The men of the 2/30th Battalion laughingly enlisted. They didn't laugh on 16 February 1942 when, as part of the 8th Division and the Singapore garrison, they reluctantly surrendered to the Japanese. Happiness being relative, some of these Australians laughed all the way from Changi to a new camp near the wharves. Struggling to load bagged salt, they had no laughter, just helpless sickness in the stomach, as Sergeant Stan Arneil was savagely beaten by guards. Scenes change, states of mind go up and down, until the survivors are about to disembark in Sydney late in 1945: ‘and everybody on the ship is laughing all the time’.
One Man's War by Stan Arneil
Alternative Publishing Co-operative, $19.95 pb, 288 pp
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