AAP General News (Australia)
08-31-2007
Fed: Veterans return to Malaya for memorial dedication
By Max Blenkin, Defence Correspondent
CANBERRA, Aug 31 AAP - Of all Australia's World War II campaigns, the one in which
more diggers were killed and captured is perhaps the least remembered.
And for the dwindling band of Malaya veterans, that still rankles.
Jack Varley, now 87, says it remains a sore point among 8th Division members that they
were best remembered as prisoners of war (POWs) than for the fight they put up.
"We had a terrific number of casualties and we inflicted a lot of a casualties," he said.
"Yet if you asked the education department or the general public about the 8th division,
they will say they became POWs and built a railway line for the Japanese."
This weekend Mr Varley, from Nambour in Queensland, with six fellow veterans and two
war widows, as well as Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Billson, will return to what is
now Malaysia to dedicate a special memorial.
The memorial is located in the town of Parit Sulong, the scene of an appalling massacre
of wounded Australian and Indian prisoners.
The Malaya campaign actually started shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbour on
December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces landed in Malaya and Thailand, easily pushing aside
British and Indian forces.
It ended in Singapore 68 days later with the most comprehensive defeat for the Australian
and British military in the history of either nation.
For Australia this was the most costly campaign of World War II - 1,789 died and most
of the more than 15,000 survivors were taken prisoner. The 8th Division ceased to exist.
More than 130,000 British and Commonwealth troops became prisoners. In the public recollection,
the Malaya campaign has been mostly overshadowed by the experience of those who became
POWs.
Of 22,376 Australians who became prisoners of Japan, 8,031, (36 per cent) died through
overwork, brutality and mistreatment.
Australian involvement in the Malaya campaign began on January 14, 1942, with the successful
ambush of advancing Japanese troops near the town of Gemas. This was the first time the
jubilant Japanese had encountered serious opposition.
A short time later Australian forces encountered advancing Japanese further south in
the Muar River area. After a series of frantic and confused encounters over the next week,
the diggers were forced back.
The Australians were appalled when they reached the town of Parit Sulong to discover
Japanese forces were behind them and held the bridge, their only means of escape.
With no hope of a mass withdrawal or relief, the commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles
Anderson, directed small units to withdraw east through the jungle.
That way some 400 managed to rejoin the main force. But the badly wounded - 110 Australians
and 40 Indians - had to be left behind.
After a day of abuse by their Japanese captors, the huddled group was massacred - machined
gunned then doused with petrol and set alight. One man escaped to tell the story.
Like many such atrocities, little was known until after the war and even then details
were scant. There also was a belief that the relatives should be spared the full horrors.
But enough was known to charge the senior Japanese officer with war crimes. He was
hanged in 1951.
A younger Lieutenant Jack Varley won the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry under fire.
He said he like many other former POWs had never spoken to family members about their
experience as a POW and perhaps that explained why the public wasn't better informed of
the Malaya campaign.
"No-one would believe us in any case. You don't treat dogs like that. I suppose some
of it is our fault. We never talked about it," he said.
"We didn't have a clue what was happening - there seemed to be a hell of a lot of confusion.
Reading about it since I have been home, there were too many cooks and they spoilt the
broth.
"The (British) generals were hopeless in our opinion. (Australian commander) Gordon
Bennett tried to do what he could but received no assistance."
Mr Varley said the Parit Sulong bridge fell into Japanese hands after the British troops
guarding it simply walked away.
"That is where our major problems started. The Japanese just came around the back of
the battalion in large numbers and took control of the bridge, supported by tanks and
their air force and they couldn't be shifted," he said.
This will be his first trip back.
"It will lay a few ghosts to rest," he said.
As the runner for his company commander, Private Charles Edwards, had a somewhat better
understanding of what was going on.
"I would no sooner take the message out than I would be back and out again. I was just
about buggered," he recalled.
"It was appalling but it wasn't really confused. The Japanese were the master of the
encircling movement. They had tanks and aircraft and we didn't. Therefore they had the
firepower."
At the age of 89, Mr Edwards, from Donvale, Melbourne, is also making his first trip
back to Parit Sulong. In earlier trips back to Hellfire Pass in Thailand, he was accompanied
first by Prime Minister Paul Keating and then by Prime Minister John Howard.
Surrounded by Japanese forces at Parit Sulong, Mr Edwards recalled how he and a small
band were directed to hold part of the defensive perimeter.
The next morning, the soldier stationed at the river edge, Private Len Harrison, known
as Crow, asked to swap positions as he was concerned that the river was close and he couldn't
swim.
"We made the change and within 30 seconds a Jap tank broke through the jungle and machine
gunned down the line."
"That tank got the lot of us, bar me. I always reckoned from then on I had a guardian angel."
That good fortune had its limits. Withdrawing from the town, they were surrounded by
Japanese soldiers.
"There were 30 or 40 of them and only 11 of us with two already wounded. The situation
was hopeless," he said.
Surprisingly they were well-treated with the Japanese soldiers providing food and water.
Mr Edwards concluded his captors weren't as bad as they had been made out. The feeling
didn't last. Later that day, he copped a savage beating from another officer.
Held in jail in Kuala Lumpur, he was subsequently transferred to Changi in Singapore
and then despatched to work on the Thai-Burma railway. He ended the war at a prison camp
on Japan.
All the way, he reckoned his guardian angel was looking out for him.
"People say to me how did you ever exist. I say first of all good humour, fantastic
officers, good mates, discipline and a lot of plain good luck," he said.
"I was so lucky so many times when I should have lost my life and didn't."
AAP mb/jt/bwl
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