INDIGENOUS: PRISONERS “CONDITIONS ROTTEN” Stories of Indigenous Australian prisoners in the Second World War are emerging. BY LACHLAN GRANT AND GARTH O’CONNELL fter ten days of bitter fighting against German paratroopers in defence of the Retimo airfield on Crete, many men of the 2/11th Battalion were captured. Among them was 21-year-old Private David Harris, a farmhand from Toodyay, Western Australia. Harris was an Aboriginal man who had enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in March 1940. He managed to do so despite restrictions in place at that time intended to prevent “persons who are not of substantial European origin or descent” from enlisting. Harris was severely wounded during the battle of Crete, with bullet wounds to his left thigh and right breast, as well as a shrapnel wound to his left hip. He was being treated at a casualty clearing station when it was overrun by German troops on 29 May 1941. After his capture, Harris spent the rest of his war in Germany until his liberation in May 1945. In his A 42 | WARTIME ISSUE 85 repatriation statement he described the conditions he experienced in German camps as “bad”. The accommodation was “bad”, the bedding, lighting and heating were “bad”, the overcrowding was “bad”, as were the sanitary and recreational facilities. The behaviour of camp guards was also “bad”, he said. Once he had recovered from his injuries, Harris laboured as a forestry worker and in a cement factory, a saw mill and a stone quarry – each for up to 10 to 12 hours a day. His wages earned – more than 1,000 Reichsmarks – were stolen from him by camp guards. Overall, he summed up his experience as a prisoner of war in Germany simply as “conditions rotten”. Harris was one of the 5,000 members of the Second AIF captured during the campaigns on mainland Greece and Crete in 1941, among more than 30,000 Australian prisoners in the Second World War. Approximately 8,000 were captured by the Germans and Italians Stella Bowen, Private, Gowrie House (1945, oil on hardboard, 52 cm x 47 cm). A portrait of Private David Harris. AWM ART26277 WARTIME ISSUE 85 | 43 INDIGENOUS: PRISONERS in North Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe, and 22,000 were captured by the Japanese during the war in the Pacific. During the following three and a half years, prisoners of the Japanese endured extreme hardships and suffered starvation, illness, and forced labour, and were brutally treated by camp guards. More than one in three – more than 8,000 – would die in captivity. Through their endurance and survival, their resourcefulness and mateship, returning prisoners of war have earned a place of pride and respect as exemplars of the Anzac legend. Continuing research by Memorial staff and volunteers has identified the names of 76 Aboriginal men who became prisoners during the Second World War. Of these, 48 were captured during the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, and 18 more were captured in the Netherlands East Indies, Timor and New Britain. The numbers of these men have continued to grow, especially since the opening of the exhibition For Country, for Nation at the Memorial in September 2016, which drew out new information from families and communities. Prisoners of the Germans and Italians The first Aboriginal servicemen to become prisoners were captured in 1941 during the campaigns in North “Death and stink was all around us, we could hear the killing going on. I think the worst thing was we never knew which day it’d be when our turn would come. We’d just disappeared.” Africa, mainland Greece, and Crete. An unusual family story is that of Private Jackson Stewart of Fish Point, near the Murray River in the Mallee region of Victoria. Aged 52 at the time of his enlistment, Stewart was notionally too old to serve, but claimed he was 34. He served in the 2/8th Battalion and was captured in Greece and imprisoned at Stalag XVIII-A Wolfsberg, and later in Klagenfurt, Austria. Jackson’s son, Frank, as well as his nephew, Roy Stewart, had also served in Greece. Frank was among those lucky enough to be evacuated in the retreat from Greece and later served in New Guinea; but Roy, of the 2/7th Battalion, was captured on Crete. Jackson Stewart survived four years of privation in captivity and returned to his home by the Murray. After the war a British soldier whom Jackson had befriended at Wolfsberg emigrated to Australia and chose to settle at Swan Hill to be close by his wartime pal. Also captured in Crete was Private Thomas Green of the 2/1st Battalion. Owing to his dark complexion, the German guards at Stalag XIII- C Hammelburg nicknamed Green “Negus” after a German mulled wine. Following his liberation and repatriation to England in May 