The four Athlone men who were taken as prisoners of war by the Japanese

Seventy years ago this month, as World War Two raged, four captured soldiers from Athlone were taken to Japanese prison camps to serve as slave labourers. They were among the 650 Irish men and women who were held captive by the Imperial Japanese Army, and the torment they endured as prisoners of war is likely to have included everything from starvation to brutal beatings and other forms of punishment. One of the men from Athlone - Fusilier James White - was among the 23% of Irish prisoners of the Japanese who died in custody. The three other local men, Gunner Joseph Charley, Sergeant William Sheil and Gunner William Waight, survived. Joseph Charley, from Cloghanboy in Athlone, eventually returned home and was living Cloghanboy up to the time of his death (aged 86) on June 18, 2000. He is buried in Cornamagh cemetery. The stories of the Irish who were taken as prisoners of the Japanese during the second world war has been explored in detail for the first time in Robert Widders' fascinating and disturbing new book 'The Emperor's Irish Slaves' which has been published by The History Press Ireland. Widders states that the POWs "suffered an incarceration marked by starvation, disease and the denial of medical treatment. Beatings were routine, torture was commonplace, and illegal execution far from rare." The Athlone soldiers were not singled out for particular attention in Widders' book, but the Westmeath Independent was in contact with the author who provided details about the four men and their time as prisoners of war. Three of the locals (Fusilier White, Sgt Sheil and Gunner Waight) were captured in Singapore seventy years ago to this day: February 15, 1942. The three were initially imprisoned in the Changi prison camp. Sergeant William Sheil was in the 5th battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment, and his declared place of origin was Athlone. His father was James and his mother was Helen. Gunner William Waight of the 118 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, had a declared place of origin in Irishtown, Athlone (the address given was 33 Brideswell Street). According to records, his parents were an Annie and Leslie Gilham. Gunner Waight was put to work on the notorious Burma Railway construction project, during which a total of 16,000 Allied POWs died. It's possible that Fusilier White also spent time on the Burma Railway before being shipped to Japan, where he died on October 11, 1944. He declared his place of origin as Athlone but records state that, while he was in captivity, his wife Eliza and parents Robert and Bridget were living in Northumberland, England. Fusilier White had duplicate POW record cards - one of which showed that he had died while the other did not. Widders said this duplication could indicate the death was a war crime or a cover-up but, he added, since there is no proof of that in Fusilier White's case this was mere speculation. There could be an innocent explanation for the duplicate cards. Fusilier White is buried in the Yokohame Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. Widders' book reveals that most of the Irish POWs joined the British Army after 1931, and many in 1940 when the war was going badly for Britain. However Gunner Joseph Charley, the son of Ellen Charley, Cloghanboy, was captured in Timor on February 23, 1942, less than a year after he had joined the force. He was sent to Japan in November 1943 and his prison camp there was Kamioka, which means he was probably used as a slave in the Mitsui zinc and lead mines. He was a POW in Japan until August 1945. One of the Irish POW accounts in Widders' book was from a Patrick Harrington who was thirteen stone before the war but "was a seven-stone walking skeleton when he was liberated in 1945." He said his diet while in captivity consisted of "a cup of flour boiled in water for breakfast and two cups of watery rice, with whatever grass or weeds the cooks could find, in the evening." When the soldiers were liberated from the Changi prison camp in 1945, one of the first Allied troops to see the POWs was Des Francis, a Royal Marine. This is how he recalled the scene: "The first thing that struck me when entering the camp was the terrible smell. On attempting to recollect it words honestly fail me... The place was infested with all manner of insects and vermin and the poor souls who'd lived in this filth for the length of the war were (by now) totally oblivious to it." * 'The Emperor's Irish Slaves' by Robert Widders is out now, priced €14.99. For more details see: www.thehistorypress.ie