John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about Anzac Day this year and our prisoners of war. But before going into that topic I will take this opportunity to express my sincere sympathy to the families, friends and loved ones of our three soldiers killed yesterday and our two soldiers who were killed a couple of weeks ago. I have had one dream in my life, and that is never to stand beside the grave of one of my children. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world and many others in recent times have had to experience this terrible event. I extend my sincere condolences to those friends and families, especially the parents and siblings, for what they are having to go through at this time.

While speaking of history and war, I would like to make reference to the sinking of the Montevideo Maru during the Second World War. On 22 June 1942, having left Rabaul Harbour, this Japanese auxiliary ship, carrying an estimated 1,050 Australian prisoners of war and civilian internees, was tragically torpedoed 110 kilometres north-west of Cape Bojeador in the Philippines. All on board were killed. This is undoubtedly Australia’s worst naval catastrophe, and it is important that we formally acknowledge this disaster and offer sympathy to the relatives and descendants of those lost. It is time that a memorial to the Montevideo Maru was established within the grounds of the Australian War Memorial. It is vital to the Australian legend that these men be remembered and recognised for their ultimate sacrifice to our nation.

A couple of months ago I once again attended Anzac Day in Thailand on the Thai-Burma Railway at Hellfire Pass. This was in fact the fifth time I had attended Anzac Day at Hellfire Pass in the last six years and the fourth time that I had taken a group of Australians with me to Thailand for Anzac Day. This year was very special, as one of the men in my group was Cliff Lowien, a former prisoner of war, 87 years of age. Cliff actually, at the age of 17, worked as a prisoner of war on a big rock cutting at Hellfire Pass during the Second World War. It was such a privilege to have Cliff with us in our group. For Cliff, I am sure, returning to this place in Thailand after 67 years meant many sad memories. He is a terrific man, a great man to be around. What amazed me about these former prisoners of war is that they are simply humble, modest, nice gentlemen.

Also on the tour was Bill Haskell from Fremantle, ‘Snow’ Fairclough and Neil MacPherson, making a total of four former prisoners of war whom we had the privilege to be with on Anzac Day. I did request the minister to upgrade Cliff Lowien’s flight on Thai Airways from economy class—I always call it ‘cattle class’—to business class. Unfortunately, that would have set a precedent. So I put a request out to the New South Wales RSL, who gladly paid the $5,600 to upgrade Cliff and his son Jeff to business class. It was a great pleasure for me to phone Cliff one morning and say: ‘Cliff, last time you went to Thailand it would not have been very comfortable. This time, thanks to the New South Wales Returned and Services League, you will be sitting up the front of the plane with all the comfort, and spoilt, as you should be.’

On boarding the aircraft I pointed out to the flight attendants who Cliff was, where he had been and what he had done. I said, ‘You make sure you look after him.’ I know that during the flight one of the ladies went up and said, ‘Mr Lowien, would you like another glass of wine?’ He said, ‘Oh, no, thanks.’ She said, ‘What about just a little one?’ The little one was a full glass, of course. Cliff really enjoyed his flight to Thailand.

On Friday, 23 April we travelled along the section of the Thai-Burma railway to Nam Tok station that was constructed by the prisoners of war. It was a wonderful experience for Cliff to look back in history. That afternoon we actually went down to Hellfire Pass. At this stage I would like to thank Bill Slape. Bill is the manager of the Hellfire Pass memorial in Thailand and Bill is always there to help in any way he can. He does a magnificent job of running the memorial facility. It was very hot, of course. There are only two temperatures in Thailand: hot and extremely hot. April is the hottest month. Bill organised a trike to carry Cliff down into Hellfire Pass cutting. What a moment it would have been for him to once again walk through Hellfire Pass. It is a huge long cutting of solid rock, on one side 200 metres long and probably 20 metres deep. It would have brought a lot of memories back for Cliff to once again return to Hellfire Pass after 67 years.

On Anzac Day we went to the dawn service and it was just terrific to have the four prisoners of war with us. The amazing thing was that a couple of months before we left to go to Thailand Cliff wrote me a letter saying, ‘While I am in Thailand, John, would I be able to meet up with someone from Boon Pong’s store?’ I had no idea who Boon Pong was and what the store was, so once again I relied on my friend Bill Slape at the Hellfire Pass memorial. He replied to an email explaining that the store was there during the war and Boon Pong, who ran the store, used to smuggle drugs in to people like Weary Dunlop. He repaired radios and put the drugs not only in radios but in the fruit and vegetables. He had a 14-year-old daughter who was apparently very easy on the eye and his daughter always went with him and so the Japanese soldiers would be looking at the daughter more than paying attention to what was in the radios or the fruit and vegetables. So Boon Pong helped save so many lives by smuggling drugs, bandages and medicines to magnificent, wonderful people like Sir (Ernest) Edward Dunlop, commonly known to us as Weary Dunlop.

After the 10 o’clock service at Kanchanaburi war cemetery we went to Boon Pong’s store, which is still there today, and we met Boon Pong’s sister-in-law. It was a great occasion for Cliff to walk into the store and see the photographs of Boon Pong and Weary Dunlop and look back in history. It was a magnificent time for Cliff. We had a translator with us from the Australian embassy in Bangkok and I thank them very much. Cliff was able to look back on his memories and thank those relatives of Boon Pong for what he did for our prisoners during that time.

After that we went back to the cemetery and Cliff said to me, ‘I would like to find the grave of a mate, Hector Martin. Hector was not very good at all and he knew he was going to die. He gave me his watch and he said, “When you return to Australia after the war, please return my watch to someone in my family.”’ That is exactly what Cliff did. Thanks to Mr Beattie, who runs the museum there at Kanchanaburi, we found Hector Martin’s grave and I am sure Cliff had a few solemn words to himself at that time. Then it was off to the museum and then to the bridge over River Kwai for lunch.

It amazes me that these men, as I said earlier, went through so much and experienced such a horrid time that we could never imagine in our wildest dream what they went through, with sickness, starvation, malaria, beri-beri and cholera, which took so many lives. To construct a railway line 415 kilometres long and to lose so many lives is simply amazing. Twelve thousand Allied prisoners of war and some 90,000 Asian labourers, more than 100,000 men, died in the construction of that railway line. There are lots of sad memories there but of course the typical Australian humour, the mateship, the friendship, was what carried most of them through. To think that some men had left at 12 stone and came home weighing a bare six stone. You see the photographs and the movies in the memorial and you think, ‘How could they endure such times, in such heat and torrential monsoonal rain?’ They worked through the daylight hours and right through the night with lanterns burning, and hence the name Hellfire Pass. It just makes us appreciate what we have today. We have a whinge about this or that or something else not being right, but when you look back at what our ancestors went through and suffered as prisoners it is simply amazing.

I thank you for having the privilege to represent you at the dawn service and the 10 o’clock service in Kanchanaburi, Mr President. I look forward in a couple of years time to going back, but I want to thank everyone who came on the tour with us. I thank my wife, Nancy, who did so much work in organising the accommodation and the airfares and insurance and the travel and the buses. We were lucky to spend about 12 nights in Thailand and it was a magnificent trip. The people who came along on the tour with us thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was a great learning experience for many and a great time of remembering for Cliff to go back to that place after 67 years, where I am surely he had some sad memories but some fond memories too. It is another chapter in his life. I thank the Senate for this opportunity to speak.