MINTY Allan Roy VX56725 A Coy [B Force]
Pte Allan MINTY was born on 26 July 1919 in Melbourne. When he enlisted on 27 May 1941 was a timber worker in Noojee. Allan was posted to the 2/29th on 3 July 1941.
Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Thursday 27 September 1945, page 3
JAP GAOL HORRORS REVEALED BY 8th DIV. MEN
HORRORS of Outram Road Gaol, Jap torture settlement on Singapore Island, were revealed by ex-p.o.w. of the 8th Division, A.I.F., who passed through Brisbane yesterday on the hospital ship Oranje. The Oranje brought 838 ex-prisoners—the largest party yet to come to Australia, and the first by ship from Singapore. They included 766 Australians— mostly of the 8th Division; the remainder were British and New Zealanders.
There was one death on the voyage Private H. J. Holden, of the 2/30th Battalion, died on Sep-tember 18, and was buried at sea. After 121 Queensland medical cases had been disembarked, the Oranje sailed for Sydney. Among the returnees were three A.I.F., of a party of five who went through Outram Road Gaol together; one is returning in another ship, and Cpl. W. Fairey, of the 2 /29th Battalion, whose home is believed to be in Preston (V.), died as a result of treatment he received.
Pte. A. R. Minty, 2/29th Battn., whose home is in Essenden (V.). spent two years and seven months in Outram Road of a sentence of six years' rigorous imprisonment for leading an escape of five A.I.F., from Sandakan, capital of British North Borneo. Others of the party of escapees who survived were: L/Cpl. New [QX23995] (Q'land); Pte. Norman Stanley Morris [VX59433] (V.), and Pte. Bruce McWilliams [VX39255] (V.) who is believed to have left in the Duntroon.
Interviewed while in bed, too ill to walk, Pte. Minty told of privations which caused him to lose nearly five stone in weight. Captured in Singapore on February 15, 1942, he was taken to Sandakan in July. With four other 2/29th men he escaped 18 days later. They trudged down the coast, hiding from Jap patrols, and eluded capture for six months, living on what food they could get out of the jungle.
After being sentenced in Borneo they were taken to Outram Road Gaol in a bamboo cage, 10ft. by 8ft., into which eight men were jammed, in the hold of a captured Dutch tramp steamer. Minty endured the first 12 months of his term in solitary confinement, locked in a cell 10ft. by 5½ft.