Anton Trouvat: A Dutch magician in the Far East
Continuing a short series of blogs about magicians who were prisoners-of-war in the Far East during World War Two, this blog looks at Anton Trouvat. A Dutch semi-professional magician, he got caught up in the war when Imperial Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies.
A promising young magician
Anton Hugo Trouvat was born in November 1913, a year before the end of World War One. He was born to Dutch parents in Padang, a city in western Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies (an area now known as Indonesia).
In the late 1930s, Trouvat worked for Lindeteves-Stokvis, a large Dutch trading company.
Part-time, Trouvat was a magician. A member of the Society of Indonesian Magicians, he was regarded by his peers as a promising performer and a leading light in a new younger generation of magicians.
When war broke out in Europe, The Netherlands’ government bolstered the defence of the Dutch East Indies colony. It was concerned about Japanese interest in the colony's rich natural resources, such as rubber and oil.
At some point, Trouvat joined the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. He served as an infantry soldier (3rd class) in a garrison battalion in southern Sumatra, but later deployed to Java.
Despite attempts to remain neutral, The Netherlands was invaded by Nazi Germany on 10 May 1940. The Dutch government and royal family moved to London, forming a government-in-exile. On 15 May, with their armed forces unable to halt the invasion, The Netherlands officially surrendered to Germany.
The Dutch East Indies was unaffected by the surrender, so the Royal Netherlands Army and Navy, and the locally recruited Royal Netherlands East Indies Army continued to operate in the colony.
The Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies
On 8 December 1941, a day after the Japanese attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, The Netherlands declared war on Imperial Japan. Ten days after the attack, on 17 December, the Japanese began a campaign to capture the Dutch East Indies and other territory in the Far East.
(Source: Public domain)
As the swift and successful Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies went on, they captured almost 150,000 Dutch military personnel and civilians.
Twenty-nine-year-old Trouvat was captured by Japanese forces in Java on 8 March 1942, the same day that Dutch forces formally surrendered the island.
Initially, captured personnel were held on the islands where the Japanese took them captive. So Trouvat’s first eleven months as a prisoner of war (POW) were spent in Java, probably in the Bandoeng internment camp.
Not only concerned for his own wellbeing, Trouvat would have agonised about the fate of his parents, who lived in the now occupied Sumatra. He may also have had a wife and children, who would have become civilian internees.
Transfer to Singapore
In late 1942 though, the Japanese transferred many of the Dutch POWs and civilian detainees from the Dutch East Indies to Singapore, where most of the British, Australian, and other Allied prisoners were imprisoned.
A Japanese POW record card for Anton Trouvat
(Source: Netherlands Archives)
Trouvat was transported to Singapore in Java Party 14, a group of six hundred and fifty Dutch POWs. He sailed on the NN Maru 5 from Batavia, Java (now Jakarta in Indonesia) on 9 February 1943, arriving in Singapore on 13 February 1943.
Singapore fell to Imperial Japan in February 1942 when the British-led garrison there surrendered. The Japanese detained some 3,000 civilians in Changi Goal in the eastern part of the island and converted the nearby British Army’s barracks into a camp to hold 50,000 Allied POWs.
But Trouvat didn’t stay on the Changi peninsula for long. On 17 April 1943, he was sent overland by train to Thailand as a part of H Force.
Working on the Thai-Burma Railway
H Force was one of many POW work forces created by the Japanese to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway and other infrastructure Japan needed to continue its advance towards British India.
H Force totalled 3,270 POWs and included 1,141 British, 670 Australian, 588 Dutch, 26 American and 845 Malay volunteers and Indian soldiers. One of the last work forces to be sent ‘up country’ H Force included many men who were sick and wounded, who’d not been selected for the earlier forces.
They worked alongside F Force, who cleared the jungle for track, leaving H Force to level the line of the railway and lay the track.
Allied POWs constructing the Thai-Burma Railway, supervised by guards (c1943)
(Source: Public domain)
Around 90,000 of the estimated 250,000 Asian civilians working on the railway died, along with over 12,000 Allied prisoners. Trouvat endured just over a year of this forced, slave labour but survived.
With the work on the railway complete, Trouvat was returned to Singapore in around June 1944, where he was sent to Changi Goal after the civilian internees had been moved out.
We don’t know if, or to what extent, Trouvat performed magic while he worked on the Thai-Burma Railway. He likely entertained his fellow POWs when opportunities arose, for there are plenty of examples of POW-entertainers, including magicians, contributing in this way.
Magic in Changi Goal
Back in Changi Goal as the POWs settled into a life of captivity without the hard labour of the previous years, they started putting on entertainments to cope with the monotony and boredom of captivity; and to give their morale a much-needed boost.
Prisoners formed concert parties, groups of entertainers, some amateur and some professional, drawn from the ranks of the units held as POWs or the civilians held alongside them. They performed plays, musicals, variety shows, concerts and other entertainments to boost the morale of their audiences.
Naturally, as a semi-professional magician, Trouvat joined in. He performed magic and hypnotism in several of the shows.
In May 1945, he appeared in Easter Parade, a revue style show put on in The Coconut Grove Theatre (presumably, a makeshift theatre near a coconut grove). His act was called ‘Mystery and Magic’ performed under his Anglicised nickname, ‘Dick’ Trouvat.
He was evidently a competent stage magician, according to a review for the Easter Parade, which gives examples of the effects performed by Trouvat. His spot included the production of live animals and even a levitation illusion.
Spotlight Review 1945 (Changi Goal)
(Source: Jack Wood Collection)
Like in other POW productions, female characters needed to be played by men in drag. Trouvat roped in a fellow POW as his obligatory female assistant for the act.
‘Dick’ Trouvat wasn't the only magician to pass through the Changi POW complex. British artilleryman and member of The Magic Circle, Fergus Anckorn was held there too. As was professional Dutch illusionist Cortini (real name Johan Hubert Crutzen). Sydney Piddington, later a famous mind-reader, was also a POW in Singapore.
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