Fergus Anckorn: The Conjurer on the Kwai (Part 4)

This final blog in the series (of four blogs) tells the incredible wartime experiences of Fergus Anckorn, an amateur magician who used magic to survive captivity and slavery as a POW in the Far East during World War Two.

The Japanese Trick

 

A major concern of the POWs moved to the camps at Nong Pladuk was their proximity to an engineering complex and storage depot, known as Hashimoto’s, which was a potential target for Allied bombers. Fergus Anckorn ended up living perilously close to the complex.
 
“My hut and its air raid trench were about ten yards from the edge of Hashimoto’s yard and I felt sure I’d get killed by our own bombers.”
 
By comparison with other camps, the work was basic, but the conditions were horrible, and the guards were bullies.
 

Nong Pladuk POW Camp, Thailand

(Source: IWM)

To brighten things up in the camp the POWs started a concert party, called the Harboured Lights, which Anckorn joined. 
 
In mid-February 1944, the concert party put on Watch Your Step, a revue about the movie business. One of the front curtain acts during scene changes featured the sleight-of-hand artist Wizardus in his first Nong Pladuk appearance.
 
Other POWs put on plays, recitals, and other forms of entertainment. Another common activity was lecture talks. Anckorn gave a lecture on the life and times of Harry Houdini.
 
The prisoners enhanced all types of performances when they opened a (new and improved) purpose-built theatre in Camp No. 1 in mid-1944.
 
The opening production, performed by the Harboured Lights, on the 15 June, was a musical comedy production Sawdust featured six POWs ‘The Woodwork (but won’t) Family,’ along with other characters, in a plot that involved some sort of contract dispute between a Night Club Manager (Fergus Anckorn) and a group of entertainers.
 

The new theatre at Nong Pladuk, built by Allied POWs

(Source: William Wilder)

 
The Japanese liked Anckorn’s magic and asked (or ordered) him to perform for them. The Senior British Officer approved this to help relations between the two sides.
 
The camp authorities allocated Anckorn an interpreter to translate his act's patter into Japanese but he found it easier to learn the language himself so the act flowed better.
 
“Then I was asked to give a show to some Japanese officers, including a General. I felt confident enough to do 45 minutes, using my well-rehearsed Japanese patter. And they were delighted. They called, and one gave me a cigarette and another one gave me a rice ball, and I thought this was O.K., it had gone well. But then the General came over and asked me a question. Of course, I didn’t understand him, and could only say ‘wakerismasen’ – ‘I don’t know.’ He was furious, he thought I really spoke Japanese and was being arrogant. He knocked me down and kicked me in the face. I had two black eyes.”
 

The Buried Alive Trick

 
In the latter part of 1944 the prisoners faced a new threat, this time from Allied air raids. The proximity of Nong Pladuk camps to the strategic targets of the Japanese storage depots and workshops meant that bombing raids were inevitable. All along the Thai-Burma railway key bridges and depots would become targets.

The first raid took place at 2am on 5/6 September 1944. One of Anckorn’s fellow POWs described the scene:

“When the bombers kept flying over it lifted our spirits because we thought the war would soon be at an end. One night they came over very low and we heard the bombs whistling as they fell to the ground. We didn't know whether the bombers knew we were prisoners in the camps but we thought they must have known by now. The explosions went on for a long time and we could see fires all around. They came nearer and the only place we could shelter was under the huts. Some bombs dropped in our camp and lots of men were injured by flying shrapnel and a lot were killed.”

“As soon as it was possible to move about, we found four bombs had been placed directly across the centre of the camp, while another stick had fallen down one side. The scenes were gruesome in the extreme as the bombs had exploded while the POWs were lying asleep, tightly packed in their huts,” said another.
 
When morning came, the full extent of the destruction and loss of life became apparent. The raid had killed seventy-six POWs and wounded four hundred. It was a sad end for the men who had suffered for many months only to be killed by their own bombs. Anckorn was part of the burial party. 

There was another air raid in November, and a third and final raid in December. 
 
As the bombs started landing on the last raid Anckorn, like many others, dived into one of the air raid trenches which the POWs had built. From the trench, he saw bombs land around the camp accidentally killing POWs going about their daily business. Another stray bomb which missed Hashimoto’s, landed on Anckorn’s trench and buried him alive. 
 
Narrowly escaping death, Anckorn survived by clawing his way back to the surface. Nine other men died and thirteen more were injured.

