TIM BOWDEN 1937 – 2024
WITH HANK NELSON , TIM BOWDEN INTEREVIEWED AS MANY FORMER POWS AS POSSIBLE – WHAT THESE MEN SURVIVED IS OVERWHELMING – WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT WAS REVEALING!
THANK GOD FOR HANK & BOWDEN & THEIR PERSEVERANCE
Or we would never have known what we today know
‘I Don’t Think I Deserve a Pension – We Didn’t Do Much Fighting’: Interviewing Australian Prisoners of War of the Japanese, 1942–1945′
Tasmanian born ABC broadcaster, producer and author Tim Bowden died 4 Sept 2024 aged 87 years.
Please read about Bowden’s death
Bowden was a war correspondent in Vietnam and producer of ground breaking radio oral history series, he wrote 18 books, and more recently was known for the TV series ‘Backchat’ which aired in 1994.
We, the descendants of former POWs of Japan would recognise the well-known voice of Tim Bowden in the ABC’S 1984 radio series “Prisoners of War: Australians under Nippon written by by Hank Nelson, presented by Tim Bowden. Bowden’s unique voice was easily recognisable and almost soothing.
16 X 45 minutes gut-wrenching interviews from which Hank Nelson produced a book of the same name.
‘Bowden met with historian Hank Nelson and the two men struck up a partnership. Bowden said Hank was the driver and Bowden taught him how to use the tape machine. The two men created 350 hours of original tape over two years. It went to air in 1984. It was three seasons of eight programs once a week on Saturday ABC Radio Two, now Radio National.
Bowden and Nelson knew there was an urgency to make this series. The veterans were now in their 60’s it was then 40 years since the end of the war. Australians had hardly ever talked about their experiences – their story had never been told.’
The following excerpts are from Bowden:
“Now, the reason why it wasn’t told was because they felt, believe it or not, slightly ashamed. And military historians are basically not interested. Hank felt we had to get people from every World War II Australian POW camp, from Timor to Manchuria, and interview them. It was the most traumatic thing. And because we had an interest and a knowledge, these blokes started to talk.
I’d say: ‘Did you go to the Thai-Burma railway?’ ‘Yeah, mate.’ ‘Were you on the Thai side or the Burma side? Were you with H force or F force?’ ‘Oh, you know about that?’ And suddenly they’re talking to you, as though you’d been there with them.
What I didn’t realise was the trail of sleepless nights I was leaving behind me.”
“There were some interesting repercussions. Suddenly the lid was off a whole lot of things. Things like, not all the officer POWs behaved well. Some like Weary Dunlop were heroes.
Some! – were what the blokes called White Japs and collaborated. The series started bringing this sort of stuff out. Hank was adamant we had to find material not in the literature. And we did.”
Tim Bowden received an Order of Australia for services to public broadcasting in June 1994, and the Centenary Award for service as a local radio presenter and as a nationally recognised author in 2001. In May 1997 Tim was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Tasmania.
Of Bowden’s books – my absolute favourite is “Stubborn Buggers” The Survivors of the infamous POW Outram Road Gaol that made Changi look life Heaven.
Two 2/4th soldiers featured in this most revealing book – WX12835 John McGregor and WX6067 Penrod Dean who was appointed CO of ‘B’ Company 7 Platoon, 2/4th MGB. They were two of 12 Australian POWs who survived solitary confinement at Outram Road gaol under the most horrific and unimaginable conditions. Regretfully McGregor was unable to be interviewed for book as he had died some years earlier. McGregor never spoke or wrote a word of criticism of Dean. It was said the main reason Dean had to get away (and escape) from Changi was because 2/4th men were after his (Dean’s) blood.
Dean refused the invitation to be interviewed, stating he was then committed to writing his own book.
McGregor wrote ‘Blood on the Rising Sun’ and Penrod Dean in later years wrote ‘SINGAPORE SAMURAI’ Printed by Kangaroo Press, ISBN 0 864417 932 4.
The following is from Tim Bowden’s ‘Stubborn Buggers’:
‘McGregor’s Outram Road cell was next door to Nielsen and it was Nielson who taught him morse code, enabling the two POWs to exchange messages with each other. McGregor said if it had not been for Nielson teaching him morse he would never have survived. McGregor had a photographic memory and was able to memorise the basics of morse code sent to him from Nielson (McGregor had one day to memorise before ridding himself of evidence written on a scrap of paper bound around a chopstick with a thread from prison clothes and delivered by a ‘trusty’ Chinese who occasionally entered the men’s cells to empty their benki buckets.’
When Dean published his book years after McGregor had died Dean claimed to have learnt morse code. Former POW Nielson was able to confirm this was not true because he had in fact taught McGregor himself. McGregor & Nielson were in adjoining cells.