1945, he requested (unsuccessfully) to be allowed to return to Germany as part of the occupation force. We do not know Green’s motivations for this request. Flight Lieutenant David Paul was serving with No. 454 Squadron of the RAAF, then based in North Africa, when the Baltimore bomber he was piloting was shot down on 4 December 1943 over the Mediterranean by Messerschmitt Me-109F fighters. He was rescued by the Germans, and became their prisoner. Paul was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for “anti-submarine patrols, long-range reconnaissance and outstanding leadership, initiative and determination”. His citation came through while he was a prisoner in Germany. He survived the war, and later joined the NSW police force, as well as continuing in the RAAF reserve, reaching the rank of Squadron Leader. Partisans and concentration camps We currently do not know of any Aboriginal men being among the more the 260 Australians who died as prisoners of war in Europe. Several, however, managed to escape camps 44 | WARTIME ISSUE 85 in Italy and join local partisan groups after the collapse of the Fascist regime in 1943. Among them were Privates Harold Davis and Frank Page of the 2/32nd Battalion, Private Eddie Albert of the 2/15th Battalion, and Private Jim Brennan from the 2/28th Battalion. On Anzac Day 1944, Albert and Brennan were caught by fascists but luckily escaped the fate of fellow escapees who were summarily executed. Both would spend the rest of the war in Germany. Few Australian soldiers are known to have been sent to a Nazi concentration camp, but one them was Sapper Walter Steilberg of the 2/1st Field Company (see page 50). He so angered his captors by his frequent bids for freedom (on no less than six occasions) that he was taken into the custody of the Gestapo and incarcerated in the “small fortress” part of the camp at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. He was stripped of his military uniform and treated as a civilian political prisoner. This violated the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. At the small fortress, which Czech prisoners called the “living grave”, Steilberg spent six months under terrible conditions Opposite: Corporal Pat Sullivan made this embroidered cushion cover in Changi, 1942. AWM REL/03668 Above left: Private Thomas Green at Stalag XIII-C, Hammelburg, Germany. Green was captured on Crete in 1941. AWM P04379.003 Above right: Flight Lieutenant David Paul survived when the Baltimore bomber he was piloting was shot down. He was imprisoned in Germany. AWM P10129.001 until April 1945. During this “nightmare existence”, beatings and executions of inmates would take place in the yard outside his cell window. Steilberg never forgot the awful smell, and suffered for many years afterwards from this traumatic experience. He later recalled: “It wasn’t just the hunger. There was absolutely no communication with anyone. We were just cut off from everything. Death and stink was all around us, we could hear the killing going on. I think the worst thing was we never knew which day it’d be when our turn would come. We’d just disappeared.” As the Allies approached Theresienstadt, prisoners were evacuated. On the march, he made a seventh, this time successful, escape and reached American lines on 21 April 1945. For his efforts he was awarded the British Empire Medal. Fall of Singapore At least 20 Aboriginal prisoners of war are known to have died in Japanese captivity as a result of illness, mistreatment, disease, or indiscriminate acts of murder by camp guards. Two more men died shortly after the war, and another was reported missing in action during the fighting on Singapore. After Singapore’s fall on 15 February 1942, the prisoners were concentrated in the Changi area on the north-east tip of the island (see Wartime Issue 71). Among those who died as prisoners in Singapore were Private Maitland Madge, Lance Corporal John Hill, and Private John Knox. A veteran of the Western Front, Madge had been awarded the Military Medal for actions at Pozières in WARTIME ISSUE 85 | 45 INDIGENOUS: PRISONERS 1916. Aged 45 when he joined the Second AIF in 1940, Madge put his age down to 39 in order to enlist, and despite ongoing health problems he was judged fit for service. Madge served with the 2/26th Battalion, and during his time in Malaya and Singapore he was continually in and out of hospital with illness. He never fully recovered from his ailments, and died on 7 June 1944. From the main camp at Changi, prisoners were sent out on work parties to smaller satellite camps. At a camp on the island of Blakang Mati (today’s Sentosa) off Singapore’s southern coast, Kamilaroi elder Private Claude Livermore of the 2/18th Battalion was