75 years ago today the #WW2 officially came to end with the surrender of Imperial Japan. Amidst the celebrations and relief for millions at home and abroad, there was one group for whom the ordeal was still not over. Here’s the story of one such man – Ernest 'Ernie' Beech 
Born to a working-class family in Hertfordshire in 1905, Ernie had lived through both the Great War and the Spanish Flu by the time he was a teenager. On his fourteenth birthday he joined the local Territorial Army artillery unit and began his career as a part time soldier.
Between the wars Ernie was married and had three children. He rose through the ranks in the TA, eventually becoming Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant to the 135th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Regiment, RA. It was here he found himself in September 1939 when war was declared.
Ernie spent the first year on anti-invasion duties with the ill-fated 18th Division, before being told he was heading for Africa. Imperial Japan launching an attack at Pearl Harbour and on British possessions in the Far East in Dec 1941 changed all that – new destination: Malaya
Arriving into Singapore harbour in a monsoon in February 1942, Ernie and his comrades didn’t know it, but they were joining a desperate situation. Japanese forces had already driven British troops in the region back to Singapore Island and fighting was incredibly fierce.
Issued with obsolete artillery, and not much of that, the Herts Yeomanry joined the fighting for just a few days before withdrawing to ‘Fortress Singapore’, a formidable position on paper, but woefully prepared to face a landward attack.
Within days of arrival, and having fired only a few rounds, news spread amongst allied forces: Surrender. In the words of Winston Churchill, it was “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British military history”.
Through no fault of their own, Ernie Beech and more than 80,000 men went in to captivity, and were to face an extraordinarily brutal and trying three year ordeal. Arriving at ‘Changi POW Camp’ Ernie was given and important but impossible job – feeding the prisoners.
With a staff of 40, his group earned the nickname ‘Alley Barber and the Forty Thieves’. They had to work miracles every day. Each man was allotted only 24 ounces of rice per day; about 600 calories, which Ernie later recalled were ‘about half rice and half maggots’.
Week by week, month by month, the unspeakably harsh treatment took its toll on everyone. Men began to collapse with ulcers, dysentery and malaria. At first a few, then dozens each day. The food ration fell and the workload increased.
With no food, no prospect of getting more, and his mates starving, Ernie and his cooks had to improvise. They would dig up bamboo shoots, steal pigswill and even add bits of the hedge which surrounded the camp to the rations. Anything to keep each other alive.
After six months in Changi, news came through that ‘Toosey’s Boys’ as they were named, were to be sent to build a railway and bridge across the River Kwai on the infamous ‘Thai-Burma railway’. Things were about to get much worse.
The brutality increased. Working long days in all weather on next to no rations, many simply starved to death. Others fell to exhaustion and illness which raged through the population building the 'railway of death'. Yet more were victims of torture or execution by camp guards.
In an attempt to get news from the outside, Ernie began speaking with a local boy who bravely agreed to smuggle newspapers into the camp. In July 1944 they were caught. The boy was executed. A sketch of him made by a prisoner still exists. Sadly, his name has been lost.
Stripped and beaten, Ernie was held in a 5 foot cage for a month. At over 6 feet tall, he was unable to stand or lie flat. When eventually released, he was partially blind and close to death. He was sentenced to 5 years in solitary confinement in the notorious Outram Road Gaol.
During that time, Ernie managed to make a few notes on scraps of paper he had hidden. One read “men walking about naked, glassy eyes and huge bones sticking out of their bodies, mad with hunger”. The guards at Outram were the Kenpeitai – the ‘Japanese Gestapo’.
75 years ago today Ernie was still there. For the prisoners at Outram Road, 15th August was just another day. Four days later with no word of surrender, Ernie was transferred back to a ‘normal’ prison camp. Little else changed; deaths didn’t stop, the illness still took its toll.
But then one morning the following week, a friendly aircraft was spotted circling the camp. It didn’t drop bombs, but leaflets, one of which Ernie kept for the rest of his life. At last, they knew the war was over.
When medical care eventually reached the camp almost the entire population were close to death. RQMS Beech had stood at 6 feet 1 tall in 1939 and weighed 14.5 stone. By the time he was released in 1945 he was a little over 7 stone.
By September 1945, Ernie and his mates were on board a friendly ship and heading home. So many more were not so lucky. Of the 7000 prisoners employed on the ‘railway of death’ alone, half would not return. Those who did, were forever scarred by their experiences.
After more than three years away, Ernie finally arrived home in October 1945. His wife had decorated their house for the occasion. She even photographed it. Ernie Beech has simply captioned the photo ‘Home. Worth fighting for’.
In the years after the war Ernie led a petition to the Japanese government that former prisoners should be compensated for their stolen rations during captivity. It took decades and a tremendous amount of effort, but eventually he was successful.
Ernest Beech died at Home in 1981 aged 76. He never celebrated VJ day; his day came some time later. But today that day stands as a chance for us all to stop and reflect on the incredible endurance and determination showed by so many, for so long. Please spare a moment today.
