John Roy (Jack) Thorpe OAM
From Our Contribution
 Jack prior to embarkation to the Middle East | |
 Jack in winter uniform while serving with the Occupying Force in Japan | |
| Personal Information | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 9 Nov 1921 |
| Place of Birth | Claremont, Western Australia |
| Age at Enlistment | 22 years, 1 month |
| Description | 5'11" (1.80m) tall ; ; medium complexion ; brown eyes ; dark hair ; scar on right abdomen |
| Occupation | Apprentice Diesel Mechanic |
| Religion | Church of England |
| Address | Prospect road, Armadale, Western Australia |
| Next of Kin | Father , Mr John Thorpe |
| Military Information | |
| Reg Number | WX10477 |
| Date of Enlistment | 20 Dec 1940 |
| Rank | Corporal |
| Unit/Formation | 2/105th Australian General Transport Company |
| Military Movement | |
| 1st Departure from Australia | |
| Journey Dates | 18 Sep 1941 ‒ 20 Oct 1941 |
| Transport Details | SS Marnix van Sint Aldegonde Melbourne to Port Tewfik |
| Transfers | |
| Journey Dates | 1 Feb 1942 ‒ 15 Feb 1942 |
| Transport Details | SS Orcades Port Tewfik to Tanjung Priok |
| Journey Dates | 16 Dec 1944 ‒ 15 Jan 1945 |
| Transport Details | MV Awa Maru Singapore to Moji, Japan |
| Return to Australia | |
| Journey Dates | Aug 1945 ‒ Aug 1945 |
| Transport Details | unknown Japan to Manila via Okinawa |
| Journey Dates | 4 Oct 1945 ‒ 15 Oct 1945 |
| Transport Details | HMS Speaker Manila to Sydney via Guam & New Guinea |
| Journey Dates | 18 Oct 1945 ‒ 22 Oct 1945 |
| Transport Details | HMT Dominion Monarch Sydney to Fremantle |
| 2nd Departure from Australia | |
| Journey Dates | 9 Apr 1946 ‒ 26 Apr 1946 |
| Transport Details | HMAS Manoora Sydney to Kure, Japan |
| Return to Australia | |
| Journey Dates | 22 Jun 1927 ‒ 5 Jul 1947 |
| Transport Details | HMAS Kanimbla Kure, japan to Sydney |
| Post War Details | |
| Fate |
Captured Java 1942 POW Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan Returned to Australia Served with the Australian Occupation Force in Japan |
| External Monument(s) | The Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial Ballarat, Victoria |
| Medals |
Order of Australian Medal 1939-45 Star Pacific Star War Medal 1939-45 Australian Service Medal 1939-45 Australian Service Medal 1945-75 |
Pre War
Jack's first few years were spent living in a tent on the Peel Estate before his father purchased land that would later become the Kwinana Golf Course. In 1924 the family moved to Jarrahdale where his father ran a bus service from Jarrahdale to Perth. He, Thorpe Snr, later purchased the Armadale Bus Service followed by the Cannington Bus Service before selling out to the Metro Bus Company in 1938. The family then relocated to Three Springs where he purchased the local hotel. Prior to enlistment Jack had been an apprentice diesel mechanic with the Metro Bus Company.
War Service
On reporting to the Northam camp on 3 Jan 1941, Jack was placed in the 2nd Recruit Training Depot. On 25 Feb 1941 he was posted to the reinforcements for the 6th Australian Division Cavalry. After months of training he became annoyed at not being included for a draft overseas so volunteered to join a Mechanised Cavalry Unit which required him to travel to Puckapunyal in Victoria for training where he joined the 2nd Cavalry Training Squadron.
Granted pre-embarkation leave from 29 Apr until 6 May 1941, on 23 Jun 1941 he embarked on a ship in Fremantle for the eastern states. Jack boarded the SS Marnix van Sint Aldegonde as part of Convoy US 12B which departed Melbourne on 18 Sep 1941, and arrived in Fremantle on 26 Sep 1941. The convoy departed Fremantle on 28 Sep 1941 and after reaching the Indonesia archipelago turned west and headed for Colombo, and eventually Port Tewfik in Egypt where they arrived on 20 Oct 1941. Posted to the 2/105th Australian General Transport Company Jack travelled by train to El Kantara where he crossed the canal and travelled by truck across the Sinai Desert to a camp north of Gaza in Palestine.
After training in Palestine, the war in the Middle East had come to a standstill and Jack became bored with the inactivity. Hearing that a unit was being formed to transport men and equipment from India to the Middle East, he volunteered and was accepted by the 1st Australian Troop Carrying Column with Jack a member of the 2/105th Australian General Transport Company. Soon after they reversed the journey to Port Tewfik and the majority of the unit embarked on SS Orcades along with the 2/3rd Australian Machine Gun Battalion. During the afternoon of 1 Feb 1942 SS Orcades sailed alone as Convoy JS 2 for Colombo where it refueled on 8 Feb 1942. The next morning it sailed for Oosthaven in Sumatra where it arrived on 15 Feb 1942, the day Singapore surrendered. The following day they sailed for Tanjung Priok (port for Batavia or Jakarta as it is now known), arriving there on 17 Feb 1942. Two days later they disembarked and Jack spent time driving his truck and avoiding the Japanese until his unit surrendered on 7 Mar 1942. Jack was to spend several months in captivity on Java before being loaded onto an old ship for Singapore where they were sent to Changi POW camp.