singled out by the Japanese for his Aboriginality. Owing to his physical appearance, one of the guards was convinced Livermore was Indian and beat him severely. The guards did not believe Livermore’s protestation that Australia had a “black native” population. Spurred on by his fellow Australians in the camp, Livermore “pointed the bone” at the Japanese guard, a ritual intended to cause the death of an enemy. It was reported by the Australian commanding officer, Major Doug Okey, that this Japanese guard later fell ill, was taken away in great pain on a stretcher, and his death was announced to the prisoners some days later. Aside from this unusual tale, Livermore is notable for his great leadership and courage in captivity. He learned Japanese, enabling him to befriend some of the guards and negotiate extra food, which he shared. He also sneaked off to steal food for others, at great personal risk, as being caught could result in death. Livermore’s actions helped to keep many fellow prisoners in the camp alive. After his return home to Australia, like so many prisoners, the effects of captivity on his health continued to trouble him. The Hill brothers Two brothers narrowly missed crossing paths while they were prisoners of the Japanese: John and Harold Hill from Busselton, Western Australia. (They are part of a remarkable family story with a tri-service history, as a third Hill brother, Roy, served in the Royal Australian Air Force in Europe and piloted Lancasters in RAF Bomber Command.) During the battle of Singapore, Lance Corporal John 46 | WARTIME ISSUE 85 Above: Gunner Wally Alberts of Lake Condah served with the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment. He was murdered by a Japanese guard during the Sandakan death march. AWM P02468.414 Below: Lance Corporal John Hill, 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion. AWM P01814.001 John Hill’s original grave cross from the AIF cemetery in Changi. AWM REL/13335 Right: Three mates, Privates Henry Wells, Sydney Williams, and Thomas Hatch (left to right). Captured on Singapore, Wells died at Sandakan; Williams and Hatch survived the war. AWM P09501.028.002 Hill, serving with the 2/4th Machine Gun battalion, performed heroically. Despite being wounded in the head and arm, he managed to control and drive his Bren gun carrier, with its dead and wounded crew members, back to an aid post. Harold joined the Royal Australian Navy and served in HMAS Perth. Having survived the sinking of Perth during the battle of Sunda Strait, Harold became a prisoner of war, first on Java, and then as a labourer on the Burma–Thailand Railway. While passing through the Changi camp en route to the railway in October 1942, Harold learned from John’s mates in the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion that John had only just left the camp with a work party. It is likely John was working on the wharves, possibly among the Australians Harold saw when his transport docked at Singapore. Harold was never reunited with his brother: John died of illness on 11 March 1943. John’s grave cross from the AIF cemetery in Changi was collected by his mates after his body was reinterred, with a permanent headstone, at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at Kranji. The cross was then taken into the Memorial’s collection. Displayed for many years in the Memorial’s galleries, John’s cross represents all those who died as prisoners of war. appalling conditions in the Outram Road gaol. This at least meant he was spared the infamous Sandakan death marches; he survived Outram, and ultimately returned home to Australia. Camps in Japan “Upcountry” From mid-1942 the Japanese began moving large groups of prisoners from Singapore and Java to various destinations overseas, or by rail up the Malayan peninsula to Thailand. The Australian prisoners sent to Burma and Thailand were part of a large workforce of Allied prisoners and local civilians who were forced by the Japanese to construct a 420-kilometre railway through jungle and across mountains between Thanbyuzayat in Burma and Bampong in Thailand. Conditions were horrendous. Aboriginal prisoners who did not survive the trip “upcountry”, as the captives called it, included Privates George Cubby, Wilfred Lawson, and Cyril Brockman. Initially captured on Java, Brockman of the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion died of cholera at Hintok in Thailand on 13 August 1943. Another to work on the railway was Private Bill Carlyon from Waruga, Western Australia, a member of the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion. Carlyon carried his mate with a burst tropical ulcer four kilometres through the jungle to a neighbouring camp, where a surgeon saved