Henri Hekking

Henri Hekking (1902/03–1994) was a Dutch medical officer with the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) noted for his service in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps during the Second World War.

Hekking was born and grew up in the Dutch East Indies. He attended the medical school at Leiden University in the Netherlands before entering service with the KNIL. He worked in Batavia and then on Celebes. By the time of the 1941 Japanese invasion Hekking was a captain stationed in Timor. Captured, he was separated from his wife and shipped to work with other prisoners of war on the Death Railway between Siam and Burma. Hekking was stationed in a camp of American prisoners and used herbalist techniques to treat medical conditions. He is credited with saving hundreds of lives during his captivity. After the war he lived in the Netherlands.

Early life Henri Hekking was born in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, in 1902/03 to Dutch parents. His grandfather had commanded a fleet of Dutch merchant ships. His grandmother worked as a herbalist and healer in the colony and Hekking made a promise to her that he would help provide medical care to the natives.

By 1941 he was married to May and had two children: a son, Fred, and a daughter, Loukie. He had reached the rank of captain and was known among local villagers as "Bapak" (father) because of his medical work. He escaped being executed on capture, as many prisoners of war were, by providing medical care to a wounded Kenpeitai officer. He was held briefly at Changi before being transported to Thanbyuzayat in Japanese-occupied Burma to work on the Death Railway between that country and Siam.

The railway workforce was housed in makeshift camps stretched along the route. The British prisoners did not recognise Hekking's medical qualifications and refused his service, as such Hekking sat for a while at the holding camp at Thanbyuzayat.

A contemporary depiction of sick and dead prisoners on the Death Railway by Ronald Searle. With limited medicines provided by the Japanese Hekking used his knowledge of South-East Asian herbs to treat the men in his camp. One of the herbs Hekking used was Carapichea ipecacuanha as a treatment for dysentery: after demonstrating its effectiveness on one patient, Hekking was permitted to search the jungle for more of the herb by the camp's Japanese commandant. He also used leaves to heal cuts and beans to make a bitter tonic that reduced fever. Moreover, he harvested mould from pomelo fruit and used it to treat diphtheria, meningitis and tetanus, as well as a preventative for infection in cuts. A 1945 study of the mould at a Bangkok hospital found it to be a form of penicillin. Hekking also experimented with using maggots to clean wounds and ulcers. Other European medical officers in the camps disapproved of Hekking's herbal treatments.

Hekking also used the placebo effect to his advantage. He would tell the patient that he had saved a powerful medicine for them, but gave them an injection of saline only. He favoured debridement of infected ulcers, rather than the amputation favoured by other doctors. He lacked anaesthesia and removed the rotten flesh from patients with a sharpened silver spoon while they were held down. Hekking was assisted by American marine "Packrat" McCone who improvised surgical instruments from cutlery and items stolen from the Japanese.

Hekking was considered by historian Kelly E. Crager as "perhaps the most successful doctor" to work with American prisoners of war on the Death Railway and is described by one former prisoner as having saved hundreds of lives during his period of captivity. His camp had the lowest death rates of any of the camps set on the railway. In 1956 he received several honours from the American Lost Battalion Association (many of whose members he had treated during the war) and attended their annual reunion. On 25 December 1978 Hekking signed an affidavit supporting veterans of the battalion and survivors of the crew of the USS Houston, with whom he had also been imprisoned, in claiming from the US Veterans Administration who doubted the complexity of their illnesses.

Later in life Hekking was interviewed by historian H. Robert Charles for his study of the Death Railway camps, published in 2006 as Last Man Out. Hekking died in 1994, aged 91.