After three days in Singapore they were again loaded on to a ship which eventually transported them in terrible conditions to Rangoon (Yangon) harbour in Burma (Myanmar) where that night they survived an allied air attack on the wharf area. They were to become known as 'A' Force. The next morning they sailed for Moulmein (Mawlamyine), 300 km to the south east. On arrival they boarded a train for several hours until it reached the end of the railway line, the northern end of the Burma - Thailand railway which was to be build by the POWs. Jack was allocated to a gang of workers whose role was to excavate the rail bed, carrying rocks and soil in baskets slung on a stick over their shoulders. At the 75 Kilo camp he was cutting logs to provide timber for bridges. Camps that Jack was to work from included 25 Kilo (Kunknitk); the 8 Kilo camp; the 55 Kilo camp; the 75 Kilo camp; and the 105 Kilo camp (longest stint). Here he contracted amoebic dysentery and was bayoneted by a guard who had knocked him unconscious, leading to him spending several weeks in a hospital camp. His final camp on the Burma Death Railway was near the approaches to the River Kwai Bridge.
When the line was complete Jack was one of around 200 members of 'A' Force who were put on a train (flatbed wagons) and transported to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Here they marched to the Mekong River bank and were placed on a barge which ferried them down river for several days until they reached Saigon in French Indo-China. Here they were given work clearing the jungle to extend the length of the airport runway as the Germans had provided 9 Messerschmitt 109 fighter bombers whose landing speed meant they couldn't land on the existing short runway. Job finished they were then used as labourers on the Saigon wharves. Two attempts to load the group that Jack was with onto freighters destined for Japan were thwarted by allied air raids, and finally they were carried by barge back up the Mekong River to Phnom Penh. A three day rail journey in freight trucks followed to Bangkok. Several more days and nights on a train and they were back in Singapore. It was 22 Aug 1944. Here they worked a 12 hour night shift helping to dig a hole which was destined to become a huge dry dock.
Jack was chosen to join a party of POWs to be sent to Japan aboard the MV Awa Maru. The 11,249-ton passenger-cargo ship ‘Awa Maru’ loaded with 525 Australian, American and Dutch POWs at Singapore to sail to Moji, Japan. The POWs were crammed into one hold modified by the addition of two platforms to provide three tiers of cramped sleeping space. In addition the passageways were crammed with sleeping POWs. Awa Maru moved out to the roadstead on 16th December 1944 to await the remainder of the convoy to arrive. The men were to wait 10 days for the convoy to set sail. They were aware American submarines patrolled the seas and knew several ships transporting POWs to Japan had sunk. A sense of fear would have prevailed throughout the hold until their safe arrival in Japan. Fortunately Awa Maru arrived unscathed at Moji on 15th January 1945.
At Moji the party was divided into several smaller groups and Jack was included in a group of 100 who marched to a camp (Camp 22 at Izuka) that was about a mile from the coal mine that they were to provide labour for. Soon after their arrival in Japan they became aware that it was being bombed day and night by the Americans, and on the day that the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, Jack was 'a couple of miles' underground. While their Japanese guards had orders from the Emperor to kill all POWs if Japan was invaded, and they spent some hours one day on the parade ground in front of Japanese guards with machine guns lined up on them, those orders were not carried out. The next day their guards had disappeared - it appeared that the war was over.
Several weeks passed before allied troops entered Nagasaki on 16 Sep 1945, and when they did, Jack and his mates were decontaminated and then on 19 Sep 1945 boarded a ship whose first stop was Okinawa. Refueled it sailed from there to Manila in the Philippines. After several days they embarked on HMS Speaker, a British escort carrier which carried them to Sydney via Guam and New Guinea, disembarking on 15 Oct 1945. A day later the West Australian ex-POWs from the HMS Speaker boarded a ship for Fremantle and finally, 75 days after the war finished, they were home in Perth. Following leave Jack was admitted to Hollywood Hospital and after three weeks told he was well enough to be discharged.
Refusing to accept that his back injury would improve with time, and should therefore accept his discharge, Jack was sent to the Point Walter transit camp. A fortnight later he was told that he had to either accept discharge or join an active unit. He chose to join the 66th Battalion which was being formed from previous 9th Division personnel and was based in Bathurst, but preparing to join the occupation forces in Japan. As an ex-POW Jack was closely vetted before he was accepted, lest he be going to seek retribution. The unit landed at Kure in Japan in late February 1946, and was transported to temporary barracks near Hiroshima before having a base camp built at Hiro where they spent the majority of their time in Japan. Jack was charged with having been AWOL from 1:15pm on 19 Feb 1946 until 8:15am on 20 Feb 1946 for which he was fined 10/- and the automatic forfeiture of a day's pay. On 23 Feb 1946 Jack was transferred to the 16th Australian Infantry Training Brigade.
With the imminent disbandment of the 2nd AIF, Jack was asked to joint the Regular Army which he did just before returning to Australia on leave in 1947. However, for compassionate reasons, he was granted a discharge in order to look after his father's hotel in Three Springs and he was discharged on 17 Sep 1947.
Post War
Jack moved to the family farm when the hotel was sold and provided milk to the township until he could clear enough land for crops. The original farm was, however, on poor soils and so he later bought a farm closer in to the town that supported higher yields. He became very active in community groups and had the park containing the monument named in his honour. Jack made many trips back to the Burma railway and also to Japan.
Notes
At enlistment gave his age as 9 Nov 1918. Jack Thorpe OAM has written an account of his service experience "Bloody Lucky", Hesperian Press, 2006.