James E Sanderson
- Family History
- Military history
- Extra information
- Photographs
Son of Alfred and Alice Sanderson of 26 Byron Cottages, Quarry Lane, Mansfield. Alice died aged 34 in 1922 and Alfred died in 1925 aged 36.
Alfred had served with the Sherwood Foresters from 31st December 1914. He was discharged as medically unfit on 10th August 1917. He had received a gun shot wound to the left thigh on 16th August 1916 and returned to England for treatment. Due to sepsis his leg was amputated above the knee on the 2nd November 1916 and an artificial limb was provided on 26th June 1917. In 1921 he was being trained as a Boot & Shoe operative at a government training facility in Basford.
When Alice and Alfred died they had 4 children Edith Alice (1912), Doris (1913), Mabel (1915) and James Edward born in 1920. Another son, Alfred died at or soon after his birth in 1918. On the CWGC site it states James is the son of Alfred and Alice M Sanderson: nephew of Mrs M Allman of Mansfield.
M Allman is Alfred's sister Maud, and persumably she took the 4 orphened children in when their parents died. It could not have been easy for Alfred after Alice's death, severely disabled and with 4 children aged from 2 to 10.
James in his will left £293 13s 5d to his sister Mabel, wife of Arthur Taylor.
He was killed aboard the Kachidoki Maru.
The 1/5th Bn Sherwood Foresters had been sent to Malaya to help with the defence of Singapore. They arrived on the 29th January 1942 and Singapore fell to the Japanese on the 15th February and the regiment became Prisoners of War. They were put to work on the infamous Burma-Siam Railway.
James was on one of the hellships, Kachidoki Maru. A Japanese ship taking 900 prisoners from Japan back to Singapore. They had been taken to Japan in 1944 to be used as slave labour and were being returned to Singapore. The ship was attacked by the USS Navy's submarine Pampanito, has they were unaware that the ship carried POWs.
James's family were unaware of the conditions in which he and his fellow prisoners were being kept.
Mansfield Chronicle Advertiser: 20/7/1944: Working for Pay
Nearly a year has elapsed since a card came from Pte J E Sanderson Sherwood Foresters prisoner in Japanese hands but he has again been able to send a very welcome assurance of his well being to his aunt, Mrs Allman and his three sisters with added information that he is now working for pay.
1/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters in Singapore
1/5th Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) along with 1st Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment and the 5th Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment arrived in Singapore in late January 1942 as the 55th Infantry Brigade, 18th Division. Disembarking from the troopship Orcades on January 29–31, recalled Arthur Bates, they were greeted by Australians saying ‘hello prisoners of war.’
They were immediately thrown into the fierce, losing battle against the invading Japanese forces. ‘We were greeted by Japanese tanks,’ remembered Les Pearson, ‘they blew one of our ammunition trucks up which killed some of our boys and injured others, one fellow in my company was underneath it when it went up. It was just like hell for about an hour, it mowed trees down with its cannons and everyone was in an uproar trying to get to a place of safety.
We all knew we were going into a battle that was already lost, but my conscience is clear to know I did my little bit in trying to save that little island... We were told too that by holding out as we did we saved Australia.’
We held that position for three days until we capitulated.’ Following the British surrender on February 15, 1942, the surviving troops spent over three years as Prisoners of War (POWs) under brutal conditions. Many were forced into slave labour on the notorious Burma-Siam (Death) Railway, enduring starvation, disease, and violence. Roughly 450 men from the battalion lost their lives in captivity.
Was the 18th Division betrayed as is popularly believed?
‘The loss of Singapore was later to be described by Churchill as ``The greatest disaster and capitulation in British history." He neglected to mention however, noted Paul Morrell, the betrayal of a Division, the British 18th Division’.
The British 18th Division were sacrificed strategically. Deployed to Singapore in January 1942 straight from the sea, they arrived without their heavy equipment, heavily fatigued, and into a military campaign that was already fatally lost.
The sacrifice of the 18th Division is considered a betrayal by military command for a few key reasons:
• Strategic Miscalculation: The division was originally destined for the Middle East but was diverted to Singapore. They arrived on January 29, 1942, weeks after the Japanese had already overrun the Malayan peninsula.
• Churchill's Concession: The deployment was primarily made to appease the Australian government, which had pressured Winston Churchill to reinforce the island rather than Burma. Because of this, the 18th Division was thrown into the "Fortress Singapore" where they served only to swell the numbers of Allied prisoners of war.
• Piecemeal Deployment: Upon arrival, the division's units were broken up and fed into the losing battle piecemeal. They were given little opportunity to put their training into proper effect before Lieutenant General Arthur Percival surrendered the 85,000-man garrison to a much smaller Japanese force on February 15, 1942.
• Brutal Captivity: Following the surrender, the men of the 18th Division suffered the same horrific fate as the rest of the garrison.
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