“Sam’s activities against the Chinese were notorious: he lived permanently on a razor’s edge.”
When first Colonel Carne and then Major Harding were separated from the officers in the main camp and locked away for many months in solitary, Major Weller assumed the responsibility of leading in their wake. The Chinese hated this and did all they could to diminish any chain of command in the camp, but their attempts to intimidate were futile with Sam in their way. He was often punished with beatings, tied up, stripped naked, forced to stand at attention, humiliated, and constantly threatened, but he never faltered in his leadership and maintained soldierly behavior throughout the officers of the camp. “He enjoyed the universal and immense respect and admiration of all who knew him, and the example which he showed of continuous courage and determination can hardly be too highly commended.”
It was several years before these events in Korea when Weller’s service began. Born Patrick William Weller, he gained the nickname Sam after the Charles Dickens character and certainly grew into the Pickwick Papers protagonist’s characteristics of wit, intelligence, and certainly later in the camps, his irreverence toward such authority. An emergency commission in March 1940 placed him in the Middlesex Regiment where he took on a platoon with their machine gun battalion. When he transferred to the Indian Army destined for the Machine Gun Battalion 11th Sikhs, he was the only one of the newcomers in late 1942 who had experience with Vickers guns. The other officers were all hurried into the Indian Army to meet the demands of its rapid growth and these young men with little experience otherwise were faced with the charge of companies of about two-hundred men. They were immediately immersed in the country and cultures and began courses in Urdu.
Though it was a Sikh regiment, there was a mix of both Sikh and Muslim soldiers. The two religions had a long history of conflict and their religious customs, food, dress, attitudes toward women, treatment of animals, all matter affecting the daily lives of villagers as well as townsfolk, and their temperament and character were vastly different. They required separate rations and ate apart, each observing their own faith. Only in Headquarters Company were the Sikhs and PMs mixed – the other companies were organized by religion. Despite any differences between them, the soldiers of the regiment worked harmoniously and respected each other.
Sam took command of A Company, made up of Sikhs, who the battalion adjutant noted were “outgoing and intelligent with a streak of cunning which had helped them survive as a small, powerful sect, forceful and determined in keeping their close-knit communities independent. They would be the first to agree that a bad Sikh is very bad indeed. It was always known in the Indian Army that they needed understanding and strong leadership.” The Punjabi Modammedans were equally solid soldiers who balanced the Sikhs’ characteristics and both were immensely loyal to their officers, so long as they could be trusted, and for that they were willing to share in any discomfort and danger.
It was inevitable that Sam fell ill to any variety of tropical diseases, and in August 1944 he contracted typhoid and malaria and spent the next two months in hospital. During another three weeks on sick leave, he missed the battalion’s departure into Burma after their years of training. He finally rejoined in early November just in time to take back A Company before they were detached to 62d Brigade where they would cross the Chindwin at Sittaung.
BURMA
The Burmese jungle was host to wild creatures that filled the undergrowth and overhanging branches with unceasing weird noises. The adjutant best described the experience:
“They only seemed to come to life at night, and that in great abundance. The air was full of intermittent cries, calls, barks and howls with even an occasional heart-stopping roar. Before being driven nearly dotty by jackals, Ι used to feel quite sorry for them. Anything that could make a noise like that either had a belly-ache, or had trodden on something sharp.
Tiny things that crept, crawled or hopped around the jungle floor made noises out of all proportion to their size. Was it love-making, fighting, or just proving their presence that prompted all that gulping, croaking and squeaking? There were also sinister flutterings and rustlings; a brief silence, then perhaps a high-pitched morse-code whirring, like a discussion between grasshoppers with sore throats.
Then there were stealthy footsteps, with a creaking and cracking of accidentally stepped-on branches. Human or animal? How could anyone tell? Knowing that the Japs were in the vicinity, we could only stare into the black velvet of the jungle night, keep listening and keep quiet. But however jittery we might have felt, the discipline of the training years made sure that we kept such fears to ourselves.”
Up and down the river, the units of the 14th Army found ways of crossing, and on the other side found the most unimaginable country for fighting. The jungle was so thick and very steep, limiting any element of surprise with the hacking necessary to cut through the bush. The Brigade had to rely on pre-existing tracks instead, and Sam’s A Company took the narrow southerly track, going single file into the plain below and capture the road junction at Pinlebu near the North Burma railway. The track was so narrow that in some places the mules risked toppling over the sides and sometimes had to be winched down sheer faces. They managed to catch the Japanese by surprise near Thabeikkyn and on January 9th had a firm bridgehead.