It has never been written or spoken of but the men of Dean’s 2/4th Coy believed him to have deserted his post during the fighting and was at the wharf trying to get on ships leaving Singapore with women,children and wounded. He certainly did not remain with his men during the fighting.
Nielson despised Dean for ingratiating himself with the Japanese at Outram Road. He also knew of Dean’s desertion and attempt to leave Singapore. It seems many in 8th Division knew the true story.
Nielson was able to confirm Dean looked after himself at Outram Road. Once ingratiating himself with the Japanese Dean was always healthy looking and never appeared malnourished as everybody else did.
McGregor’s friendship and support of Dean never waivered.
Please read further about Tim Bowden
Bowden (Stubborn Buggers) said Chris Nielson was one if not the the most interesting person he ever met.
Chris Nielson had the last word in Bowden’s book ‘Stubborn Buggers’:
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m no bloody hero, just one stubborn bugger, that’s all.
Anybody can be a hero. It depends on how you look at it. But I think the main thing is, when you’re frightened – it’s all right to be frightened you know – but don’t let any other bugger see. That’s the secret. Yeah you can be frightened, I’ve been frightened, but I was the only bugger who knew it.”
Words of wisdom spoken by the former POW Nielson who would deliberately goad and needle Outram Road Guards to drag him out of his cell to beat and punish him. Nielson who was in solitary confinement said he just needed to break the silence or he would have gone mad.
Hank Nelson 1937 – 2012
‘The Boy from Boort Remembering Hank Nelson’ By Tim Bowden.
Please read this overview from Australian Nation Press Library
‘I Don’t Think I Deserve a Pension – We Didn’t Do Much Fighting’: Interviewing Australian Prisoners of War of the Japanese, 1942–1945′ from an interview with former POWs.
Nelson interviewed POW Doctor Ian Duncan who was in Japan:
‘At the end of the war I interviewed every Australian and English soldier in my camp – I was the only medical officer in the camp. And I thought it was my duty to record their disabilities. And you’d say to them, what diseases did you have as a prisoner of war? Nothing much, Doc, nothing much at all. Did you have malaria? Oh yes, I had malaria. Did you have dysentery? Oh yes, I had dysentery. Did you have beriberi? Yes, I had beriberi. Did you have pellagra? Yes, I had pellagra – but nothing very much. These are lethal diseases. But that was the norm, you see, everyone had them. Therefore they accepted them as normal.’
He spoke with Dr Ian Duncan 40 years later:
‘I would say most of them, at least 50 per cent of them, have some form of nervous trouble. A lot of them have stomach trouble, a lot have gastric and duodenal ulcers, a lot still have chronic diarrhoea. But everyone who worked, certainly on the railway and in the mines in Japan, has some form of arthritic degeneration caused by the conditions under which they worked. I’ve seen X-rays of the spines of some of these men, and they are really shocking – how they get around I don’t know. But they do and they make light of it. The men almost invariably come in and say, ‘Well, I don’t want to seem to be a bludger, but I’ve got this trouble’, or, ‘I thought I’d come along and see you. I don’t think I deserve any pension; we didn’t do much fighting’. And this is their attitude. They actually believe that they are not entitled to a lot of the benefits of ex-servicemen. But they are. They fought a pretty hard war. As POWs.’
Commanding Officer of ‘B’ Company 7 Platoon. did an interview with ex-POW Hughie Clark:
‘If one of our blokes was crook, someone always took him food. I was taking an egg down to a mate in hospital when this raspy-voiced Englishman said,
‘There’s no doubt about it. You always stick together’.
Australians didn’t die alone.
I saw plenty of Englishmen and Dutchmen dying on their own – but not Australians.
I can explain it by comparing the way people behave in a city with those in a country town. In a country town the people might not like each other, but they know one another, and when something goes wrong, they rally around. In a suburb people don’t know other people and don’t feel responsible. Our army was like a country town – other soldiers might well have been in the city.’
At one stage Tim Bowden interviewed Chris Neilson, a survivor of Outram Road Gaol, the place of secondary punishment and also the prison in Singapore for those who had offended against the Japanese. Neilson said that he had attempted to escape from a work camp on Singapore island. But when one of the party of five became intensely ill they brought him back to camp, and intended to try again the next night. As they rested during the day they were suddenly awakened with a boot in the ribs – the Japanese arrested them for attempting to escape. Neilson said that the senior Australian officer in the camp, Lieutenant-Colonel RF Oakes, had informed the Japanese, presumably because he thought that the escape would bring reprisals on him and the remaining prisoners. This was in spite of the fact that it was the duty of all captured soldiers to attempt to escape.
Nelson told Tim they could not publish the Neilson story without confirmation.
Without great difficulty they found the sworn statement of another escapee, Driver Reg Morris.
Morris had details of the escape attempt, gave all the names of those involved and the dates, and said that on the escapees’ return with their sick mate, Oakes ‘saw fit to hand us over to the Japanese’.
We let Neilson’s words go to air.
