Themes

The Navy at Home and Abroad

• Shore Establishments

• Humanitarian Relief

• Flying the Flag

• Letters Home

• Prisoners of War

  • JM D’Arcy-Levy

  • David Bain

  • Rupert Lonsdale

  • HMS Oswald

  • Mervyn Scott-Lindslay

  • Ken McDonald

  • Jim Fallace

  • R H Johnson

Learning

• How to: Understand a Uniform

Mervyn Scott-Lindslay

Article Highlights

• Introduction

• Conditions at North Point

• The move to Argyle Street

• Prisoner of war clothing

• Food in the camp

• Diseases in the camp

• Evacuation of the prisoners

Diseases in the camp

Diseases were rife in the Japanese prisoner of war camps and there were never enough medical supplies to treat everyone. Many captives suffered from dysentery and cholera caused by drinking dirty water. Beriberi was an illness triggered by a lack of vitamins in the diet causing joints to ache and parts of a prisoner’s body to swell up. Diphtheria was an extremely contagious disease and spread in the camps because everyone lived so close together. The Japanese themselves were so nervous of catching any disease that they sometimes gave prisoners vaccinations. Mervyn Scott-Lindslay recorded in his prisoner of war notebook the commencement of vaccinations againsts sore throats and mouth sores.

Pages from a diary kept by Mervyn Scott-Lindslay whilst held as a prisoner of war (RNM)

To find out about the evacuation of the prisoners, select Next

Related Image Galleries

• POW Sketchbook

Related External Links

• Imperial War Museum - POWS

• BBC Website - Peoples War

• National Archives