Nearly all the guards ill-treated us. There were frequent bashings with rifle butts and boots of weak and sick men.
At one point I was put in what they called the 'cage' for 40 days and nights. The 'cage' was about 20 feet long, 10 feet wide and only 5 feet high so you couldn't stand up in it. You were not allowed to wash or shave and I was seven days without food. We were taken out of the cage each day for 'PT' [physical training] - a severe bashing! I remember Private Annear died after three months in the 'cage'.
After January 1945 things got very bad. Our rations were severely reduced and at the finish some men ate frogs, slugs and even rats. Our death rate shot up and I think in February 212 died. In six months we lost 600 men from starvation and disease - beri beri, malaria and tropical ulcers.
Buckman (?) of the 2/10th Field Regiment, just died from exhaustion and exposure; he couldn't go any further. He stopped about two miles from camp at Paginatan. Four of us went back to get him and bring him in but he died next morning and we buried him there. Tom Coughlan, of the 2/15th Field Regiment, also dropped out. The guards wouldn't let us go back for him. They went back for him though - a good way back. I suppose they shot him.
We used to help the weak by carrying them back to camp. Private Shear (Sheard ?) couldn't go any further and they shot him. I remember him lying on the ground, putting his hands up and calling out 'Don't shoot me'. They shot him anyway. Corporal Alberts was bayonetted on the ground. I personally witnessed both these deaths on rice carrying parties between Paginatan and Ranau.
At the Japanese guardhouse at Ranau Cleary, who had tried to escape, was tied up by a chain to a post. He was beaten and starved for over two weeks. Eventually he was tied up there naked. When we were allowed to take him down and into a hut he died ten minutes later.
We were about a week out of Ranau crossing this large mountain when Humphreys could go no further. He was suffering from malaria, beri beri and dysentery. He was shot by a Japanese sergeant. We lost five men on that hill.