FLIGHT FROM TAIPING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 12, 4 February 1942, Page 5

FLIGHT FROM TAIPING

SANCTUARY IN DOMINION

ADVENTURES IN MALAYA

A little over two weeks ago, Mrs J. Jamieson and her 11 year old daughter were in Singapore, which they reached after an adventurous dash to safety from Taiping, a town in the district between the occupied towns of Penang and Ipoh. Now they are. in Dunedin none the worse for their experiences. In their flight to safety, they sheltered in different towns between Taiping and Singapore, while Japanese planes hurled down their missiles of death. Their home has been totally destroyed by the vigorous execution of the "scorched earth" policy, and the house in which they lived some months ago in Ipoh has been demolished by a Japanese bomb In Singapore, they watched enemy raiders making full use of the moonlight which each night bathed the city in light. On one occasion they watched a raider hurtle downwards in a vivid blaze against the night sky. Mrs Jamieson did not see many British planes in the country districts, but they seemed to be plentiful, she said over Singapore itself. Eighteen months ago another member of the Jamieson family came into the news. He 'was John, who, at the age l of 11 years, flew from Singapore to Dunedin in order to attend the Waitaki Boys' High School. When Mrs Jamieson arrived a few days ago she did not recognise her son as he lias put on tw T o stone in weight since coming to New Zealand. Mr and Mrs Jamieson intended spending their furlough in New Zealand, but Mr Jamieson is now in the army in Singapore, and Mrs Jamieson will make her home in Oam'aru until she can return to Malaya. Great praise for the Chinese residents in Malaya was expressed by Mrs Jamieson, who said that they were playing their part very creditably in flie civil defence services. The Malays were an easy-going, peaceful people, she. said, and they had no conception of modern warfare. Servants had fled* into the jungle, which the Japanese planes cagie over, and they took with them a bag of rice and salt with which to salt down the fish they caught. It was an amusing sight, Mrs Jamieson said, to see the natives riding their laden bicycles into the jungle and rubber plantations, their machines bouncing and bumping over the rough ground. There they would probably be safe until the land was retaken.