ON THE surrender of Singapore to the Japanese on February 15, 1942, David Price was the Assistant Chief Signal Officer Malaya Command, although holding only the rank of captain. Together with many of the 130,000 troops obliged to lay down their arms, due to the loss of the main water supply from the Malay peninsula and fear of heavy civilian casualties on the island, he trudged into captivity in Changi jail on the southeast coast.
This marked the beginning of three and a half years of captivity, during which he displayed great determination, ingenuity and leadership in the interests of his fellow prisoners of war. In the early months he concentrated on collecting parts for construction of secret radios to listen to Allied news broadcasts, but at the end of April 1943 he was sent with a 7,000-strong force of Australian and British prisoners by rail — in freight wagons — to Bampong in Thailand. From there began a 200-mile march to begin work on the Burma-Siam railway, built at the cost of so many lives from exhaustion and disease.
By the time construction had reached the Dawna range of hills just west of the Thai-Burmese frontier, conditions were such that only 700 men of the main 5,000-strong workforce were fit for work. The sick were put on half-rations but, in the interest of getting the railway completed, the Japanese set up a makeshift hospital of palm-frond huts with bamboo sleeping racks. Price was appointed adjutant of this place, with instructions to get the inmates fit for further work. In fact, he badgered the Japanese relentlessly for medical supplies, in particular cholera vaccine and quinine to treat malaria.
Despite all his efforts, when the survivors of the original workforce were returned to Changi a year after they had left, 3,090 were left behind in shallow jungle graves. Price was appointed MBE for his work on behalf of fellow prisoners in atrocious conditions.
His long incarceration and physical hardships did not affect him for long and in 1949, at the age of 34, he was selected to be the Royal Signals member of the directing staff at the Staff College, Camberley. This was followed by promotion to lieutenant-colonel in 1954 and appointment to a logistics post at Headquarters Middle East Command, then based in Egypt.
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The task facing him immediately on arrival was to plan and organise the move of the headquarters to Cyprus, which was accomplished in 1955. His work resulted in his advancement to OBE.
Like many officers of his corps, he had proved himself a highly competent administrator and organiser, and his subsequent career alternated between Royal Signals and key staff appointments. He served with the British Army Staff in Washington, as Chief Signals Officer Eastern Command as a brigadier, Director of Administrative Planning in the Ministry of Defence, and finally, after promotion to major-general, as Vice-Quartermaster General.
Maurice David Price came from an Army background, his uncle, Major-General E. V. Turner, being a founder member of the Royal Corps of Signals. He was educated at Marlborough and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from where he was commissioned into the Royal Signals in 1935.
He was a tall, striking man of obvious authority, to whom the exercise of command was natural. During his time as Director of Administrative Planning in London he acted as chairman of the joint administrative team for planning and implementing the logistic aspects of the changes in Army structure consequent on the Healey Defence Review of 1967. He was appointed CB on leaving the Army in 1970.
In retirement he devoted his considerable energies to Royal Signals matters. He was Colonel Commandant of the Corps, 1967-74, chairman of the Royal Signals Association from 1972 to 1979, and an ex officio member of the corps committee, on which he served for 12 years.
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He married Ella Lacy in 1938. She died in 1971 and he married Olga Oclee. She also predeceased him. He is survived by two sons and two daughters of his first marriage.
Major-General David Price, CB, OBE, Vice-Quartermaster General, 1967-70, was born on February 13, 1915. He died on April 17, 2005 aged 90.