At MacArthur Camp Lord and Lady Mountbatten talk with officers. Mountbatten inspects a guard of honour. He speaks with an Indian POW. He meets a number of officers and men. He mounts a box to address the released POWs. Mountbatten addressing the crowd. Lady Mountbatten chats with an Indian man.

At Seramsoon camp Mountbatten and party walk through the camp. The Mountbattens are shown a hookah pipe, apparently made from shell casings, and Lady Mountbatten seems amused. Lord Mountbatten, standing in his open-topped staff car, is cheered by a crowd of POWs. He salutes the men as the car starts to drive away. Shot of a dilapidated hut. The Mountbattens are introduced to an officer.

Footage on the deck of the cruiser HMS Sussex showing Lord Mountbatten (now in white naval uniform) meeting the ship's officers. He meets ratings and a Royal Marine. More footage of him meeting officers and a bearded rating. A Union Jack flying, apparently the same flag as was hoisted at the Japanese surrender ceremony the previous day. Wide shot giving a good view of HMS Sussex. On board the battleship HMS Nelson Mountbatten addresses the ship's company; the camera pans over a group of sailors and Marines standing on deck below. The group is tightly packed and so little more can be seen of each man than the top of his hat or beret. The men give Mountbatten three cheers before he leaves.

Mountbatten meets civilian internees at Sime Road camp. He is cheered.

Mountbatten meets British POWs at Woodlands Road. As he talks with the POWs a Navy Army and Air Force Institute (NAAFI) wagon or mobile canteen can be seen in the background. He addresses the freed POWs. They disperse after his speech.

At Seletar camp Mountbatten speaks to Indian troops. They gather around him for an address. They applaud. Mountbatten shakes hands with a bearded Sikh. Lady Mountbatten emerges from a hut followed by Lord Mountbatten and others. A shot of Mountbatten's waiting staff car. The Mountbattens bidding farewell.

At Changi jail the Mountbattens meet former POWs. They applaud Mountbatten as he passes. The POWs stage a marchpast. A number of grave crosses, presumably of those who died in captivity (see notes below).

The Mountbattens visit a brush factory. Leaving the factory building and speaking with a man presumably involved in its operation. Tables with a variety of brushes and brooms. Freed POWs outside their billets. Lord and Lady Mountbatten examine a prosthetic leg complete with flexing knee joint. Lord Mountbatten is shown a miniature table lathe, made by a Captain R Bradley of Highgate, Penwortham, Preston, Lancashire, which was used to make surgical instruments and tools. Mountbatten seen amongst a crowd of freed POWs as stretcher cases are put aboard an ambulance for transit to the docks for repatriation. The last man seen being put into the ambulance has a large and heavy-looking wooden leg.

The Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia Command, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife Lady Edwina Mountbatten, visit Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and civilian internees at camps around Singapore, and Lord Mountbatten also visits the Royal Navy warships HMS Sussex and HMS Nelson.

Notes

The grave crosses include both British and Dutch names and the following details can be read:

C J R de Muralt 127001 - KNIL [Royal Netherlands East Indies Army] - [died] 8 Sept 1945 - 46 [years old].

L Klein - KNIL - 7 Sept 1945 - 46 years.

W O Winter - 21 August 1945 - 44 years

R B van Dijken - 6 Sept 1945 - 46 years

J van der Veen - August 1945

With the exception of van der Veen, whose identity is ambiguous, and one other Dutch (KNIL) cross whose details could not be read, the other four names above can be found through the Oorslogsgravenstichting (Netherlands War Graves Foundation) website at http://www.ogs.nl

Two British grave crosses can also be read, and are inscribed:

P/MX52321 - [Chief Petty Officer] Davidson D - Died 29 August 1945 - Aged 53

6020843 - Private Cowling W - 1 Camb[ridgeshire] Reg[iment] - Died 12 September 1942 - Aged 25.

The above are both recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as being buried in Kranji War Cemetery. See http://www.cwgc.org

One cross is marked 'Unidentified'.

The dopesheet identifies the first two locations in this film as being 'MacArthur Camp' and 'Seramsoon Camp' but details about these have not been forthcoming. Woodlands Road had been the site of a prisoner of war hospital near to the camp at Kranji (see JFU 312). Sime Road (also sometimes spelled 'Syme') had housed interned civilians while Changi, a pre-war civil jail, quickly became synonomous with the hardships and suffering of those imprisoned by the Japanese.

With the Japanese having formally surrendered all forces in South East Asia on 12 September 1945, the Allies' top priority became the Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees, an operation known as RAPWI. Given that there were 123,000 prisoners and internees, housed in camps from Burmese or Thai jungles to the Japanese home islands to Indonesia and elsewhere, this task proceeded probably as fast as was possible. In trying to accelerate relief efforts Edwina Mountbatten travelled 33,000 miles visiting camps in 16 countries. Even so, for prisoners and internees of whom many had been in captivitiy since 1941 or 1942, these efforts could not be fast enough, and RAPWI was known bitterly in some quarters as 'Retain All Prisoners of War Indefinitely'.