The next step was to take us to the ship's delousing section. Under a hot shower we washed away the last of the P.O.W. stench. We stood naked while the medical assistants sprayed our bodies with cool antiseptic powder. I felt really clean for the first time in years. The flesh tingled pleasantly.

When I had been kitted out with new clothing I knew this was indeed a new world. Boots I could not wear because my feet and ankles were still swollen, but I found a pair of comfortable plimsolls. The best moment of all was when I was allowed to draft out a cablegram to my wife, telling her I was safe. I had the option of staying on board the hospital ship or moving to another transport. I took the latter course. I was still limping, but I was in better shape than many others who really needed the hospital ship attention. I had an excellent meal - English food- and joined a small party of released prisoners to be taken to a small American destroyer for a night out. We enjoyed a film show on deck, and devoured food at the same time. I have a vivid recollection of the ice cream they served. I can only call it luscious; or so it seemed at the time; luscious and colossal in the true American way.The next day the destroyer and several other ships in the harbour were taking off for Hokkaido, the northern most island of the group, where other prisoners of war had been traced, so we were transferred to a troopship. We stayed aboard her several days, as all the berths filled up with ex-P.O.W.s, before sailing for Manila. I could hardly believe that I was bound for home, a place I had often despaired of ever seeing again. It was difficult to accept the notion that people could be kind, generous, and friendly. You cannot live in P.O.W. conditions for years without suffering a drastic effect on mind and emotions, let alone body. It was better just to let things happen, laze along, and gradually, find ones bearings, as it were.

The USS Monitor was a pleasant, airy and cheerful ship. The food was excellent and plentiful and it was easy to gorge ourselves. We all did. Concerts and film shows helped to fill in the time on the five-day trip to Manila. Even five days in tropical sun, lounging about in complete freedom, can be a marvellous aid to recuperation, and we all benefited enormously from the rest. Our pale complexions began to take on a tan, and even though some of us looked much better than we felt it was an improvement on the way back to normality - if such a state ever exists. So we came to Manila, feted and treated like the sick animals we were, rejoicing in the sun. It was my third visit there. My two previous visits had for me only horrible memories, but now everything was done to blot them out. The U.S. Army shepherded scores of us into a transit camp of canvas tents and swiftly put up more pre-fabricated buildings for us. The doctors gave us their constant care and we were all vaccinated and injected.

What did it feel like in those days to be a freed P.O.W.? Few, if any of us, had time or inclination for self-pity. The business of rehabilitation was too urgent. Each of us had his personal problems, but all of us, to some extent suffered from a state of mind, varying in intensity according to what we had undergone and the resources of physique, mentality and willpower we had been able to call upon. The following letter, which I wrote to a friend in England from the American repatriation camp while at Manila, may give some indication of what the common factor was. I remember writing it in the camp canteen, and it took me several hours to complete,so unaccustomed had I become to putting thought to paper. "Repatriated"! The word means so much to me and to thousands more who like me have been prisoners of war. Now that the whole ghastly thing is over - three and a half years to the day for me - I feel re-made. I suppose I should say "I feel L am being re-made" because after a few weeks of freedom - I am at present at a replacement camp near Manila - I am just getting over the crisis period. It has been a mental crisis. Like a lot more I have been suffering from reaction since the war finished. It has been a peculiar state. For days and weeks I was never able to keep my mind or my thoughts concentrated on one single thing for more than a few moments. My brain felt as if it was revolving round, an endlessly-moving cogwheel. A cogwheel is the only way I can describe it at the moment. That jerky, moving thing. I repeat I could never keep my thought concentrated on one subject. I would be thinking, for instance, of my wife and child at home when suddenly my mind would switch over alarmingly to some unsavoury experience in P.O.W. life - work under a terrific sun in Thailand, perhaps, or the harsh monsoon period, or cholera and other epidemics, or the never-to-be forgotten sea trip to Japan, or the camp and mine life in Hoshakina. The way my mind wandered began to scare me. I had to take a grip on myself and begin to fight like Hell. I was restless. I wanted to walk.....but that didn't help. My mind would go wandering. I would light a cigarette, find some quiet spot and I would puff away, smoke only half the cigarette, and the restlessness would engulf me again. I would try a book, but my interest in that would soon flag. Home would be in my thoughts again - and the next moment another subject; and another.....and another. I could not really sleep. I would lie awake for hours with the jumble of thoughts going on and on. I felt I was going mad. My mind, in some strange way, did not belong to me. When sleep did come fitfully I would have the most gruesome nightmares, waking up shivering and soaked with sweat. It would take me some time to realise that the nightmare was not the reality. I would grope around my bed to reassure myself, or perhaps touch Chris in the next bed, just to make sure I was really alive.

Impossible then, to get any more sleep - another cigarette. Soothing for a time. Then the mind going berserk again. I sometimes really believed I was crazy. Sometimes I would sit down for a talk with friends, but be unable to concentrate on what was being said. I would have to apologise for my abstraction. I would drift away again for a walk, a cigarette, a book......always restless and on the edge. No wonder some of the chaps pulled my leg, and told me I had St Vitus dance. But many others understood. They knew what it was like. There was no real medical treatment for it. I had to cure it myself and the only way was to fight.

Now with the first week in October gone, I'm beginning to feel really good. I can sit down without fear of the cogwheel. I can concentrate on books and magazines - and, I hope, on letter writing! In fact, I only smoked two cigarettes, ate half a dozen biscuits and drank a pint of tea while writing this. I said tea, sweet delicious tea. --Harry.

At Manila for our entertainment there were nightly concerts and film shows. I remember word was flashed through camp by the American servicemen that Danny Kaye was to appear in person at the camp theatre. The Americans were thrilled, but we wondered what all the fuss was about. We pondered and then decided we did not know a Danny Kaye. We were told he was a film and stage star of considerable repute. We repeated we had never heard of him. On the night of Kaye's appearance the Americans streamed to the theatre. Most of the British P.O.W.s went to a film show, taking boxes to sit on and bottles of beer for refreshment. The cinema attendance that night was pretty thin. Later we heard we had missed a classic performance of clowning by comedian Kaye, but it was along time later that I fully realised what I had missed.

While stying in Manila we went on a few sightseeing trips and were appalled at the ravaged appearance of it. We received orders to resume our journey homewards. This time the sea voyage was made in a British aircraft carrier - "HMS Glory" - which had been converted into troop and hospital ship. She was stripped of planes. Her hanger was divided into two; one half was the hospital section and the other was used as a mess deck by us. Our Pacific journey was under way. We called at Pearl Harbour and were able to see some of the battle scars which were the legacy of the surprise ariel attack years before. Sunken ships, clearly visible, told their own story of the havoc. We had brief shore leave. There was a swimming pool and all the refreshments were free at the pool's cafeteria. Before we left, Hula dancers and singers gave a special concert for us on the flight deck. They excelled in their art and were thoroughly appreciated.

We resumed our journey. The ship's crew played deck hockey with more vocal support from us; we enjoyed a miniature rifle range and "duck" shooting from the rail of the carrier, with the propelled target hurled out to sea; there were the inevitable daily sessions of "Housey-Housey", in which the "full-house" prizes were often £30 and more; and so went on, steaming about 350 miles a day, and days passed in the sea routine until we arrived at Esquimalt, the naval base on Vancouver Island, where to our surprise we had tumultuous reception from the local inhabitants. They had turned out in force to welcome us to Canada.