I’m John Gilmore, and I’m a runner.

When the school sports was on, the furthest you’re allowed to run in those days was 440 yards or 400 metres.

I was the number one school for the 400 metres. I was lucky that my sports master for Edward Appleton was the state champion sprinter, and it was the best performance by anybody at the school, and he presented me with a book at assembly the next day on how to succeed in athletics. And I got such a kick out of it, it’s been my main sport ever since.

When war broke out, we all decided we join up. The 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion was formed, all Western Australians. My brother wanted to join with us. He wasn’t old enough, but he put his age up and Mum and Dad gave him permission to join, and we thought it’d be great, travel the Middle East. Never thought for one minute what was going to happen.

First of all, we went to South Australia for four months training, then we went to Darwin. While we were in Darwin, the Japanese came into the war. We immediately were told that we’d be going to Singapore. We sailed to Singapore. The Japanese at that time were still starting to bomb Singapore, and I was home on the 15th of January. But it was as a prisoner of war. On the 15th of February.

We were housed in Changi in Singapore, which wasn’t very nice. Japanese wouldn’t … because they had so many prisoners, they didn’t know how to feed the number of prisoners. So, the rice we were given wasn’t enough. So, they just told you to add water to it. So, it was just like a soup.

I was so hungry. I was eating quiche grass, the tips of hibiscus, and eventually I got these styes on my eyes. And I could see my eyes deteriorating. I couldn’t recognise my own brother at a short distance. And I was put in a hospital in Changi, and the guy either side of me were totally blind. And I thought I was going to be the same way. But a hospital ship came in from South Africa. And the Japanese allowed us a spoonful of Marmite a day until it ran out.

My first job was at a graphite factory in in Kobe, Japan. I had to go into a graphite bin, just a trapdoor, just enough room for me to go in. And I had a bin, it was full of this black dust. I had to wear a mask and I had to shovel this black dust out through the trapdoor that I went in. I could only stay in there for at least 20 minutes, no coming up. I was covered in this brake dust, that when the sun got on it, it dissolved and it burnt your skin. But the Japanese still made me go in. And it was a South Australian boy, I never knew him from a bar of soap. He said he would like to relieve me and he went in. Jack and I suggested to the Japanese that they should make a long-handled shovel and hook the dust out, and nobody should go in the bin and they agreed. So, Jack and I then had a job in pushing like a railway truck, like they use on the mines, and we became very good friends.

Jack was from South Australia, and we decided then that Japanese guy that we called Speedo, it’d be a good idea if we could learned quite a bit of Japanese. So we did, and in the morning, we had him call me Johnny-san, Jack Jackie-san and we’d say Konnichiwa Speedo-san and he thought it was crash hot.

Another time Jack said to him: ‘John would like to race you over 100 metres,’ and he was a pretty fit Japanese guy, but I knew he smoked like a chimney, his teeth were black with nicotine. I knew that I could knock him off over 100 meters. But the only reason I’d race him was he had to pay me 20 cigarettes. I would beat him and he paid the 20 cigarettes.

American bombing was so precise, they bombed in a big circle. They dropped 500 pound oil bombs with the first flight of planes that came over. Then the second lot came over, they dropped the incendiary bombs, and they bombed in a big circle. And I would never see fires like it again. Because – just imagine that your houses, pine wood houses, two or three-storey high, only a small alley between each group of houses. And flames would shoot metres into the air.

When the war finished, we were trained to Yokohama, then the hospital ship was full up, so we were flown from Yokohama to Okinawa and I flew in a big flying fortress, no seats, just a big show of a plane where they put trucks or tanks in it. We just sat on the floor, and they flew us to Okinawa at midnight. And I was scared stiff because I’d never been on a plane before. That night, I was wondering how they’re going to land the plane in Okinawa. Luckily, they had the warships there, with their big search lights light up the airfield, and we landed safely. And we were in Okinawa for about three days. Then the Americans wanted to shift us from Okinawa to Manilla. And we got all the trucks to go to the airport to be flown to Manilla. Jack was on my truck, and a fellow called out from another truck, so Jack hopped down went over to see who it was, and it was a guy he joined up with and Jack came him back, and then he told me, he said: ‘Do you mind if I go with my mate, I’ve just met him, first time since we joined up.’

His plane took off. Our plane took off. His plane crashed into the mountains, and he was killed. There were five Australians killed on that plane. It’s terrible to think that what Jack had gone through, he never made it. What he did for me was unbelievable. And not only for me but the guy that slept next to him. He was wounded in Singapore, he couldn’t put on his own shoes, Jack used to do for him. Anybody that deserves a medal it was Jack for what he did for the POWs in the Kobe camp.

When I went back this time, it was unbelievable. A multi-storey building on the area, huge building and that many big buildings, where it was just flattened. I didn’t pull any punches, I told them straight when I was interviewed that I was starved in Singapore. I’ve never been able to have a motor car. I had to rely on friends to take me places and I’ve been lucky because I’ve always looked after myself. And I’ve been back to Japan. Four times now. Went back in ’72. I couldn’t believe how well off they were compared with how we were in Australia, even though they lost the war.

Then I went back in ’82 to run in the world championships in Tokyo. I couldn’t believe the Japanese were bowing to me because I was running so well. Then I went back in ’93 to Miyazaki and ran there, and I even got invited out to a Japanese official’s home for a meal.

So, I realised then that they’re human like everyone else.