the man’s life. Sandakan From July 1942 groups of prisoners were sent from Changi to Sandakan in Borneo. Many of these men died in the final months of the war when the Japanese marched the prisoners from Sandakan to Ranau, some 260 kilometres inland. Of the 2,500 Australian and British prisoners who were sent to Sandakan, just six were still alive at war’s end. Among the dead was Gunner Wally Alberts, a Gunditjmara man from Victoria, murdered by a Japanese guard on 31 March 1945, and John Jackson, who died on 29 April 1945. A Kamilaroi man from Grafton, New South Wales, Jackson was a member of the 8th Division Provost and rose to the rank of sergeant. As an NCO in the military police he had achieved a position of authority that at that time was unlikely to be reached by an Aboriginal man in civilian life. A hero of the camp at Sandakan was Private Jimmy Darlington from Barraba, New South Wales. A member of the 2/18th Battalion, Darlington was the 8th Division’s boxing champion: at Sandakan in February 1943 he did what many prisoners felt like doing and felled a Japanese guard with a punch during a dispute. Darlington was subjected to days of torture by the Japanese, but – greatly heartening his fellow prisoners – their champion refused to die. Sent back to Singapore, Darlington was imprisoned under Some 4,000 Australian prisoners were transported to Japan during the war, but not all survived the journey. Several transport ships bound for Japan were sunk by Allied submarines, resulting in the deaths of thousands of prisoners (see Wartime Issue 63). Tasmanian soldiers Privates Vivian Maynard and John Garrett were among those killed in such an incident. Both from the Furneaux Islands community, Maynard and Garrett served in the 2/40th Battalion and were captured on Timor. They were two of the 190 Australian prisoners killed when the Tamahoko Maru was sunk by the American submarine USS Tang as it was approaching Nagasaki on 24 June 1944. Others from the Furneaux Islands community served in the 2/40th and survived imprisonment: Henry Gavin, David Rhodes, Henry Russell, Patrick Holt, and brothers George and Mervyn West. Of this group, Holt and Russell were two of just a small number of Australian prisoners who were sent to work on the lesser-known Sumatra Railway. Holt enlisted again for service in the Korean War, and was present at the battle of Kapyong. There were seven known sets of Aboriginal brothers who became prisoners during the war. As well as the Hill and West brothers, there were three Sullivan brothers from Deniliquin, New South Wales; the Ramalli brothers from Moree, New South Wales; the Rickards from Mungindi on the New South Wales/Queensland border; and the Ruska brothers from Stradbroke Island, Queensland. Among prisoners who arrived safely from their voyage to Japan were the Beale brothers from Quirindi, New South Wales. Members of the 2/20th Battalion, Privates George Beale and his younger brother Frederick were transported to Japan as part of C Force, arriving in December 1942. They were held at Naoetsu, where conditions were worse than at any other camp in which Australians were imprisoned in Japan. Here, prisoners worked long hours in local industries in extremely harsh conditions. On 28 May 1943 George Beale died of injuries incurred WARTIME ISSUE 85 | 47 INDIGENOUS: PRISONERS in an industrial accident at a local steel mill; his brother Frederick survived the war. A photograph in the Memorial’s collection depicting survivors from Naoetsu in September 1945 features two more Aboriginal soldiers, but their identities remain unknown at present. One of the last Australians to die in the Second World War was a Kariyarra Ngarluma man, Flight Sergeant Arnold Lockyer. Hailing from the Pilbara region of Western Australia, he was one of five brothers to serve during the war. Lockyer was captured on 27 July 1945 when the B-24 Liberator bomber in which he was a crew member was shot down in the Celebes. Lockyer was captured and held prisoner until his execution on 21 August, six days after the war had ended. The Japanese guards responsible were later found guilty of war crimes. Home front The experience of captivity stretched beyond the camps, affecting families at home in Australia. Very little information was given to families to inform them of their loved one’s imprisonment, and in essence these men and women disappeared for three and a half years. Among those families waiting at home were women who later became key figures in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights, culture, and history. They include women such as Faith Bandler (née Mussing), Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker, née “They were in a shocking situation ... and we had