Saturday 16 August 2014

Mick Brundle's father on the Kuala

Mick Brundle writes.... I just found your blog!

My Father was on The Kuala as well and his account of his escape from Singapore, the bombing of the Kuala and his subsequent escape to India is in the Imperial War Museum archive:  Document 9410.  The contents on their website reads:

'A very interesting ts memoir (38pp), compiled in 1995, describing his employment as an assistant architect in the Malayan Public Works Department, 1938 - 1941, including his involvement in various defence construction projects and his service in the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, his impressions of conditions and morale in Singapore in early February 1942, the circumstances of the controversial issue to him and other PWD personnel of official 'evacuation passes' on 13 February, his embarkation on the SS KUALA, her sinking by Japanese aircraft in the Bangka Straits on 14 February, his experiences while stranded on Pom Pong island with other survivors from sunken ships, his onward voyage by small boat to Sumatra and overland journey to the west coast port of Padang from which he was evacuated on 1 March on the cruiser HMAS HOBART to Ceylon. Mr Brundle's copy of the official evacuation diary (pp 1 -4 only) of the PWD party from 13 - 27 February is appended to the memoir and is also reproduced in its text.'

My father died some years back, he went back to Singapore after the defeat of Japan , where I was born and lived until independence.


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