How did halford Boudewyn become a World War 2 hero?

Answer 1

Boudewyn found work with a Eurasian food contractor who supplied Indian army camps in Singapore. While making his deliveries in 1943 he met a prisoner-of-war from the British Indian Army and learned of the ill-treatment by Subhas Chandra Bose's Japanese-backed Indian National Army (INA) of those who refused to join the INA. Boudewyn admired the bravery of those who had remained loyal to the crown and wanted to avenge those who had suffered for it.

His new friend told him that documentary proof could be obtained and the two men agreed on a plan to gather this evidence. Boudewyn sold his produce at the INA's headquarters at Upper Serangoon Road, next to the POW camp. Each day his contact (accounts differ on who this was) would purchase vegetables then later claim some were rotten and return them with documents stolen from an adjutant's office.

These documents related not only to the POWs' mistreatment but also Japan's planned invasion via Burma of India, the ultimate prize among Britain's colonies. Each day Boudewyn gave a deep bow to the Japanese sentry as he left the camp and his bicycle carrier, where he kept the papers, was never searched. He did this until 1944 when he had all the relevant documents and stored them in an oil drum buried beneath a friend's tennis court in Chancery Lane.

Eventually the house was seized by the Japanese who converted the tennis court into a vegetable garden. After the war this made locating the drum more difficult, and he ultimately discovered that while he had taken care to bury it four feet deep it was now only one foot below the surface