The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific

by Alistair Urquhart

To my surprise I felt no animosity whatsoever to this family despite what their countrymen had put me through. The young girl deserved treatment as much as anybody and Dr Mathieson was of the same mind. As a true professional he had even treated the Japanese officers while on the Death Railway. It made me feel rather good inside to have been able to help them.

As we sailed out of Nagasaki I looked back at the devastation the militarist rulers of Japan had brought on their country. Surveying that atomic wasteland to the big-band sounds of Glenn Miller was the defining moment of my life.

Mother there is one person you have to thank more than anyone else in the world for my presence here now, and that is Hazel Watson. It appears that while I was lying in hospital at death’s door very ill with dysentery and beriberi, my pals had done everything they could do to make me buck my spirits up and make a fight for it, but I must have been in a coma, I cannot remember much of what happened. However, they raked out my photographs and as Hazel was the most prominent and most likely my girlfriend, they kept repeating her name and showing me her photograph. They said it was not till three hours later, that I seemed to recollect and began repeating her name over and over again, which was the turning point, as I gradually grew better day by day, weighing approximately five stone at that time.

Seeing the women perform the hula-hula dance and hearing the upbeat music brought tears to many a hardened eye. We felt like returning heroes yet it would be the first and last time that I would have that feeling. I didn’t realise it at the time but this was the best homecoming I would receive.

Around mid-morning, while I was following one of the orderlies on his rounds, trying to pick up some tips, the head nurse came in with a visitor. She was introduced as ‘Miss Ash’, an elderly lady who ran a rehabilitation centre near by. The head nurse told us that Miss Ash wanted to know if any of us would like to join her for a day out of the hospital. The offer was met with virtual silence until I piped up, ‘I’ll go.’

And so began a most enjoyable stay. Miss Ash and I drove all over California – the Golden State stretches for 160,000 square miles, over five times the size of Scotland. She took me to parties with her friends at which I met several ex-patriots from Scotland.

Miss Ash knew I had no money and she paid for everything without ever making a fuss. She was a life-long spinster and I became something of a son to her. It was the start of a close friendship that lasted for many years and involved her coming to visit me and my family back in Scotland, and a huge hamper sent across the Atlantic every Christmas.

I just thanked my lucky stars that I had volunteered that day to go with this remarkable, kind and charismatic woman.

Despite my low expectations nothing could have prepared me for the disappointment of arriving in dismal Southampton. No quayside band, no media or fanfare awaited us. And most importantly, no family. I had fully expected to see Mum and Dad, Auntie Dossie, maybe even Bill and Rhoda, but there was nobody, just a handful of industrious dockworkers. All of the men felt devastated, as if a light had been snuffed out in our souls.

Then Mum cleared her throat and told me nervously, ‘You should also know, Alistair, that your friend Eric didn’t make it.’ I felt ill. I could barely lift my head and the conversation buzzed around me. The words became jumbled and I could no longer make them out, as the kitchen walls seemed to close in. It was like a bout of cholera, the claustrophobia enhanced by the cramped kitchen and the desperate shows of love and affection my poor family poured on me. ‘He was killed on his first mission over Europe,’ Dad said. ‘He was a rear gunner, a real brave soul.’ It was all too much, yet another kick in the face. Even though I had been around so much death, lived it and breathed it, nothing prepared me for the loss of such a close friend. All I could think was, Why then am I still alive?

At the end of the night on my way out, with the smile still plastered on my face, one of the women collared me to say, ‘I hope you come back, as I enjoyed dancing with you.’ That broke the ice and I went back two days later for the big Friday night dance. My legs were still aching from all of the unexpected exercise, using different muscles, and muscles that still needed to be built up, but nothing would stop me now. Early in the evening I met a woman called Mary Milne who was wearing a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force uniform. She was a local lassie, three years younger than me, and a very good dancer. I had seen her earlier and she had caught my eye, so I made sure I tipped in later on and we got on well immediately.

Dancing was the best rehabilitation I could have asked for, and it was also crucial to my reintegration to society. I slowly came out of my shell and thanks in no small part to Mary. She didn’t ask me any questions and I liked it that way. I told her I had been a prisoner of the Japanese but that was as much detail as I gave. It turned out that in previous years she had courted someone who had been a prisoner of the Germans – so she sure could pick ’em!

The reunion had been a cathartic experience for me and by August 1946 I felt fitter both mentally and physically. My thoughts returned to work. I could still hear Mr Grassie in his inimitable tone saying he would always have a job for me, one of ‘his boys’. But I knew that I would never manage the physical job I had done before the war. I paid him a visit anyway.

My experiences at the hands of the Japanese continued to haunt me both physically and mentally – as they still do all of these years later. Even after I married, life could be hell. To this day I suffer pain and the nightmares can be so bad that I fight sleep for fear of the dreams that come with it. Yet I owed it to myself and to the others who never made it back to make the most of my life. I threw myself into a career and worked my way up to become managing director of another plumbing supplies business, making health and safety a priority for the staff – after what I had witnessed on the Death Railway. I enjoyed the work. My two children grew and I took great pleasure from their success, as I did when my grandchildren came along – and when they went to university!

Life continued to throw up challenges. After my wife Mary suffered a stroke, losing the power of speech, I nursed her for twelve and a half years during which she was wheelchair-bound. I think that the experiences I had on the railway and the inspirational example of our medics helped me to cope during that difficult period. At the age of seventy-five, after Mary’s death, I briefly emigrated to Canada to be close to my daughter, yet I found myself lonely and isolated in a strange country. I decided to return to Scotland. Through all of this my sufferings as a prisoner taught me to be resilient, to appreciate life and all it has to offer.

Back in Scotland I quickly made new friends in the world of my lifelong passion, ballroom dancing – and at ninety years of age I am still working on my slow fox-trot. I dance an average of five times a week and organise two weekly tea dances. I campaign for the residents of my sheltered housing complex and have managed to persuade the council to give us funds for computer, painting and t’ai chi classes to keep us active. I am pleased to say that the council also came off worse in my battle to have our grass and hedges cut. In recent years my charity fund-raising activities for the complex have raised hundreds of pounds to fund our activities. I am a proud member of the Far East Prisoner of War Association (FEPOW) and regularly answer the queries of families anxious to know how their grandfathers and fathers were treated. On behalf of FEPOW I am very pleased to speak to schoolchildren about our experiences. My life has been long, rich and rewarding but always, always, the ghosts of the river Kwai have remained with me. The cruel faces of the Blac...