Fortunately, there were few spats with the Japanese – the terrain was enough to contend with – but one night battle did result in an anecdote ‘of somewhat black humour which became legend in the Battalion.’ When one of Sam’s Havildars saw silhouettes of an enemy patrol, the Sikh gunner took the machinegun over from the Number 1 and, once the patrol was within fifteen yards of them, squeezed a long burst that killed five and wounded a sixth. A seventh man, who presented as an officer and had dodged the fire by some cover, called out in Urdu: “Please stop firing! Let me take my wounded away. We really are friends of the Punjabi Mohammedans!”
‘This did not go down at all well with the bearded one, who angrily retorted that he was no ΡΜ, but a Sikh! For the next few minutes, insults were hurled back and forth – in Punjabi from the Havildar and Japanese from the linguist, who had run out of Urdu. The exchange came to an abrupt end when the latter put his head out too far and was silenced for good.’
Their Vickers guns trained over the crossing points of the Mu River while the front was quiet save for occasional Japanese shelling. Within the week, the company rejoined the battalion under 62d Brigade, supporting the renewed advance toward Kule and the flat country beyond.
At Thila they came under divisional control, shifting positions by night and resting only long enough to service the guns before moving again. When A Company reached Changna at the end of February, Sam was ordered to fortify a defensive locality for the battalion. The ground there, though harsh and dry, was perfect for his purpose – high enough for long arcs of fire and crossed by narrow gullies that channeled any approach. Twelve guns were emplaced to cover every track and nallah, the fire plan precise and overlapping. The men worked through the nights stacking sangars of baked earth and stone until every weapon was dug in and camouflaged.
In early March, as the Division pressed toward Mandalay, Weller was briefly evacuated sick but returned within a week for the fall of Mandalay March 20th, ending Japanese control in central Burma. The 11th Sikhs were heavily employed through the assault, their guns firing almost continuously in support of the infantry as they cleared the high ground overlooking the city.
After the capture of Mandalay, the Division was transferred to IV Corps and used to protect the Fourteenth Army’s lines of communication while the advance moved on toward Rangoon. For the Battalion, this meant weeks of patrols, bridge guards, and road protection through the burning season. The days were long, the temperature fierce, and the only enemy now the heat and the monotony of convoy escort. By summer the campaign was effectively over.
By August, with Burma largely pacified, the division began its slow withdrawal for rest and re-organization. Sam went on six days’ leave to India – the first true pause since his fever of the previous year. For the first time since joining the Sikhs, he had no orders to issue, no mules to load, no guns to dig in – an end to the kind of soldiering referred to many as ‘the ultimate test of endurance and leadership.’ It was true enough at the time, but for Sam, only a prelude to the sharper, shorter battle at Imjin and to the still harder test of moral fiber that captivity would bring.
IMJIN
In the final day of the Glosters’ defense near Soma-ri late in the afternoon of April 24th, Support Company was consolidated to defend the ridge of Hill 235. For the first time, Sam’s men gathered together. The anti-tank platoon, machine gunners, and mortarmen along with the assault pioneers acting as infantry worked through dusk, stacking rocks to fortify their scratched-out trenches and foxholes.
Until then, they had been dispersed among the infantry companies for support, as it was their very nature and in their title. Sam had one again been rushed into the command, having a platoon in Jamaica up until sudden preparation for war in 1950. With an influx of reservists and equipment all drawn from several regiments, he was given the company and soon enough en route for Korea with all of his carriers, mortars, machine guns, and assault pioneers.
The winter passed very quickly, or it at least seemed to be a short affair given the circumstances that would ensue during and after April. They went north by train to camp in huts on the first night and immediately began training and acclimatization. From there, the Glosters went along the highway from Seoul as the front moved and made it north of Pyongyang without incident before promptly turning back with 29 Brigade.
They were south of Pyongyang again when the commanding officer asked Weller if he had all his vehicles and equipment accounted for. He had, except for one carrier that broke down through the capital city. A carrier force had previously gone out to a village where some guerillas were suspected to be building a stronghold. At dawn, they found about a hundred men and a small arsenal. An interpreter questioned the Koreans who claimed they were policemen formed to protect the village, and their arms had been given for that purpose. It was decided to let them go – by nightfall the village was abandoned and they returned for battalion lines. One of the carriers – the one that was unaccounted for – struck a mine and they decided to leave it. Only when Carne inquired did Sam take a small party with him to recover it and, using another carrier, hitched up the broken one and towed it back.
