, b. 1921
James Whittaker was born on 20 June 1921
in the industrial city of Manchester, England. After leaving school at fourteen,
which was not uncommon at that time, he had several odd jobs before deciding in
1938 to continue a family tradition and enlist in the British Army. When Britain
went to war in 1939, Jim was serving with the Royal Corps of Signals; stationed
in London, he survived the 1940-1 German air attacks on the city, and in
November 1941 was posted to Singapore. When Japan attacked throughout Asia in
December 1941, Jim was among thousands of Allied troops captured by Japanese
forces.
Jim spent the
next three-and-a-half years, until August 1945, as a POW, most of it on railroad
construction projects in the jungles of Burma and Thailand. Horrendous
conditions, miserable treatment, and malnutrition caused the deaths of many
thousands of Allied POWs; Jim’s interview provides insights to the difficult
existence in Japanese labor camps.
Following
Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Jim was liberated from a camp in Thailand; he
returned to Britain, got married, and completed his military service, being
discharged in 1947. With Britain’s peacetime economy recovering slowly, though,
jobs were hard to find, so Jim took a chance and in 1948 moved his family to the
United States, working on railroads and settling in Minnesota. He became a US
citizen in 1953. Jim worked many years for the railroads, retiring from
Burlington Northern in 1981. He was interviewed in March 2002 at his home in Brooklyn Center, MN.
Biographical
information and all interview content © Thomas Saylor, 2001-02
Click here
for a variety of links on Japanese POW camps. Source: Roger Mansell,
Palo Alto, CA
Interview
key:
TS: Thomas Saylor
JW: Jim Whittaker
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