An aerial photograph of the actual bombing raid which buried Fergus Anckorn alive

(annotated by Anckorn with the location of his slit trench)

(Source: Public domain)

The Rabbit from a Hat Trick

 

In February and March 1945, as the POWs entered their fourth year of captivity, their Japanese captors redeployed fit and light sick POWs from the hospital and relocation camps to new locations in Thailand. 

After a week-long stop at Kanburi, Anckorn was taken, via Bangkok, to Ubon.

Their new task was to construct airfields for the Japanese Air Force. These airfields would defend the Japanese Army if a full retreat from Burma became necessary or in the event of any Allied invasions of Thailand and Malaya. 

 

Anckorn was one of thousands of POWs moved to these new locations. He ended up in Ubon Aerodrome Camp, on the Indo-China border.

 

There was no camp at Ubon at the start. The POWs slept out in open paddy fields until they made good progress constructing the airfield, after which a contingent of men were allowed to build accommodation huts, a cookhouse, ablutions, and other facilities. The camp grew to house over 3,000 prisoners.

 

“My work at Ubon was mainly to do with our own administration, fetching and carrying, looking after the sick and maintaining the camp. Camp life wasn’t as grim as it had been on the railway, although the Korean guards were as unpleasant as ever,” Anckorn wrote after the war.

 

Ubon airfield today

(Source: Royal Coast Review, Thailand)

By early summer, construction of the airfield and camp had progressed to a point where the Japanese commander, Major Chida, allowed the POWs to restart entertainment activities during evenings and on rest days. 

 

Their first impromptu show took place on 12 May. More followed and, by turn, they became better planned and produced. Soon after, the entertainers moved their performances into a POW-built bamboo theatre.

 

Anckorn took part in these shows, appearing as Wizardus and in other roles. The last trick of one of his magic acts played on the magician’s trope of producing a rabbit from a top hat:

 

“At Ubon I borrowed a hat and after showing it empty produced from it three live kittens.”

 

The Death by Firing Squad (aka Catching a Bullet in the Mouth) Trick

 

There was a common view that if the enemy set foot on the Japanese mainland, and it looked like Japan would lose the war, that the Japanese High Command would order its forces to liquidate the POWs.

This led Anckorn and other to reconsider their escape options:

 

“I did fantasise about stealing a plane at Ubon. I thought that if only I could fly, I could steal a plane and fly to the British lines. I hadn’t thought how I might be greeted if I turned up in a Japanese plane.”

 

Another option was to escape to Saigon in Vietnam by foot through the jungle. But this wasn’t practical, especially as Anckorn still suffered from a bad leg and couldn’t walk properly.

 

Worryingly, the POWs were ordered to dig a large square pit capable of holding a thousand bodies. The Japanese were preparing to use it as a mass grave.

 

In early August, news reached Ubon that the Allies had dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. This created an uneasy period at the camp. There was hope that the war was ending, but trepidation about what the Japanese and Korean guards might do at the finish. Three days after the first atomic bomb, on 9 August 1945, the Allies dropped a second on Nagasaki.

 

Retribution seemed likely:

“One morning some Korean guards suddenly took five of us, chosen at random, put us in a lorry and drove us to a jungle. They stood us in front of some trees, set up a machine gun on a tripod about thirty feet away, and pointed it at us. We didn’t have blindfolds, so we just stood there watching and waiting for the bullets.”

 

Fortunately, after some debate among the guards, they changed their mind, dismantled the gun, and took Anckorn and the four other POWs back to camp. Anckorn had a very lucky escape that day.

 

The Finale

 

On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally, though the official announcement of the end of hostilities wasn’t until the next day. Fergus Anckorn vividly remembers the moment he was told he was a free man again:

 

“I’d been longing for this day, and I could visualise us chucking our hats up in the air and dancing around. [The news] broke us completely. We just stood there and drizzled… we couldn’t believe… and when we found it was true, the Union Jack went up and all the rest of it. We just stood there, we didn’t speak, and we felt - I felt - awful. I wanted to burst [into tears]—something. Nothing came out.” 

 

“And I couldn’t believe I was free; the war is over; you’ve survived. It couldn’t get into me. And it was terrible. Everyone was the same—we just stood there like zombies. Here we’d just been told, ‘It’s all over.’ And, you know, just couldn’t get it. That was the worst of the lot.”

 

Listen to Fergus Anckorn and fellow prisoner Norman Pritchard remember their liberation in this audio clip.

 

Liberated Far East POWs

(Source: IWM)

Of course, it took some time for the Allies to recover all their POWs from the Japanese camps around South-East Asia. While the men waited, they turned to the entertainers in their ranks to put on victory shows. 