While the front stabilized in January, they waited in the bitter cold for weeks at Pyongtaek, and finally by March moved up to the Imjin just south of the river. The vast area was larger than what one battalion would hope to hold for any force, but they took the most dominant features and had adequate supply and ammunition.
On Gloster Hill, a rocky, undiggable hilltop of scrubby brush and little else, Sam’s Headquarters was close to Battalion Headquarters (retaining one machine gun manned by Sergeant Hoper) while his machineguns were split across the rifle companies and the anti-tank platoon was behind them in the valley with the mortars. His job as the company commander was to be close with the commanding officer, Colonel Carne, and the adjutant, Tony Farrar-Hockley, when any decisions were made or if supporting weapons needed to move from one area to another. For two or three days they waited in these positions – waiting for the Chinese that they felt would come at any time.
When it finally did, the first assault fell on the outposted platoon at the river crossing. The whole battalion was confident, calm, and certain in their own minds they would withstand any attack. This did not feel impossible on the first and second days while they were still supplied from F Echelon nine miles to their rear and the second-in-command was still able to visit. The attack on Castle Hill against A Company was next, forcing them to withdraw toward Battalion, and then they came in large numbers for Denis Harding’s B Company who followed.
It was difficult to determine casualties due to their spread-out positions and those last two days of fighting were one continuous battle as their perimeter shrank smaller and smaller. Their chances of relief went from slim to none and wireless batteries grew weak, limiting communication. Though not at the heaviest points of assault, his Support Company’s guns were critical across the battalion front, and Weller, typically modest, later said he was ‘not directly involved’ even though Chinese got close enough to Headquarters that he shot at them. Only Sergeant Hoper killed several when he went with Sam to cover B Company’s withdrawal. Firing down into the re-entrant deterred their pursuit and Denis was able to escape without further losses.
By the morning of the 25th it was obvious their position was untenable. There had been so much noise and activity there had been little opportunity to sleep outside of lightly dozing during the day, and Sam was getting hungry and very thirsty. The last message from Brigade gave Carne control of how best to break out and get back to the rear. He held an O Group on top of the hill to organize this and considering they had no food or ammunition left, there was not much they could do. After American bombers dropped napalm on the surrounding hills, Weller gave his orders and they broke off into a mixture of odd groups.
With four or five other men he went over the side, knowing most of Support Company had already begun to move out in their own groups, and move into the valley going south. They came upon the next ridge where they were shot at and took some casualties. He found himself with Farrar-Hockley again and they both realized just how exhausted they were. Behind them and all around them, the Chinese kept shooting, but the Glosters’ legs just could not carry them fast enough, and with great moral confliction, Tony first gave the order and Sam followed suit: “Put down your arms!”
*
The whole group was captured by the Chinese coming down from the hills and up from the valleys below. They were surprisingly civil, especially compared to the fanatical Japanese that Sam knew from the last war. No one was beaten (at least not yet) and they too appeared tired, scruffy, and mud-stained from their own days of preparation and fighting. They communicated with Sam by a series a gestures and he surmised they were headed back from where they came.
Eventually about fifty survivors gathered back on the north side of Gloster Hill. Tony excitedly and discreetly discussed the prospect of escape with Sam while the Chinese confiscated personal items like compasses, cameras and binoculars. They learned it was likely the wounded had been abandoned on the hilltop, which they found most concerning. On the arrival of a cleaner looking officer type, Sam brought this up at once. Due to a complete language barrier, the negotiation took considerable time, but ultimately they reached an agreement where the Glosters were allowed to go about and collect wounded as long as they did not ascend Hill 235 again.
They moved out in the hands of the Chinese that night and their march north began the routine of moving at night to occupy small villages and hide in huts by day where the civilians took little interest in the prisoners. Once on the move, Tony brought up escape plans again, but Sam, who had already done quite a bit for the prisoner column, decided his place was with those men and only if he was separated would he attempt escape. Most quickly recognized the futility of escape given they were so closely guarded, and only Tony managed to slip away successfully while crossing the Imjin, as the column paused to remove their socks and boots before wading across. Weller insisted on doing so, knowing a long march with saturated shoes would be horrible and result in blisters later.
On the second day the interrogations began. After an eight-mile march, the prisoners camped in a village for two days and two nights. The Chinese gave them a proforma to fill in with information about their job, section, platoon, battalion and brigade. Weller said not to fill them out, for which the Chinese threatened to shoot him before taking him away for a hole in the ground for two hours.