From Bowden:
“Outram Road Gaol survivor, Chris Neilson, whose bullshit detector was always well honed, reacted characteristically when a psychologist said to him
‘You’ve got to forget about it (the war) completely’.
Nielson said, “You stupid bastard, if you were there for five bloody minutes, you’d never forget it all your bloody life”’.
Please read story of Oakes betrayal of Five Australian POWs
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The following are taken from Bowden’s interviews:
Toilet Humuor
Humour was never absent from the most dire of circumstances on the Thai-Burma Railway, when morale could be raised by misfortune, as Private Don Moore recalled:
Toilet hygiene was the single most effective way to prevent cholera. Our doctor, Captain Millard (Konyu 2) pulled no punches. ‘
If you don’t make it to the latrine, you will infect some of your mates and they will surely die as a result of your carelessness and stupidity. If you get caught short on your mission you are the same as a murderer!’
Following instructions, we dug a new, very deep trench and placed four strong timber planks across it. We then cleared a pathway through the jungle scrub so that the latrine could be quickly reached by those in urgent need.
In the never-ending rain the trench quickly half-filled with water and so to add to our lot, the area rapidly became muddy and the wooden planks precariously slippery. It was always a race against time and Roly Hull in his ardour to complete his dash to the new latrine like the good doctor said, had just reached it, when he slipped, over-balanced and fell into its murky depths.
His cries of distress quickly bought his mates to the scene.
‘What the hell are you doing down there Roly?’
‘What the bloody hell do you think I’m doing? Learning to swim?’
______________
POW OFFICERS
‘While relations between Australian officers and their troops were better than in the British Army, the Australian officers found themselves – as did the British officers – in a privileged position. They were accorded status by the Japanese and given more privileges, but importantly they did not have to do the hard, backbreaking work that killed so many Australian and British troops on the railway.
In battle, officers die in numbers out of proportion to their men. But in the Asian POW situation, being an officer was like being issued with a ticket to go home. Hank Nelson, with his usual thoroughness, researched this assertion:
The 2/29th Battalion lost 12 officers and 58 other ranks killed in action. Even when it was taken into account that many other ranks were classed as ‘missing believed killed’, the officers died in battle out of proportion to their numbers. But as prisoners, two officers and 381 other ranks died. In H Force (on the Thai-Burma Railway), the death rate for British and Australian officers was 6 per cent – for the men, it was over 30 per cent. Among the Australians in F Force, three officers died in comparison with 1065 other ranks. On HMAS Perth 18 officers were killed in action or drowned, but none died as prisoners of war…. The battle conditions which made junior officers vulnerable were reversed when the Allies surrendered (to Japan).
Not all the Australian officers behaved well, although most did. The doctors are remembered as heroes by the ex-POWs.
Some officers could never attend any unit reunion after the war because of their shameful conduct.
Lieutenant-Colonel Gus Kappe came back to Changi from the Thai-Burma Railway fat, in marked contrast to his skeletal men. As well as feathering his own nest with extra food from his officers’ allowance (some officers did pool their extra pay and did share with their men), Gus Kappe even turned over his own men to the Japanese for punishment!
Private George Aspinall (the Changi photographer) told me of his experience with Kappe on F Force, Thai-Burma Railway:
‘He was renowned for laying back all day doing nothing, issuing orders and making life very hard for the rest of the men that were working. To some extent he was co-operating with the Japanese to their detriment. The men detested this particular person. Even today they don’t talk about such things publicly – they prefer to let bygones be bygones. But when this group is talking privately, some of these names come up and there’s a real hate session. It did anger people. But we were supposed to be soldiers – we were supposed to take orders from superior officers. We perhaps tried to live up to a code, something set up by our forefathers in World War One.’
To add insult to injury, Lt-Colonel Kappe was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his war service!
Private Don Moore spoke of another case:
‘There was one officer known on the railway as ‘The White Jap’. He was entirely dedicated to his own self-preservation. He was affluent by POW standards. He had money that he would lend where he would be paid back three times the amount in English currency when he came back. This money had come from the proceeds of a canteen which he ran at a camp of which he was the commander. In this case it was private enterprise purely and simply for himself.
This fellow, I speak of, has never been back to any reunion that I know of.’
Kevin Fagan, another legendary doctor on the line, put it this way:
I felt that Australians had a greater sense of group loyalty than the British. There was this terrible class thing in the British mind and it’s horrible. I’ve seen British officers at the end of a long day’s march, as soon they arrived at the camp, just flopped down on the ground. Someone would say, ‘What about the men?’
..‘Oh, bugger the men, I can’t do any more.’
Whereas a fellow like Major ‘Roaring Reggie’ Newton would be scrounging around trying to buy a few eggs for the sick, trying to organise the men to be together, finding out where everybody was and whether anyone needed a doctor – and do all that before he even thought of eating or sitting down.
