Joan Bamford Fletcher (July 12, 1909 – April 30, 1979) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

member of the

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) (FANY (PRVC)) is a British independent all-female registered charity formed in 1907 and active in both nursing and intelligence work during the World Wars. Its members wear a mili ...

. In 1945, Fletcher commanded a force of surrendered Japanese soldiers and used them to escort 2,000 Dutch civilian captives from a civilian internment camp at

Bangkinang Bangkinang ( Jawi: ), is a town in Riau Province of Indonesia. It is the capital of Kampar Regency, Riau, which is from Pekanbaru (Riau provincial capital). As the capital of the regency adjacent to the provincial capital and a connection to the ...

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

(now

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

) to safety. Fletcher was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services. The 2001 documentary ''Rescue from Sumatra'' is based on her actions.

Early life

Fletcher was born in Regina,

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

in 1909, the daughter of British immigrants. Her father's family had been successful cotton merchants and she was sent to a boarding school in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. She later studied at Les Tourelles in

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, and also in

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. When Fletcher returned to Canada, she worked in the Regina office of the

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) was a branch under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), a department of the Federal Government of Canada. The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was established by an Act of Parliam ...

and helped her father breed and raise horses.

Military career

When the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

broke out in 1939, Fletcher trained as a driver in the transport section of the

Canadian Red Cross The Canadian Red Cross Society ()Women's Transport Service (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) (WTS (FANY)). Fletcher was stationed with other Canadian FANYs at

Moncreiffe House Moncreiffe House is a country house near Bridge of Earn in Perthshire in Scotland. It is a category B listed building. History The original house was designed by Sir William Bruce in the classical style for Sir Thomas Moncreiffe, 1st Baronet an ...

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, where she drove cars and ambulances for the exiled Polish army.

Sumatra

In 1945, as the war was drawing to a close in Europe, Fletcher was assigned to Southeast Asia to help evacuate

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

captives. She arrived in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in April 1945. She left Calcutta on a hospital ship that crossed the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...

and sailed through the

Strait of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...

toward

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Her convoy slowly made its way single-file through mine-invested waters and Fletcher did not arrive in Singapore until September 2. From there, she travelled to prison camps to care for sick internees and was appointed personal assistant to the brigadier in command, with the rank of lieutenant. In October, Fletcher was dispatched to the

– now

– to evacuate the civilian internment camp at

. At that time, approximately 100,000 soldiers and civilians remained in prison camps throughout the Dutch East Indies. Prisoners of war and civilian internees had been subjected to starvation, forced labour, and torture.

Malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...

, tropical sores, and malnutrition-related diseases were rampant. The camp at Bangkinang contained approximately 2,000 emaciated prisoners – mostly women and children – all of whom had to be transported to the coastal city of

Padang Padang () is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of West Sumatra. With a Census population of 1,015,000 as of 2022, it is the 16th most populous city in Indonesia and the most populous city on the west coast of Sumatra. Th ...

. However, the Allies had no personnel available in the region at the time. Further complicating the matter, while the Japanese had surrendered in mid-August, the Allied forces did not reach the Dutch East Indies until September 29. The power vacuum between the end of the war and the arrival of Allied troops had given Indonesian nationalists time to assume control and they declared independence on August 17. The situation in Indonesia was chaotic and rebel groups, many of them trained by the Japanese, had started attacking prisoners, mostly Dutch. Fletcher approached the local headquarters of the Japanese 25th Army and persuaded the Japanese army to provide her with an interpreter, 15 trucks, and an escort of 40 armed soldiers. She was able to increase the convoy size to 25 vehicles after she salvaged some broken-down trucks from the camp. The route from Bangkinang to Padang involved a hazardous journey through 450 kilometres of rugged jungle and mountains as high as 1,525 metres. Because of the limited number of vehicles, convoys could transport only a small number of internees at a time. In all, transporting the 2,000 internees would require 21 trips over a six-week span. Each trip took approximately 20 hours. Fletcher monitored each of the convoys, driving back and forth looking for problems such as barricades, sabotaged bridges, and hazardous road conditions. On the third convoy, Fletcher was left with a four-inch gash in her scalp when her coat snagged on the wheel of a passing truck and she was dragged under. A Japanese physician bandaged her wound and, within two hours of the accident, she carried on with the evacuation. Following the incident, her interpreter informed her that she had earned the respect of the Japanese soldiers – who now saluted her whenever she passed – but they had collectively decided they would never marry a European woman, as they were deemed “too tough”. When the

monsoon rains A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscill ...

