4000 BOWLS OF RICE

“4000 Bowls of Rice” is a loose telling of Allied prisoners of the Japanese who built the Burma Railway with Cecil Dickson, a member of the Australian 2/2 Pioneer Battalion, the central character. While on the troop carrier Orcades, controversially ordered to land in Java in February 1942 by the British when the Australian government had requested that they return to mainland Australia in support of defence against a possible Japanese invasion, Cec, along with about 3000 other troops, was captured after the capitulation of the Dutch on Java. There was not much of a fight put up, with the Australian troops resenting the lack of resistance by the Dutch.

The writing of this book was inspired by a conversation over dinner on Shelter Island in New York by the author with Cec in 1979 after he had made the comment that he had spent over three years in POW camps in Java, Burma, and Thailand, and that had led to him still enjoying rice even though he had “.....once had 3800 consecutive meals of rice......” Odd choice of title considering that 4000 is never mentioned anywhere in the text. I presume the publishers thought that 3800 lacked a certain ring to it.

This is a short read, with the main text and introduction being 177 pages. There is a Forward by Colonel J.M Williams, the commanding office of the Australian 2/2 Pioneer Battalion, along with a roster of all 212 Pioneers Battalion Member who were ordered to surrender. The end notes section is very good, and the bibliography section had this reviewer adding to his wish list pile. A highlight is that the text is interspersed with some never before published photos of the POW taken during their time in the camp.


With that, it feels churlish to say that I thought this labour of love by the author was lacking in focus and dull in delivery. The subtitle is “A Prisoner of War Comes Home” but that part of the telling is really rather pedestrian as not much happened. When surrender came the POW were on the Burma Thailand railway itself, the US prisoners were flown out immediately but the Australian, British and Dutch had to wait around for their respective governments to arrange transport. Cec wrote his wife letters that are published here in full, but they really said little of any great insight. As hard as the author tried by interspersing the narrative with tales of the hardship of being a POW along with some history of POW's in Asia, it leads to an unsatisfying read.

Australian author Tim Bowden writes on the back cover blurb that this is “.....a useful addition to the growing body of literature on the allied experience in Asia” and is recommended as such.