to nurse them back to health.” Ruska), Jackie Huggins, and Connie Hart (née Alberts). Bandler, of South Seas Islander descent, was a driving force and public face behind the successful “yes” campaign during the 1967 referendum to include Indigenous Australians in the census. Bandler served in the Australian Women’s Land Army during the war, and her brother, Edward Mussing, served with the 2/26th Battalion and died during the construction of the Burma– Thailand Railway. Both Bandler and Noonuccal (of the Australian Women’s Army Service) had strong motives for enlisting; these included their brothers’ becoming prisoners of war following the fall of Singapore, combined with their dislike for fascism. Bandler was adamant: “I realised what it was all about … There was a great need to destroy and kill fascists.” Aftermath The experience of captivity affected the lives and health of survivors long after the war ended. Ex-prisoners carried physical and psychological scars well into the postwar period. Studies conducted 40 years later revealed that the health of ex-prisoners was still affected by illness, malnutrition and anxiety from the long confinement they had suffered during captivity. They also tended to die at a much younger age than other veterans. Other prisoners suffered from injuries that had occurred during years of hard labour or in beatings from camp guards. Owing to the traumatic experience of captivity, many ex-prisoners also suffered from what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Such was the case for Jack Huggins, from Ayr, Queensland. Jack, the father of Aboriginal rights activist Jackie Huggins, served with the 2/29th Battalion and survived the horrors of the railway. His daughter later said that the saddest moment of his life “was when he arrived in Townsville after returning from the war. As my Left: Frederick Beale soon after enlistment (left) and in Japan in 1945 after three years’ imprisonment. By this time he had seen the death of his brother George and had spent years of forced labour. AWM P01649.014; AWM P01649.005 Right: Australian prisoners of war from Naoetsu camp, Japan, September 1945. In front of the flag is an unknown Aboriginal soldier; another stands at the left, second row from top. AWM 019178 48 | WARTIME ISSUE 85 father got off the train, weak, emaciated and tired, he scanned around for his mother and wondered why she had not written to him for a few months since his liberation. On the platform he was told the tragic news by a good mate – she had died three months earlier. He collapsed in his friend’s arms. His father had died earlier in 1942. Neither knew their beloved son survived the brutal horrors of the Thai–Burma Railway.” Returning to civilian life, Jack Huggins sought and found comfort in his local RSL Club and in the local ex–prisoner of war association. However, in 1958, at the age of just 38, he died from complications resulting from injuries incurred while he was a prisoner of war. At the time, his daughter Jackie was two years old. Similarly, Oodgeroo Noonuccal recalled her brother’s return home: “They came back and they were in a shocking situation, as you can well imagine, and we had to nurse them back to health. They were screaming Japanese and climbing up the wall and doing all sorts of things when they came back. It was pretty shocking. And the Red Cross was trying to advise us on how to handle them. It wasn’t an easy period of time, and they died still fighting the war.” Oodgeroo’s brothers Edward and Eric Ruska were members of the 2/26th Battalion and survived their time on the Burma–Thailand Railway. Edward’s leg was amputated after he was hit by a piece of shrapnel when the railway was bombed by Allied aircraft. As historians are becoming more aware of the diversity of the experiences of Australians taken prisoner during the Second World War, increasing numbers of Indigenous Australians’ stories are being identified. Through the combined hard work of researchers, families, and communities, a more complete picture of Aboriginal prisoner- of-war experiences is emerging. These servicemen and servicewomen stood shoulder to shoulder with their non-Indigenous brothers and sisters. The experience of captivity had a profound impact on families who would become catalysts of change and make a significant contribution to Australian society. • ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr Lachlan Grant is a Senior Historian in the Military History Section. Garth O’Connell is a Curator in the Military Heraldry and Technology Section. They are contributors to the new book For Country, for Nation: An illustrated history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander military service. WARTIME ISSUE 85 | 49