Dr Tincker (my grandfather) was a POW in Japan. During his time there, he ran the International Red Cross Hospital in Morioka.
He wrote a few letters during his time as a POW (most of them very guarded and official).
On 18 September 1945 he writes his first uncensored letter home since being a POW to his wife Kathleen (my grandmother) and his four daughters. Surgeon-Commander Tincker and his colleagues are aboard an HM Hospital Ship “Vasua” in Yokohama and heading for home.
He talks of his time as a POW, and of comradeship, illness, fleas and “yellow bellies”. Everyone was very thin but in good spirits, in the main, and wondering how and when they will finally reach home.
He also talks of the various camps he was in and of diary he kept sewn into his suitcase.
This particular letter is very touching – a free man, the relief is palpable in his words.
Dr Tincker returned Painswick in Gloucestershire where he was the village GP until he retired in 1970. He died in 1981.
