1 Jul 1943, Andrew Salmon Personal Diary Pacific 1939-1945

Submitted by kensalmon on

About July 1943 a party of us started to work on a new camp about a hundred yards from the present site. With only a handful of Japanese workmen, we completed it in January 1944. The Japanese tradesmen were surprised when, within a short time, we had mastered the use of Japanese tools, which were totally different from those we had been used to. This happened in every place where Japanese and POWs were working side by side, and the Japanese always suffered from an inferiority complex, which they tried unsuccessfully to hide, when they saw we could do the work better and more efficiently than they. Needless to say, we only demonstrated this superiority when it would be of benefit to us.

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