George Sutherland Inglis was born in Lauder, Berwickshire, on 10 December 1894, the youngest of the nine children of John Inglis, a gardener, and his wife Betsy. He had intended to enter the law, but enlisted in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers on 30 January 1915. He served at Gallipoli from July 1915 and then in France, where he was seriously wounded and, in 1917, discharged as unfit. After the war he went out to the Netherlands East Indies as a planter — first on a rubber estate in Java and, from 1926, as manager of a tea estate in Sumatra.
When the war reached the Netherlands East Indies, Inglis volunteered for war work. He was employed at the British Consular Office in Batavia, under the Ministry of Information, and was attached to the staff of the Malayan Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). He was thus part of the MBC’s Batavia operation rather than its Singapore staff, which is why he was in Java when the colony fell and was on none of the Singapore escape ships.
It has been assumed that Inglis was a passenger on board the Poelau Bras, a small Dutch KPM liner that left Java in the last days before the island fell. She sailed from Wijnkoops Bay on the evening of 6 March 1942, bound for Colombo, carrying several hundred evacuees — most of them Dutch service personnel, oil-company staff and their families, and presumably Inglis.
On 7 March, in the Indian Ocean roughly 250 miles off Java, the Poelau Bras was bombed and sunk by Japanese carrier aircraft, and most of those aboard were killed. The 116 survivors crowded into three lifeboats and, after about a week adrift on short rations, reached land in three different locations along the Sumatra coast.
Among the survivors was William H. McDougall Jr., a United Press correspondent who had boarded at the last moment and was pulled from the sea into one of the lifeboats. When his lifeboat came ashore, those on board hoped to find a more seaworthy boat and press on to the Mentawai Islands, but that plan came to nothing and the survivors were taken prisoner and interned at Palembang.
McDougall later told the story of the sinking and the ordeal of the life boat he was on in Six Bells Off Java (1948), and of the years that followed in the Sumatra camps in By Eastern Windows (1949).
We have assumed Inglis to have been aboard the Poelau Bras based on a letter written by a fellow internee, Anderson, and quoted in the Berwickshire News of 16 October 1945. The vessel is not named in the letter, though the details fit the Poelau Bras, sunk by the air attack off Sumatra on 7 March 1942. Anderson goes on to say that some of the survivors who reached Sumatra obtained a small boat and set out for Australia, but dysentery broke out, and they turned back to a small island, where all were captured.
McDougall’s description does not mention an attempt to reach Australia, nor does he mention dysentery, nor a return to a small island from where the Japanese captured them. We assume therefore that if this was Inglis’s experience then he was on one or other of the two remaining lifeboats and which may account for why McDougall does not name Inglis in book By Eastern Windows.
Inglis was imprisoned at Palembang, moved to Muntok, and finally to Belalau, a rubber estate in the interior of South Sumatra. There he died of beri-beri and dysentery on 3 April 1945, aged 50. By Anderson’s account, medicine was withheld and the food for most of three and a half years was chiefly rice, a few vegetables, and tapioca root; the British death rate at Belalau reached 56 per cent, thought to be the highest of any internment camp in Sumatra. Anderson described him as cheery to the end. He was a bachelor.
His remains were recovered after the war and reinterred at the Dutch Honorary Cemetery Pandu at Bandung, Java, and he is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Grave IV 46.
His death is not mentioned by McDougall. The reference to Inglis (below) working as a member of the ‘Camp Hospital Staff’ would suggest that, like McDougall, he too took care of the sick and dying.
The following has been transcribed from The Southern Reporter of Selkirk, Selkirkshire, Scotland dated 25 October 1945; the original article is HERE.
After a silence of three and a half years, news has been received of the death in an internment camp in Sumatra of Mr George Sutherland Inglis, the youngest brother of the late Mr. James C. Inglis of Lauder.
A letter received from Mr. [Stewart] Anderson, a native of Edinburgh, who was a member of the Camp Hospital Staff, states that a small Dutch vessel left Java just prior to the fall in an attempt to reach freedom; it was bombed by the Japanese, and the survivors reached the mainland of Sumatra. A small boat was obtained with the intention of sailing to Australia, but after some days at sea, dysentery broke out and it was decided to put back to a small island where all on board were ultimately captured.
Mr Inglis was thrown into prison at Palembang, transferred to Muntok, and finally to Belalau, a rubber estate in the centre of Southern Sumatra, where he died of beriberi and dysentery in April of this year.
IN PRISON CAMP
The Japs refused to allow sufficient medicine and the food during most of the three and a half years consisted chiefly of rice, a few vegetables and tapioca roots, with the result that the health of the internees was extremely low. The British death rate in the camp at Belalau reached the high figure of 56 per cent., which is thought to be the highest among the internment camps in Sumatra. Mr Anderson describes Mr Inglis as a grand fellow and as a patient who was respected by all the staff. Cheery to the end, he passed away quietly and without pain and was laid to rest in the camp cemetery among the rubber trees of Belalau rubber estate.
Mr Inglis was a native of Lauder and removed to Edinburgh in his early youth. He intended to enter the legal profession, but shortly after the outbreak of war in 1914, he joined the K.O.S.B., serving at the Dardanelles and in France, where he was seriously wounded and finally discharged. Eventually he took up an appointment on a rubber estate in Java, and became manager of a tea plantation in Sumatra. In the early days of the World Wide War he returned to Batavia, and was on the staff of the Malayan Broadcasting Company until the capitulation of Java. Mr Inglis was 49 and a bachelor.
Below is the Scottish records office notice of his death.
