Historic HB: Soldier survived against terrible odds

Stan Esam on sentry duty in Singapore before its fall to the Japanese in 1942. Credit: Late Margaret Esam

My first book I wrote was on the history of accounting in Hawke's Bay called Inkwells to Email, published in 2005, which probably should have been called the history of the region's accountants, which it mainly is.

One chapter was on accountants' participation in wars and featured the story of Stan Esam (1912‒92), whom some may remember from the Hastings accounting and sharebroker practice of Esam and Cushing.

Stan joined the practice of Hastings accountant John Fraser after leaving school but left to work for a commercial business after three years.

By 1939, he was working in Fiji for a timber company, where he met his future wife Margaret Collins.

In 1940, they married in Singapore, where Stan began working as a private secretary for JB David, who owned several gold and mining companies.

When World War II began in 1939, Stan joined the local Singapore volunteer services and, when Japan entered the war in 1941, this force was put on high alert.

The Japanese attack on Singapore lasted from February 8-15 and, when it fell, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it the largest capitulation in British military history.

Stan Esam was one of the 80,000 Allied soldiers taken as a prisoner of war (POW) by the Japanese.

His wife Margaret was still in Singapore when the fall of Singapore occurred and had to leave as soon as she could to avoid falling into the hands of the Japanese.

Margaret, with several other women, boarded a pig boat which moved in convoy with two other vessels.

They came under attack when the Japanese dive-bombed the three ships, with the only surviving one being their pig boat.

Margaret would make it safely to Sydney, but worried about the fate of Stan.

He was being treated inhumanely by his Japanese captors, with his teeth knocked out, but was spared worse torture which resulted in around 27 per cent of military prisoners dying (in Europe, the percentage was around 4 per cent).

Stan managed to keep a diary of his events and recorded the Japanese guards spreading propaganda in August 1942 that Germany had been occupying Great Britain for two months, Australia was cut off and the British had been driven out of India.

He was sent to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway, or 'Death Railway' as it was nicknamed.

For three-and-a-half years, he worked there witnessing atrocities at the hands of Korean guards sent to supervise the prisoners.

Near war's end he was going to be sent to Japan to work in their mines but, when he announced he was from New Zealand, he was pushed out of the line-up – the Japanese were primarily interested in the British.

The ship that sailed for Japan was sunk with a total loss of life.

Stan stayed in Japan working on a railway maintenance gang until VJ day on August 15, 1945. He was reunited with Margaret on October 15, 1945.

A year later, Stan and Margaret returned to Singapore and, as he was the only one who had worked for JB David and survived the war, he had the knowledge to wind up the company's affairs.

He joined Fred Corbin in an accountancy practice when returning from Singapore, studying to become a chartered accountant so he could become a partner with Fred, and the firm could become Corbin and Esam.

Stan retired from what became Esam and Cushing in 1982.

I remember Stan well from being a junior tennis player at Havelock North Tennis Club, where he played.

Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a contract researcher, commercial business writer of Hawke's Bay history and now accepting commissions for 2022.