[HAHalliday]

The following was found in Library and Archives Canada files. It raises the question of what this officer was doing - espionage ? or what ?

The genesis of this statement was a letter dated 4 January 1946 from Headquarters, United States Air Forces in Europe (signed by Birt J. Rainey, Special Agent, Counter Intelligence Corps) to RCAF Overseas Headquarters, London, which read in part:

We have learned from a statement completed by F/O A.R. Tomlinson, 211 Squadron, RAF, that F/L Ivens, RCAF (squadron unknown - Thunderbolts, who has been repatriated to Canada) was asked technical questions by Lieutenant A.L. Bearden, USAAF while a prisoner of the Japanese in Rangoon about 22 October 1944, and that Beardon informed Ivens he was re-assembling a P-34 [sic] aircraft for the Japanese.

We are conducting an investigation of Lieutenant Bearden’s activities while he was a prisoner of the Japanese and would appreciate your obtaining any information that F/L Ivens might have relative to these matters.

RCAF Headquarters contacted Flight Lieutenant Harold A. Ivens on 15 March 1946 and he replied on 22 March 1946 with the following:

I am ex-Flight Lieutenant Herbert Alexander Ivens, J10649, RCAF and I submit the following statement:

I was shot down on December 11 over an airdrome in Northern Burma. I was handed over to the Japanese by the Burmese and was taken to the prison in Rangoon. There I was put into solitary confinement on December 15, 1944. On or about January 15, all the prisoners in this prison, numbering about 106, were moved into different cells. I was moved from a cell on the main floor to a cell on the second floor. W/C L.V. Hudson, RAAF, who had been shot down shortly after I was and put in a cell on the bottom floor directly across from mine, was also moved to the second floor and brought to the same cell I was being moved into. As the guards put us in the cell he turned to me and said he thought something was in the wind.

We discussed the move and could not think of any reason for it. About an hour later, the guards returned and with them was a white man, who we later found was Lieutenant Al Bearson, USAAF. Beardon was issued with a blanket and a rice pan and we found that the three of us were going to be held in the same cell. Later that afternoon Beardon was taken out for a few minutes and Hudson and I discussed the move further. Hudson was very suspicious and although I could not see any reason to suspect Beardon we decided to be careful in our future conversations since althiugh we heard Beardon had been in the prison before and had been taken out, we had not seen him before and knew nothing of his record or history. That night we were able to talk to one another when the guards left the prison, and Beardon gave us his history and a few details of his life in the United States.

The next day he was again taken out of the cell for a short time and Hudson and I decided that although we had no reason to suspect Beardon we would be very careful about what we talked about. When Beardon returned and we had an opportunity to chat to one another then conversation invariably developed to discussions of when and how the Allies would return to Burma. Hudson and I were firmly resolved not to give the slightest hint of any plans we were familiar with. To our questions as to why Beardon was being taken out of the cell periodically, Beardon told us that the Japanese were reconstructing a P-38 at Mingladon Airdrome, and since he had been flying a P-38 on operations against the enemy, the Japanese had taken him out to explain certain details of construction to them. Beardon gave a very colourful story about working with them and told how very stupid they were and how he knew they would never finish the reconstruction job in time for it to be of any use to them.

We asked him if he was doing any of the actual work to which he answered that he was, but only work that was not of military importance. We asked him if he was being treated well to which he replied in the affirmative. He was in good flesh and showed no signs of the malnutrican which was so evident in the appearance of the rest of the prisoners held in the prison. In the days that followed Beardon was a good cell mate in that he was not greedy or overly pessimistic but he did seem extremely anxious to hear our ideas as to when we would be released and how. He was taken out again several times for short periods and when we asked him the reason for these trips he would explain that one of the engineers from the airdrome was asking him to interpret plans of the P-38 for him.

When Beardon was out of the cell Hudson and I would discuss his queer behaviour, and also wondered at veracity of his story in that his clothes had no grease or oil on them, which he would have had if he had been working around an aircraft. Although we did not condemn him then, Hudson and I decided that something was definitely wrong and that we would continue our program of silence on military matters. Finally Beardon was taken away and did not return.

Shortly after that - about the end of February - the prison was cleared except for 15 white men, of which Hudson and I were two. The others were taken to a compound which had been vacated by a section of the Indian National Army. The 15 of us were left there for approximately a month. During this time Beardon again returned from one of his trips and told us he had attempted an escape and had been recaptured. We saw him after this alleged escape and since he showed no signs of fatigue or starvation, which he had claimed, we further doubted him.

At the end of the month the 16 of us were moved into the compound where the rest of the prisoners had been taken. Beardon’s reception in the compound was not warm as the feeling that he was up to something had spread. One night we were all gathered together in one of the upstairs rooms and since Beardon had just returned to the prison after another short absence we were questioning him on what he was going on outside the wall. We asked him if he thought the British troops were approaching and if there was any sign of freedom. He gave us all the news he had and then told us that he thought there was a very good chance of freedom in a very short time. He then told us that he had been carrying out a sort of independent counter-espionage program against the Japanese in that they had been asking him for invasion plans and other military information and that he had been giving them answers which would have hindered more than helped. He said that he was not able to tell us this before because he was afraid that in some way or other it would get back to the Japanese and then he would not be able to do anything. We asked him about the P-38 story and he admitted it was false and only given to ally our suspicions about his trips out of the prison. Some members of the squadron he flew with were in the prison and they agreed that what he had done was for the good of the Allied cause. Others did not.