arrived, trips became more dangerous, as the roads turned into muddy bogs. As the security situation intensified, rebels began barricading the roads. Fletcher directed that a “crash car” with a special bumper lead the convoy and crash through the barricades. The Japanese started increasing the size of their escort and, by the final convoy, Fletcher's guard was increased to 70 Japanese soldiers armed with machine guns mounted on trucks. Despite the constant threat of attack, Fletcher did not carry a firearm and she later noted in an interview that she did not know how to use one. On the second-last trip, Fletcher and a Japanese officer were leading the convoy in a jeep. After halting to fix a tire along the column, Fletcher returned to the front to discover that two Dutch passengers in the lead car were missing and an Indonesian rebel was attempting to steal the vehicle. She pulled alongside the car in her jeep and shouted, “Out!” The rebel jumped out of the vehicle and ran off. Fletcher and her interpreter went in search of the missing evacuees and found them being held captive in a hut by three armed Indonesian rebels. While the interpreter was attempting to convince the rebels that the captives were actually British, Fletcher reportedly shouted at them and, while they were taken aback, grabbed a knife, cut the captives lose, and ushered them out the door. The rebels made no attempt to stop them and the group escaped unharmed. When the evacuation was complete, the captain of the Japanese transport company that had lent their vehicles presented her with a family heirloom – a 300-year-old

Samurai sword A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge fa ...

. After a week in Padang, Fletcher flew to Singapore and was assigned to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

at the end of November 1945. Three weeks later, she was admitted to hospital with a severe case of swamp fever. She returned to England in July 1946, but the disease resurfaced, spreading to her jawbone. Half of her lower teeth were removed and part of her left jawbone was replaced with plastic.

Poland

Fletcher had learned

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

while she was stationed with the Polish army in Scotland. In 1947, she travelled to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

where she served with the Information Section of the British Embassy in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. By this time, however, the

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had intensified and foreign embassies in Poland had become targets of suspicion by the Polish secret police, as they were thought to be shelters for spies and saboteurs. In 1950, Fletcher was caught up in a political controversy where a former British attaché, Group Captain Claude Henry Turner, had been accused of persuading a young Polish girl to leave the country illegally. In May, Fletcher reportedly received a phone call informing her that the secret police were after her. She quickly burned her address book and fled the country in a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

courier plane. She later told reporters she believed she had “escaped the Communist dragnet by six hours.” Details of Fletcher's duties during that period are protected by the

Official Secrets Act An Official Secrets Act (OSA) is legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security but in unrevised form (based on the UK Official Secrets Act 1911) can include all infor ...

Later life

After fleeing Poland, Fletcher rejoined her family in Canada who, by this time, lived in

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. She kept in touch with her Japanese translator, Art Miyazawa. She died in 1979 in

Langley Langley may refer to: People * Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name * Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer * Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perfor ...

. Following her death, Miyazawa wrote to her sister, telling her about a reunion with the veterans she had led. He wrote:

“Vitually every veteran present recalled the tough but fair-minded woman lieutenant who amazed our troops with her consummate knowledge and expertise in handling the assignment at hand.”

Miyazawa further noted that Fletcher's actions had exempted his unit, the ''Yamashita Butai'', from serving a year of hard labour, a penalty many Japanese soldiers faced after the war. He stated that the unit's honour roll of deceased veterans now included her name.

Awards and legacy

In October 1946, Fletcher was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division) for her services in the Far East. The MBE medal was presented to her by the British ambassador to Poland. The 2001 documentary ''Rescue from Sumatra'' commemorates Fletcher's actions. Fletcher's sword and war medals are in the collection of the

Canadian War Museum The Canadian War Museum (french: link=no, Musée canadien de la guerre; CWM) is a national museum on the country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military history, in a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fletcher, Joan Bamford 1909 births 1979 deaths Canadian women in World War II First Aid Nursing Yeomanry people Members of the Order of the British Empire