The Soldier's Details

Stribling enlisted AIF 6 Dec 1940 and later joined 2/4th’s ‘C’ Coy 12 Platoon under CO Lt Johnny Morrison.

Stribling was AWOL from ‘Aquitania which had anchored for just two days at Fremantle. We believe he was one of a number of men from the Hills region who were travelling on a truck which broke down returning to Fremantle.  Please read about the 90 or so men who were left behind.  

Please read about Java Party No. 4

Reg was sent with Java Party No. 4, Williams Force from Java to work on the Burma-Thai Railway sailing first to Singapore and then around the coast of Burma northward.

Williams Force suffered a torrid time as many of the POWs were from 2/2nd Pioneers, and engineering battalion which had returned from the war in the middle east only to be dropped off in Java.  The Japanese couldn’t believe their luck – they made good of Williams Force – moving then constantly, usually marching at night from one camp to another and commencing work on arrival at their new location.

When the railway was completed at the end of 1943 the Japanese began to move all POWs in Burma southwards into one of several large camps in Thailand.  They maintained a core working group to repair constant rail construction problems.  However many POWs were sick by this time and if they hadn’t already been evacuated they were early 1944 usually to Tamarkan Camp.

Please read Affidavit by Tom Fitzgerald for War Crimes in the matter of crimes committed by KYOTO YUSA known as Scarface at Nakom Chassi Camp, Thailand.

Reg was recovered from Thailand at the end of the war.

Stribling’s parents Cecil Cousens, known as ‘Sid’ Stribling and Elsie Isabel Gibbons married in Perth 1908.  They had a family of 8 children, residing in Mundaring.

Below:  Tragedy hits the Stribling family in March 1938 when their 21 year old son Cyril (Jnr) dies in a motor vehicle accident.

Below:  Reg’s step Grandfather John Vile died 1937, and his Grandmother Maude Vile died in 1941 – Maud Vile is mother to Elsie Stribling.

Reg’s father ‘Sid’  died in November 1942 and his mother in 1972.

Reginald married in 1951 to Vira Theresa Fogarty at Mundaring, their home town.  They continued to reside in Mundaring – in 1977 Reg was employed as a storeman.

Reg died at Rockingham 25 April 2005.