ABOUT THE SCOTLAND FEPOW TRUST
Founded in the Legacy of One Man
Piper James McLean. Born Glasgow, 1915. Piped the last Argylls across the Johore Causeway. Survived the Death Railway. Survived three hellship sinkings. Survived the coal mines of Japan. Came home. Was forgotten. Lay in an unmarked grave for forty years. Until his granddaughter found him.
Piper James McLean — 2nd Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders
RUTHERGLEN, GLASGOW — 1915
Piper James McLean
James McLean enlisted aged eighteen and served as a piper with the 2nd Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. In 1939, the battalion was posted to Malaya. Under Lieutenant Colonel Ian Stewart, they trained relentlessly in jungle warfare and became known throughout the Far East as The Jungle Beasts.
When Japan invaded in December 1941, the Argylls fought a 500-mile rearguard action down the Malayan peninsula — and James McLean was with them every step of the way.
1ST FEBRUARY 1942
The Causeway
Through the night of 31st January 1942, as the Gordon Highlanders and the Australian brigade made their withdrawal across the Johore Causeway into Singapore, two pipers stood at its head and played without stopping — hour after hour in the darkness — guiding the men to safety.
Piper James McLean & Piper Charles “Boy” Stewart
By dawn, only the Argylls themselves remained on the Malayan side. The two pipers then led their own men across — striking up Hielan Laddie and The Hundred Pipers. Behind them, the Causeway was blown. There was no road back.
That moment is captured in the painting Sans Peur — held in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Museum at Stirling Castle. Piper James McLean is there. Fixed in colour. Fixed in history.
The Johore Causeway, 1942 — the last crossing into Singapore
WHAT HE SURVIVED
Three Years. Five Ordeals. One Man.
Changi Prison
SINGAPORE, 1942
Death Railway
ALMOST TWO YEARS
Hofuku Maru
SUNK. SURVIVED.
Oryoku Maru
SUNK. SURVIVED.
Enoura Maru
SUNK. SURVIVED.
Fukuoka 17B
COAL MINES, JAPAN
James McLean with his daughter Mary — home from the war, 1946
1946 — AND AFTER
He Came Home. But the War Didn’t Leave Him.
James was liberated in September 1945. He was taken to America to recover, then returned home to Scotland in January 1946. He married. He had a daughter, Mary. He remained in the Highland Brigade until 1960.
But what the camps, the hellships and the coal mines had done to him could not be undone. There were no words for it then. No help given. The men who came back were expected to carry on as though nothing had happened — and many, quietly, could not.
James disappeared from his family’s life. He ended his days alone, renting a room in Crawley. He was sixty-eight years old when he died. He was buried in a communal, unmarked grave at Snell Hatch Cemetery.
For almost forty years, one of the men who had piped the Argylls across the Johore Causeway lay in the ground with no headstone. No name above the earth. No recognition.
“He’s laid in a grave for 40 years with no headstone, no recognition, nothing.”
— SERENA GEAR, GRANDDAUGHTER OF PIPER JAMES McLEAN
THE GRANDDAUGHTER
Found. Remembered. Honoured.
After her mother passed away in December 2021, Serena Gear began piecing together a family history she had never been told. Through ancestry records, military archives at Kew, and months of determined research, she found her grandfather — and discovered who he truly was.
She fought to give him a headstone. She wrote to councils, MPs, the Ministry of Defence and the First Minister. She was refused. She persisted. And on 17th April 2023, a memorial ceremony took place at Snell Hatch Cemetery in Crawley — attended by the Argylls, the Royal British Legion, Crawley veterans, a piper, a bugler, and the Japanese Ambassador, who came to pay his respects.
Wreaths were laid at the same moment in Taiwan and Singapore, where James McLean’s name is honoured. He finally had his headstone. His name was above the ground.
The Scotland FEPOW Trust was founded in his legacy — to ensure that no Scottish Far East Prisoner of War is ever forgotten again.
The memorial service, Snell Hatch Cemetery, Crawley — 17th April 2023
“It’s like he’s a real person again. Their sacrifice. Our stories to tell.”
— SERENA GEAR, FOUNDER, SCOTLAND FEPOW TRUST
Sans Peur
WITHOUT FEAR
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