The Soldier's Details

Nottle enlisted AIF Oct 1940.  He later joined 2/4th’s ‘C’ Coy 12 Platoon under CO Lt Mick Wedge.

Captured in Singapore 15 Feb 1942 he left Singapore the following year as POW to work on Burma-Thai Railway with ‘D’ Force S Battalion.  Please read about this work force.

When the railway was completed the Japanese brought all the POWs south to one of several large camps, some to hospitals.  Nottle would probably have been at Tamuang Camp where he was selected by the Japanese as being fit to work in Japan.  He sailed to Japan from Singapore with the ‘Rashin’ Maru Party.  Please read further

He first worked at Yamane before being moved to Niihama.

Nottle had been knocked off wharf at Niihama August 1945 and fractured his left ankle.  He was admitted to the camp hospital where he remained for 3 weeks.

He was recovered from Niihama at the end of the war.  He was admitted to hospital at Okinawa, Manila, sailed on Formidable and admitted hospital in Sydney then admitted to Hollywood hospital on arrival to Perth.

 

We have recorded an estimation of the POW camps on the Railway which the majority of D Force worked at.  Others may be Kinsaiyok, Tamarkan. We cannot be precise without recorded documents and there are no such documents.

 

 

 

Nottle was born at York to parents Richard James Nottle and Amy Burrow who married York 1909.  He was one of four sons and three daughters born into this farming family who moved from York to Kweda, which is located in the Brookton Shire.

Below: Harry’s mother Amy, died in July 1953 aged 65 years.

In the 1949  and 1954 Electoral Rolls Wilfred and Enid were living West Pingelly and farming.  His parents were farming at Kweda.

Harry and Enid were also West Pingelly, however his parents were no longer farming. Amy had died in 1953.

In about 1968 Harry and Enid moved to Mt. Barker region to take up farming and remained there through to 1977.

Harry Nottle died 19 May 1978 aged 58 years.  He was buried at Albany.

 

 

 

 

Below:  In training

Below:  The Nottle family would have been relieved to hear news of Wilfred in 1943.