Basil's war

This is the story of my cousin Basil Edwards, who was a POW of the Japanese during the 2nd World War. Hardly anyone remembers him now, and he left no heirs, but his life, and service to his country, should not be forgotten.

In February 1942, the British forces suffered at crushing defeat with the fall of Singapore to the advancing Japanese army.
When news came of this came to Lubeck, it had a direct impact on my family, as on many others in the neighborhood. My cousin, Bas, last heard of in Singapore, was listed as “missing in action”. He was the older son of one of Dad’s sisters, Lil, who lived in nearby Murtoa.
It hasn’t been an easy story for me to write, because Bas had a difficult relationship with his mother, my Auntie Lil, and I loved them both.

Lil was my father’s older sister, born in 1894, at Sheep Hills in Victoria. In 1913 she married Charlie Edwards, and the following year they had a son, Freddy. When the first World War began, two of Lil’s older brothers, Ted and Alf, enlisted and were sent overseas. Both were killed in France in 1916.

In 1917, Lil’s husband Charlie also enlisted in the army, and was sent to France. Injured in action, (the Army records show “severe injury to right eye”) he returned to Australia in 1918.
While Charlie was off serving King and country, Lil had a bit of bad luck. She fell pregnant. The baby was my cousin Basil Edwards, who was registered as Charlie’s son, but clearly was not his child. This was not an unusual situation in time of war, many men returned from the front to discover unexpected additions to the family. But he’d only been gone a year or so…..

Family legend has it that, on his return, Charlie was met, not by Lil, but by his mother-in-law, who had the unhappy task of telling him about the new family member. Apparently Charlie immediately removed his own son, leaving Lil and her new baby to fend for themselves.
 Until Charlie returned, Lil would have received part of his army pay, now she had no means of support – there was no Government pension for deserted wives in those days. Her options were limited, (it seems unlikely that her father would have housed her), and she needed to find work. So she did as many women in her situation were forced to do – she put the baby in a children’s home, and then worked as a barmaid.

Bas told me of this himself, relating how his mother would turn up from time to time, and even reclaimed him a couple of times when she had a live-in job. But always he had to go back – I have found a record of his admission to a Home in Ballarat in 1926, (he was eight years old) with a notation “to pay 7 shillings a week”. Most homes asked for a regular payment for the children’s upkeep, and Lil often fell behind with these. Then he wouldn’t see her for ages.
According to another cousin who knew them well, when Lil remarried in1927 to Tom Woods, it was Tom who got Bas out of the home – Lil would have left him there.

Although Bas told me that the next years were very happy – he adored Tom  – it’s hardly surprising that his relationship with Lil remained difficult. Today we might explain this by acknowledging the lack of bonding between mother and son, and take into account the shame and worry she must have experienced, but still….I’ve always found it hard to understand.

In 1932, Lil had another son, Clive. Now she had a child she could love, and to the onlooker it always seemed that Clive was her favorite. But despite Lil’s attitude, and the fourteen year age gap, Bas and Clive became fast friends. Bas grew up and left school, starting work with a local baker. Life was good, he liked a beer or two, and a game of footy.

 Then, in 1939, war was declared in Europe, and the Japanese were advancing on several fronts in South East Asia. Like many of his mates, Bas enlisted.
His Army record shows that Basil Wilfred Edwards enlisted at Murtoa, Vic. on 10th May 1941. He gave his occupation as Bread Carter, and next of kin as his mother, Lilian Woods. He was 23 years old, 5 ft 10 inches tall, and solidly built.
 After a couple of weeks of basic training, he was granted a weekend leave without pay, to see his family. Though no-one knew it then, he wouldn’t see them again for over 4 years.

Then followed a few weeks more of training, and finally he embarked with the 2/29th Battalion, bound for Malaya, arriving at Singapore on 23rd August, 1941. In Malaya the battalion underwent further training in jungle warfare, and life for Bas was uneventful, apart from a 15 shilling fine for a minor misdemeanour in October. Probably for not wearing his army shirt – quite a few of them got into trouble for that.

But the Japanese were advancing on Malaya, and soon the 2/29th division were engaged in heavy fighting, and were shelled by the Japanese, with many men killed or seriously injured.
In January 1942, Bas suffered serious shrapnel wounds, and was hospitalised in Singapore. Before the Army doctors could remove all the shrapnel, Singapore fell to the Japanese, and he became a prisoner of war. Army records show him simply as ‘missing’ from 21-4-1942, until 9-6-1943, when he was finally confirmed as a POW.

He was repatriated to Australia in October 1945, and immediately admitted to hospital. Weighing only 6 stone (38 kilos), he was suffering from tuberculosis, scabies, and the untreated shrapnel injuries to his arm and leg. His vision had also been affected by the inadequate diet in Changi.
After a series of operations and treatment for TB, he was discharged from the Army in May 1946. Classified as  TPI (totally and permanently incapacitated), he was free to resume his life. He was 28 years old.

I don’t know a great deal about his later life – he spent many years living in Queensland and  later NSW, where he met and married his wife Rae. She was a good deal older than Bas, and they had no children. Eventually they settled in Mildura, where Bas died in 1982. He is buried at Murtoa.

Bas visited his mother in Murtoa often, and that was when I came to know him. He was a cheerful chap, and I believe lived a fairly happy life, all things considered – he always walked with a stick, and the leftover shrapnel often caused him pain. He was an enthusiastic member of the Mildura RSL, and he and Rae took a trip to Changi not long before he died.

I visited them in Mildura in 1979, and one night he spoke a little about his time as a POW. He said he never suffered directly at the hands of the Japanese – apart from the privations of POW life – but was haunted by the cruelty experienced by some of his mates. He wouldn’t say much, only that it was “all in the past now, and better left that way”.

I was reminded of Bas yesterday – I often think of him – because I had a young Japanese woman as a guest in my home. There was a family working bee to clean up my overgrown garden, and Ayaka, who is staying with my daughter as a WWOOFer, came to help. A delightful young woman, she worked as hard and willingly as any of my family, and after they’d gone home, I wondered what Bas would have made of the friendship between our two countries.
I reckon he would have approved.