Hubert, Michael Stephen (Private)

Collection relating to the Second World War service of S/5680096 Private Michael Stephen Hubert, Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), British Army.

The collection consists of Hubert's original, very detailed diary, hand-written and kept in 8 parts, describing his service from the time of embarkation on 29 September 1941 to his disembarkation on 8 October 1945. He arrived in Malaya in late 1941, then was taken prisoner of war in February 1942 following the fall of Singapore. He spent the next 15 months in Changi before being moved to Thailand in May 1943 to work on the Thai-Burma Railway. December 1943 saw him moved back to Singapore, initially to the Sime Road Camp then to Changi Goal. During this period he worked on building a new aerodrome at the old Changi army camp. Amongst other things, the diaries include eye-witness descriptions of the Selarang Incident in September 1942 when British and Australian prisoners were forced to crowd in the barracks square for nearly five days with little water and no sanitation; plus the five day journey from Singapore to Thailand in steel rice trucks.

Also included in the collection are a number of hand illustrated concert programs from performances Hubert attended while in Changi, plus lectures and debates, stories, poems, books, hand drawn maps, Japanese forms, weight charts, news clippings, and other miscellaneous material from this time. There are also some illustrations by British artist and satirical cartoonist, Ronald Searle, who was also a prisoner in the camps with Hubert.

There are also a large number of news clippings related to the arrival of POWs back in England at the end of the war, including an article on him from the 'Guernsey Evening Post', dated 12 October 1945. Hubert was born in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, which was under German occupation for most of the war. Communication on Guernsey was under German control. During his internment, Hubert was only able to send a few prisoner of war postcards to his family, which took many months to reach their destination. Messages between his mother in Guernsey and sister in England were sent via the German Red Cross and restricted to 25 words. After the liberation of Guernsey in May 1945, the Japanese surrender and Hubert's liberation in August 1945, he was able to send a number air letters to his family, written while on his journey home. These messages and letters are also included in the collection.

Michael Hubert arrived home in Guernsey on 10 October 1945 and eventually migrated to Australia and died in Sydney in 2002.

• Wallet 3 of 5 - Diaries of Michael Stephen Hubert, 1941-1945