Isolation continued in one form or another as Sam refused to cooperate. He was kept apart from the main column with Captain Bill Morris until arriving at camp. The interrogator, who Sam felt to be a political officer, persisted with inquiring about the usual subjects of numbers of troops, who sent them, their commanders, units, and more. Sam gave nothing more than his name and number.
“You must understand that you have now been liberated,” the political officer explained in broken English between threats. “You must learn to educate yourself and understand the peace loving people are going to be lenient toward you if you learn by your mistakes.”
Colonel Carne had been separated early on, leaving Major Harding as senior until he, too, was taken for a time, and as far as the British officers were concerned, Major Weller was next. ‘He did his utmost by command and leadership and by hard physical labour, to improve the very poor living conditions of allied prisoners, and to maintain their discipline and morale. He was very well aware that any such leadership was bound to result in retaliatory punishment by the Chinese.’ In the short time he had in the beginning, he set a standard for the next two-and-a-half years by enforcing proper digging of latrines, exercise, eating the unappetizing millet, and arguing with the Chinese to improve that diet. ‘In the early days, when black despair was showing signs of settling over some of the men, they loathed Weller for his appalling optimism and cursed him openly. Sam Weller answered them in the same language, promising them all a liberal dose of extra drills when they were free again.’ Once their ‘educational’ plans were set up, the Chinese discouraged such leadership and for the next two or three weeks, Sam remained in isolation with Captain Morris ‘for insolence’ and subsisted on one small bowl of something like sorghum or millet each day.
CAMP 2
After weeks of marching – Sam’s characteristic red beard having grown out again – they reached the officers’ camp which was not much more than a school house and hard mud courtyard. The other ranks were split off from the officers in an attempt to more easily manipulate them, but the Chinese did not realize even the privates’ training encouraged them to be leaders, and their attempts to break down the prisoners would be in vain. The British resistance to all Chinese schemes and activities was admirable.
Perhaps a scheme to coincide with Coronation Day in June 1952, Sam was also isolated for five months – the Chinese were determined to get him to openly admit his resistance to the Chinese system, his part in organizing escapes, and overall bad influence on those attempting to learn about Communism.
Three months of this was a very personal battle with his interrogator. “It became a battle of the minds – his against mine,” said Sam. His experience in solitary followed the same pattern as others. There was no explicit torture, but he was made to be uncomfortable. They woke him at odd hours, forced him to walk in the cold with no shoes, denied him food, and prevented him from properly using the bathroom. At a time when he had a sever bout of dysentery, the Chinese confined him to a small box during which time he was denied all washing and latrine facilities and certainly no medical treatment.
He called upon his inner strength and faith as a ‘reasonably good Christian,’ as that was not something the Chinese could take from him. After three weeks of this, the interrogator returned, but this time accusing Sam of only four offenses instead of the original five, and in that moment, he knew he had bested his captors. The accusations soon became three, then two, each time the man looking more and more agitated. He was desperate for any confession but Sam did not yield.
He had in fact been planning escapes with Tony who had eventually been recaptured and was introduced to the camp weeks after. All five conspiring to escape had been arrested and only Sam, who the Chinese had no evidence against, was held the longest. Farrar-Hockley recounted: “About this time they must have begun to suspect, rightly, that they had one of the most resolute officers in the British Army in their jail.”
He was released in time for Christmas, ‘largely due to the growing unrest his continued incarceration aroused,’ and returned to a camp that had been split in two. (The rest of the officers spent summer and autumn during his confinement gathering wood and building facilities led to half of Camp 2 being transferred to what became a second camp). Though he was not the most senior officer by rank, it was immediately agreed upon, particularly by the Americans, that given his prestige alone, he was to be commander of the compound.
When not held in isolation, Sam was certainly a bad influence as far as the Chinese were concerned. All efforts to politicize the British were openly mocked, which infuriated the Chinese who were evidently under some pressure to get results. He recalled with glee filling out a paper slipped called an ‘autobiographil’ with amusing answers to include his address as ‘c/o Davy Jones, The Locker, Key Weymouth.’ Anything they could do to harass their captors was worth trying.
