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Mothers’ Day – WW II

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As we prepare to show mom how much we love her this weekend, listen to the incredible story of a mother’s love for her children as experienced by a woman whose plight, flight and survival from the Japanese invasion and conquest of Singapore in early 1942 are stunning. It underscores the question, when the best option is the lesser of two evils, what do you do? Mary Carol Brown of Glen Rock, NJ was born in 1918, went to Glen Rock elementary schools and graduated from Ridgewood High School in the class of 1935. She was a tall and hardy young woman, vivacious and very bright. While in high school she was active in the riding club, the German club, girl’s club, was secretary of the Biology club, worked on the Spectator and sang in the glee club, mixed chorus and the A Cappella choir.Known to most simply as Carol, she went on to study at Bradford Junior College and then Stanford University where she met Donald Purdie, a chemistry graduate research student from Swaffham, Norfolk, England. They were married on Palm Sunday 1939 at the Community Church in Glen Rock and sailed for England on the Queen Mary to live in Cambridge where he was a fellow at Kings’ College. It wasn’t long before German bombs were raining down on England and the Purdies had several close calls at their home. Donald had an offer to teach in Singapore and the couple decided it would be safer there than in England which was in the middle of the Blitz. Despite pleas from her parents to come home, they soon sailed around the Cape with their infant son Robin (Rob) who was born in February 1940, arriving in Singapore in early 1941 where Donald was to teach chemistry at Raffles College, benefiting from all the advantages of an expatriate – big house near the Botanical Gardens, housekeeper, nanny etc. It was in this atmosphere that, a year later, on January 26, 1942, their second child Diana was born, just as the Japanese siege of Singapore was raging. Japan’s attack on Singapore was coordinated with the attack on Pearl Harbor as their Southern Army attacked Thailand and Malaya on December 8, 1941 and the Philippines on December 10. On February 8, 1942, 23,000 Japanese soldiers attacked Singapore. The fall of Singapore to the Japanese on February 15, 1942 is considered as one of the worst defeats in the history of the British Army which had considered Singaporean impregnable fortress, calling it the Gibraltar of the Far East. Singapore was connected to the Malaya mainland by a causeway across the Straits of Jahore. Their 15” guns faced only toward the sea and had limited range and only armor-piercing shells; the northern approach was not properly protected and there were no air raid shelters.apanese troops were ordered to take no prisoners because that would slow up their advance. They were told "When you encounter the enemy after landing, think of yourself as an avenger coming face to face at last with his father’s murderer. Here is a man whose death will lighten your heart." Captured wounded Allied soldiers were often killed and those who had surrendered often also were murdered. Some Australian troops were doused with gasoline and burned to death. Locals who had helped the Allies were tortured before being murdered. Japanese soldiers murdered patients in a Military Hospital. Additionally, the fall of Singapore presented numbers too great and ushered in three years of inexcusable treatment of the 120,000 POWs taken in Singapore.Professor Donald Purdie PhD, who had joined the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force as a Private, was taken prisoner. Mary Carol was given two hours notice before being evacuated in the darkness of night February 6 with her infant son and new-born daughter on one of the last Allied ships to leave Singapore, the SS Felix Russell - a crowded, old and barely sea-worthy vessel with no facilities. She literally left with nothing more than the shirt on her back and the basics for the children. There were three ships with evacuees that left Singapore that night, escorted by British navy destroyers. When leaving the harbor, the Felix Russell was bombed by the Japanese. Its water tank was hit and the ship was without fresh water for the rest of the trip. The Japanese continually bombed the ships and the other two were hit and sunk. Despite unhygienic conditions and the close attention Japanese bombers paid to ships laden with evacuated civilians, the Felix Russell safely reached Bombay just over three weeks later, the first stop on Mary Carol’s trip back to Glen Rock. While in Bombay, Carol’s purse, containing all proof of her relationship to Diana, was stolen. Her family then received news that she and the babies had successfully completed the voyage around the Cape and through the Panama Canal and had arrived in California where she was met by relatives. She and the babies completed their incredible trip home to Glen Rock on April 15, 1942. Mary Carol subsequently received news from her husband in July 1943 saying he was still a prisoner in Singapore and was well. Nonetheless, not knowing what was happening to her husband created great stress. POW conditions then were not nearly as bad as they would become when he and the other prisoners were moved to Thailand to work on the Burma-Siam railway (see “Bridge over the River Kwai”). She later received a printed prisoner of war card confirming that he was in a prisoner of war camp in Thailand.Donald’s brother Ian, a Major, was also a prisoner in the same camp and in October 1944 informed his parents that Donald had died of malnutrition and amoebic dysentery on May 27, 1943 after long hours working on the railway. The news was quickly transmitted to his widow in Glen Rock who was devastated. Private Donald Purdie’s remains were eventually buried in plot 8.J.55 in Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, 129 kilometers northwest of Bangkok, with other casualties of the Burma-Siam railway. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died while working on the railway, mainly forced labor from Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Siam(Thailand) and Burma.Life goes on. Three years later young Diana’s nationality was challenged and, because such proof had been stolen in Bombay, she was deported to Canada where she spent two weeks before returning to Glen Rock with a British passport. Mary Carol Brown Purdie was remarried in 1946 to Robert Rice, a long-time friend who had been an usher at her wedding in 1939. They moved with the children to LaJolla, California where she worked for a time in the San Diego Zoo. They divorced and she eventually moved to Hawaii where she died the 23rd of January, 1976. Her ashes were scattered. Robert Rice and his new wife died in the crash of Egypt Air Flight 990 October 31, 1999. To this day Rob and Diana remember and thank their mother for the extraordinary determination she showed in extricating them from disaster. Oh, what a power is motherhood.Possessing a potent spell. All women alike Fight fiercely for a child. Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis Happy Mothers’ Day. taken from fb/WW2 news/clips/articles/video