POW battalion reunions help the healing

[David Layne]

POW battalion reunions help the healing

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 25/04/2007
Reporter: Natasha Johnson

Twenty-two thousand Australians became prisoners of war (POW) in south-east Asia during World War II, among them members of the 2/29th Battalion captured at the fall of Singapore. With numbers of veterans dwindling, the battalion association is inviting their families to its annual reunion. For one man, whose father died as a POW, it has helped relieve the intense grief and anger he has carried with him for much of his life.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN: Australian lives lost in wartime didn't all happen on the battlefield of course.

Twenty-two thousand Australians became prisoners of war in south-east Asia during World War II, among them were members of the 2/29th Battalion captured at the fall of Singapore.

By the end of the conflict, more than half the Battalion's 1,600 members were dead, and today there are only 64 survivors.

While many battalion associations are folding because of dwindling numbers, the 2/29th is attracting new members by inviting veterans' families to its annual reunion.

For one man whose father died as a POW, being welcomed into the fold has helped relieve the anger and the intense grief that he's carried with him for most of his life.

Natasha Johnson reports.

(The Last Post plays)

DOUG OGDEN: The earliest recollection I have is of the telegram coming home saying my father was dead. And I just remember mum screaming.

Most of my life I couldn't talk to anybody about my father. At all. I couldn't hear 'The Last Post' without almost gagging, choking.

NATASHA JOHNSON: He's the son whose father never came home. Doug Ogden was just five years old when his dad died, sick and starving as a Prisoner of War on the Thai Burma railway. With no memories of his own, all he had left was Jake Ogden's last loving letters home.

DOUG OGDEN: "You are forever in my thoughts. Love to all at home, Jake."

NATASHA JOHNSON: And the glorified recollections of his mother and grandparents.

DOUG OGDEN: He was put to us as a saint. Now, clearly he's not a saint, but he was put up to us as a saint, this perfect man who'd gone away and given his life for us and that was said quite openly. You know, he died for you guys, you know. And I think that's a bit onerous.

(Gunfire, artillery)

NATASHA JOHNSON: Jake Ogden's unit, the 2/29th Battalion, bravely battled the Japanese until the fall of Singapore in 1942 and then endured years of cruelty and suffering as PoWs. Doug Ogden grew up feeling driven to live up to his father's heroic example and despite his success as a car company executive, a sense of inadequacy lingered, as did a hatred of the Japanese inherited by his mother who would make her children cross the road to avoid an Asian person in a street. Half a century after the war, on a pilgrimage to his father's grave in Thailand, he could barely contain his fury.

DOUG OGDEN: I was standing on the station at Kanchanaburi with two definite Japanese young people and I was going to hit one of them. I really was going to clock one. And the anger was welling up and I'm clenching my fist I'm going to hit him. And then something said, "Stop. He wasn't even born." So I walked away. But it stayed with me nearly 60 years.

NATASHA JOHNSON: Retracing his father's final steps propelled Doug Ogden on a path of emotional healing.

(Singing)

And these men have helped him along the way. They're the veterans of the 2/29th who served alongside Jake Ogden.

DOUG OGDEN: Mr Coffee!

MALE VOICE: Nice to see you, son.

DOUG OGDEN: Lovely to see you too.

NATASHA JOHNSON: While many battalion associations are folding as the old men pass away, this one is growing. Ten years ago the association started welcoming the veterans' children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren to its Anzac Eve reunion. Among the first to attend was Doug Ogden.

FRANK NANKERVIS, PRESIDENT, 2/29TH BATTALION ASSOCIATION: Well, I feel the same about him as I feel about any other member of the battalion.

NATASHA JOHNSON: Former platoon lieutenant, 88-year-old Frank Nankervis, has been the association president for almost 30 years. Neither he nor any of the other surviving veterans remember Doug Ogden's father, but they've been keen to ease his inner turmoil.

DOUG OGDEN: Seeing these photos of Changi, does it bring it back bad memories for you?

FRANK NANKERVIS: No, not bad memories, no.

NATASHA JOHNSON: Rather than dwell on the brutality, they share the mateship that underpinned their struggle to survive. As shown by three men Frank Nankervis remembers trying desperately to keep their starving sergeant alive.

FRANK NANKERVIS: One of these men, a rough, country man, he spooned some rice out of the dish into his own mouth and he chewed it and then leaned over the sergeant and spat the food into his mouth. And did it again and again, trying to force food into his mouth. And the sergeant died in their, in one of the men's arms. And they just sat around and wept, wept for their sergeant. Now that, that would break anyone. And that's the spirit. That's the spirit of men on the line.

DOUG OGDEN: And I just can't imagine that. Seeing your best mate die, die in your arms.

NATASHA JOHNSON: Is there a sense of comfort for you that you know that there would've been someone there for your dad?

DOUG OGDEN: Oh absolutely. I just know that, yep. He didn't die alone. No way. No way.

NATASHA JOHNSON: Through talking to the veterans and other sons and daughters about the impact of their fathers' war service, Doug Ogden has resolved much of his grief and anger. He's now on the association committee and actively involved in preserving the memory of his father's battalion.

DOUG OGDEN: I'm free. I can talk. A weight's been lifted.

(The Last Post plays)

FRANK NANKERVIS: I should think he's surely come to the conclusion that his father was in a fellowship that was strong and that he most likely died in the company of caring mates.

NATASHA JOHNSON: And every Anzac day Doug Ogden feels strongly supported by that fellowship, marching alongside the soldiers who did come home, but have never stopped caring for those who didn't.

KERRY O'BRIEN: It's interesting, so many years after these battlefields, many of these stories are still often only being told for the first time, obviously incredibly hard to recount.

That report from Natasha Johnson.

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