The prisoners organized ‘Crazy Week’ where they drove the Chinese mad by changing around squad rooms; playing cards without the actual cards; a ‘dawn attack’ organized by the Americans where they threw their arms back to imitate a fighter plane and raided the schoolhouse one morning; and all bowing to an invisible entity in the middle of the playground. When it all became too much for the Chinese, the officers were lined up and screamed at for ten whole minutes, which the interpreter culminated into a frustrated demand for “No more crazy!”
Their overall treatment (if one was not in solitary as Sam often was) was barely adequate. Not as deplorable as their first camp at the Caves, which Sam did not see as much of, but the prisoners had some limited freedoms and only hoped to pass the time until liberation. On certain Chinese holidays they might have a better meal where the whole compound would share one pig, and by the time the peace talks indicated the end of the war was close, their treatment relaxed significantly and they were given rice and steamed bread and cigarettes.
On the morning of the armistice, the Chinese tried once again to sentence Sam for his crimes alongside American officers Captain Fedenets and Colonel Zacherele. ‘The charge was one of having conspired against the Chinese Peoples Volunteers, by promulgating an order, that in the event of an armistice being signed, the PWs should behave as Officers, make no demonstration, and do nothing to give the Chinese the opportunity for complaint. They were also charged, that in 1952, they, as senior Officers had refused to salute the Chinese Officers.’ They knew it was a farce, but they still punished Weller after the Americans answered in a way that the Chinese took to be a confession and as such were released, unlike Sam.
“He was always ready to take upon himself the responsibilities of a leader, with all the dangers that this entailed,” said Max Nicolls of the Royal Ulster Rifles. “He was notorious for his unusual ability to resist all Chinese efforts to force him to sign confessions on self-criticisms of criminal activity despite the continued use of physical and mental duress.”
In all, according to his recommendation for investment as a Member of the British Empire, he was held in solitary confinement first for fifteen weeks in August 1951 for refusing to divulge information; for five months in Autumn 1952 and again in May 1953; a fourth and final sentence for eight months from July 27th, 1953, which never came to be as he was finally exchanged at Panmunjon on September 3rd. The entire time in captivity, as the citation detailed, ‘he was held responsible for any real or imagined misdemeanours of British officers in the compound’ and ‘although he knew very well that he was watched closely, and that any exercise of his rank and authority would lead to vicious retaliation by the Chinese, he never faltered…his cheerful courage and his example inspired all who knew him and did an incalculable amount to maintain the morale and discipline of his fellow captives of all nationalities.’
KENYA
The Glosters’ next move took them not to British Honduras (for second tour), Malaya, Hong Kong or Egypt – or as ‘the pessimists prohpesised, a move to Dartmoor, where it was rumoured that the winter was even more evil than in County Durham – but to the highlands of Kenya. The Mau Mau emergency was very relevant in 1955, and the 1st Battalion was ordered to relieve the Black Watch in the Central Highlands. They landed at Kilindini on March 31st and were addressed by General Sir George Erskine, who warned them that the work ahead demanded discipline, restraint, and constant alertness in a land strained by years of fear and reprisal.
In April the Battalion took over Gilgil Camp, a scattered post of canvas tents and mud tracks sixty miles north of Nairobi. The rolling uplands were likened to the Mendip Hills, but the altitude brought cold nights, steady rain, and ground so black and heavy that every afternoon the paths turned to mud. When the weather cleared, the hills revealed a strange beauty: mist lifting from the bamboo slopes, the far plains glinting under the equatorial sun. For Sam, now back in command of his Support Company, it was constant cordon operations that pushed through the Aberdares and the forested ridges west of Gilgil.
Much of their time was spent building rather than fighting. The Company provided transport, signal links, and covering fire for patrols probing the forest gullies and for convoys supplying isolated police posts. But contact with the enemy was rare – the Mau Mau bands, reduced and hungry, slipped away at the first sign of pursuit.
Between April and June nearly two hundred farms were enclosed in protective fences of wire and poles, sealing labor lines and cattle bomas against night raids. Support Company provided the manpower, transport, and tools for the task, and Sam oversaw its completion across the Gilgil district. It was unglamorous work to handle thousands of poles and rolls of Dannert, but his organization of the timely delivery and construction credited him as largely responsible for the project’s success, and it became the foundation of the warm relations that grew between the Glosters and the surrounding farms.
By early 1956 the Mau Mau resistance had broken apart and the farms were quiet behind their wire. The settlers, grateful for a year of protection, presented the Regiment with a silver cup and shields engraved with its badge. Within weeks, orders came for a move north to Aden. Support Company packed its carriers and lorries once more, the men watching the green ridges of the Rift Valley fade behind them.