 

Fergus Anckorn took part in the Ubon victory show, but it was a piece of stage scenery magic that stole the show, rather than one of Wizardus’ tricks: 

 

“For the finale, [the] scenic technicians had topped all their earlier achievements: It was our big closing show… wonderful show. We were so happy on that night… And this huge plane came down [slowly lowered] from up in the flies… you couldn’t see it until it came down. The propellers were turning—and four engines. And people [were] in it, and down it came. And they all got out and cheered and waved flags. That was all done on this little stage… It was a tremendous finale, it really was. And I remember we were so happy. We knew the war was over; we knew we’d survived… we’d given ’em a good show.”

 

Listen to Fergus Anckorn, describe the victory show in this audio clip.

 

Some weeks later, Allied organisations took 27-year-old Anckorn to Bangkok by train and then flew him to Rangoon in Burma. He stayed there for three months, so he could put on weight before getting a ship home to England. 

Fergus Anckorn in Suez on his way back to England (1945)

(Source: Fergus Anckorn)

Post-war and returning to magic

 

After his demobilisation from the Armed Forces, Fergus Anckorn returned to civilian jobs. He married in 1946. Over time, his body recovered from the malnutrition, tropical diseases, and the injuries he’d received.

 

In his spare time, Anckorn returned to performing magic and attending The Magic Circle’s events, though it took him some time to regain the confidence to perform in front of a group. His early forays back to performing were ‘in disguise’ as a clown and done silently; because he was withdrawn and likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Adjusting to civilian life was hard for many former POWs. They had changed, and the world they knew had changed - irrevocably. They were not welcomed back as conquering heroes, as other troops had been, but had to face criticism that as prisoners they had opted out of the war—that they had it easy. But, what they had endured as prisoners of war was seared into their consciousness and would remain there forever.

A former POW and friend of Anckorn’s from Changi camp, Sydney Piddington, had developed a telepathy act with another POW, Russell Braddon, while they were prisoners of the Japanese. After the war, Syd married an Australian actress, Lesley Pope, and as ‘The Piddingtons,’ they became famous. Russell Braddon was their manager, and Anckorn sometimes also helped them out. 

 

In August 1946, Anckorn attended an International Congress of Magicians in Amsterdam. The conference drew together 300 magicians from across Europe. Among the registrants were two other former Far East POWs. These included Cortini, the Dutch magician Anckorn had met and briefly performed with in Changi POW camp in Singapore.

Article about Cortini attending the International Congress of Magicians

(Source: Dundee Evening Telegraph, Mon 12 Aug 1946)

 

The international congress led to the creation of the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM) (French: International Federation of Magic Societies) two years later, which still exists today.

 

Although he narrowly avoided being called up for the Korean War, Anckorn returned to uniformed service as a Special Constable, which he did for many years. His ‘beat’ included the home of Winston Churchill ay Chartwell. 

 

In later years, Anckorn was active in telling the story of the Far East Prisoners of War. He appeared on radio and television many times (often peppering his appearances with the egg trick), spoke to schools and other groups, and even returned to the Far East to visit the Thai-Burma Railway and his former POW camps.

 

“At my talks I’m often asked if I feel bitter towards the Japanese, if I hate them. But… I feel no bitterness. What I hate is war. It’s such a terrible waste.”

 

Reading Anckorn’s memoirs of these terrible events and listening to recorded interviews, I was struck by his apparent courage, modesty and cheerfulness. ‘Keep smiling,’ was Anckorn’s constant advice.

Fergus remained a member of The Magic Circle, becoming its longest serving member, until his death on 22 March 2018.

 

Shortly before his passing, Fergus Anckorn appeared – aged 97 – as the focus of an act by military-magician Richard Jones in the 2016 final of Britain’s Got Talent. Together, the Jones-Anckorn pairing won the tenth series of this hugely popular TV show.

Fergus Anckorn appearing in the Britain Got Talent series final (2016)

(Source: Thames)

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this blog article to find out more about Fergus Anckorn's time as a Far East POW.

And here Fergus tell this story in his own words in these oral history recordings held by the Imperial War Museum.

For further information on Fergus Anckorn’s life in magic and wartime experiences, read Captivity, Slavery and Survival as a Far East POW: The Conjuror on the Kwai by Peter Fyans and Surviving by Magic by Monty Parkin. Also see, Captive Audiences / Captive Performers: Music and theatre as strategies for survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway 1942-1945 by Sears A. Eldredge. 

Research supported by The Good Magic Award from The Good Thinking Society 

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