The May meeting of the Society was held on Thursday 16th May. Professor Copley, the Chairman, presented a short talk and slide show on Kuwait as a curtain-raiser. Professor Copley was in Kuwait in 1961 as part of a British army contingent, stationed there with the objective of keeping Iraq out of the tiny Emirate.

In addition to drawing some comparisons between the Gulf War and the previous narrowly averted hostilities, Professor Copley expressed surprise at the fact that the 1961 British deployment was not mentioned at any stage during the recent Conflict.

The main speaker of the evening was Dr Gideon Jacobs, who treated the Society to a fascinating account of his experiences in Sumatra in World War II. Dr Jacobs explained how, after completing a course at the South African Infantry College, he managed to be included in the number of South African officers seconded to British Regiments. He joined the Marines and subsequently volunteered for service with MI9, where his duties were to involve helping and supporting prisoners-of-war and escapees.

Dr Jacobs described the conditions in Japanese P.O.W. camps and explained his own duties which included; briefing pilots and soldiers who might conceivably fall into Japanese hands and providing them with information about local populations and conditions. He was also involved in the establishment and charting of food and ammunition dumps in enemy territory, and made several trips to small islands, by Catalina or submarine, for this purpose.

A chance meeting with Lord Louis Mountbatten at which he mentioned the possible usefulness of his fluency in Afrikaans, resulted in his being asked to recruit a small party of men to parachute into the Dutch Colony of Sumatra.

The party assembled by Dr Jacobs arrived to an unfriendly reception from the Japanese. A message to H.Q. resulted in a threatening radio broadcast which, combined with the other after-effects of the atom bomb, helped to change Japanese attitude.

Dr Jacobs and his men were faced with the task of establishing the whereabouts, numbers and conditions of P.O.W.s held in camps in Sumatra. Having established the numbers of prisoners and their needs, Dr Jacobs was able to negotiate with the local population for the supply of food and other essentials and to arrange for medical teams to be flown in. At this stage, approximately 300 prisoners were dying of malnutrition every day, out of the estimated 100 000 or so in Sumatra. The prisoners had to be relocated to healthier sites and eventually repatriated.

Towards the end of 1945, the British put Indian troops into Indonesia to quell the nationalist uprisings. The Indian government resented the deployment of Indian troops against fellow Orientals and, for a variety of reasons, the Dutch lost control of their colonies in the East.

Dr Jacobs concluded with the observation that having spent a great deal of time learning to kill people, he was grateful to have been able to spend much of his war service saving prisoners-of-war.

Mr Avram Pelunsky thanked Dr Jacobs for the fascinating personal account of his war experiences.

Future Meetings

June The June meeting of the Society will be held on June 13th and the speaker will be Mr Simon Calburn on the subject of "German Authoritarianism".

As a special item of interest, members are asked to note that the June curtain-raiser will be a slide show on Delville Wood to commemorate the 75th anniversary of this battle.

July The July meeting of the Society will be held on July 11th and the speaker will be Mr L A Wildenboer on the subject of "Sannaspos".

Jennifer Copley