FROM DONEGAL to NAGASAKI The Life and Times of FRANK SCOTT 1907 – 1982 Schoolboy, Emigrant, Farmer, Miner, Fisherman, Powder Monkey, The River Finn, County Donegal, Ireland Surveyor’s Assistant, Australian Soldier, Husband, Father. PROUD SAPPER OF THE 2/6th FIELD COMPANY ‘MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA ORIGINALS’ 7th DIVISION ENGINEERS AUSTRALIAN ARMY 1940 -1946 Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki August 1945 PRISONER OF WAR 1942 - 1945 Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes In one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated -- so: "Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges -- Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!" RUDYARD KIPLING b. 1865 ‘The Explorer’ WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY PETER RUSSELL SCOTT 2015 1 | P a g e CHAPTERS: PART 1 18A Japanese Government POW Records 18B Biography of MAJ LJ Robertson 1. Prologue .......................... p2 2. County Donegal 1600s to early 18C Biography of LT MJ Flynn 1900s ............................... p6 3. A time of change – Ireland after 18D Three Pagodas Pass the Easter Uprising .......... 11 4. The Flight from Ireland ..... p12 18E USS Cape Gloucester 5. In England 1922-1926 ...... p13 6. Emigration to Australia 1926 18F The Death Railway – A Dutch ........... p16 Viewpoint 7. The Western Australia years ............. p16 18G Australian unions exposed as war 8. Darwin around 1940 ..... p19 saboteurs 18H 70th Anniversary of the sinking of the CHAPTERS: PART 2 Rakuyo Maru 9. Australia in 1940 - Joining the 18J The Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo 2nd AIF ........ p20 18K Reference Books/Sites 10. Off to War - The Middle East, North Africa and Syria .... p40 11. Captivity – becoming a About the Author ........ p121 Prisoner of War of the Japanese - Java and Changi .... p61 12. The Burma – Thailand Death Railway ........ p76 Written and compiled by Peter Russell 13. Drawing the Short Straw – Scott who claims moral rights and POWs selected to go to Japan intellectual rights to the original work ........ p92 contained herein and to the compilation 14. Salvation - Release and return arrangement. The work of other authors to Australia .... authorities and agencies is acknowledged p106 as their own. 15. Meeting Mavis and starting a family .... p106 Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. 16. At Ease – life at West ANZAC Day, 25th April 2015, on the 75th Tamworth ........ p107 Anniversary of the raising of the 7th 17. Trying to understand the mind Division, 2nd AIF at Ingleburn in 1940. of the Former Prisoner of War ........ p108 18. Frank’s Passing and Legacy Peter Scott may be contacted at ........ p108 [email protected] APPENDICES ........ p111 2 | P a g e NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO TO ME, NO MATTER HOW YOU TREAT ME, I PART 1 AM STILL HERE AND WILL NOT GIVE UP! 1.PROLOGUE I have written this narrative principally for My father told me little of his upbringing the descendents of my late father Lewis and life in Ireland or indeed of his life Francis ‘Frank’ Scott who may be before he was married. It was not until I interested in their family history, so that was in my thirties and after he had died they may know about the Scott family did I begin to wonder about his life from east Donegal, Ireland, and something experiences in Donegal, England, Western about Frank the man, his personality and Australia, and Darwin and on active character traits, some of which might pass service with the Australian Army during from generation to generation. World War 2. My interest in things Irish was kindled These characteristics are, principally, a love during my childhood at the ‘Irish Corner’ of adventure and travel, a sense of fairness of Gipps Street West Tamworth. Frank in all things, a rejection of falseness and would sit with Harry Attwell and his patronising behaviour, and some quietness father Ned Attwell (a WW1 Battle of the of a person who minds their own business, Somme veteran with one artificial leg) yet who, from time-to-time, may express a both from Lisburn in Northern Ireland, and deeply held opinion. Basic to all of this is with George Blair from Balleybofey in an underlying commitment, once made, to Donegal, and philosophise about the family. World in general, and the then ‘troubles’ in Ireland in particular. I also want to pay tribute to Frank’s service In about 1987 at the time of the ‘Welcome to his adopted country during World War 2, so that people might know of the price Home Parade’ for Vietnam War veterans, I that he paid for becoming an Australian. In began to reflect not only on my own doing so, I pay tribute to the Sappers of his experiences as a Sapper during the Vietnam unit, the 2/6th Field Company, who fought War, but also on what might have been and died beside him, mostly as a lost Frank’s experiences as a Sapper during company of Australian Army combat WW2. I really regret not having engineers, Prisoners of War of the barbaric exchanged those experiences with him; no and cruel Japanese in the period 1942 to doubt we would have performed a lot of 1945. I want their service to be similar Engineer tasks and got up to similar acknowledged and appreciated by future Sapper mischief. generations of Australians and not One thing that I do know is that we shared carelessly cast aside by uncaring history not only an enormous pride in having revisionists. been a Sapper on Active Service, but also the great sadness at the loss of comrades Despite the brutal treatment meted out to who fell on the battlefield. them, the Sappers remained defiant and Perhaps this written account to Frank’s war dignified. They refused to buckle and service will in some way help redress submit, often to the point of death. missed opportunities. At the end of his captivity in the coal mine We both knew the adverse effects that our near Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945, traumatic experiences have had on our Frank was near death but still saying to his own families, those effects being common captors: within families of many war veterans. 3 | P a g e I have been fortunate to travel twice with and after marriage) was profound. His my wife Julianne over much of Ireland, childhood and early teens were spent in and particularly to east Donegal, where, the picturesque Welchtown district in east through research and the kindness of many Donegal where his father’s family had lived people, I was able to locate the places in for many generations, and had a strong the beautiful Finn Valley and in New Irish identity. Buildings, where Frank spent his childhood The Easter uprising in Ireland in 1916 led to up until the age of about 14 or 15. the Anglo-Irish War, followed by the Irish Julianne also encouraged me to travel to Civil War and, in 1922, the Partition of Thailand, and the Three Pagodas Pass, and Ireland into two parts: The Irish Free State we had at that time a most amazing (which later became the Republic of journey with my brother Rob and his wife Ireland) and Northern Ireland (part of the Jill, and Rob and I crossed over into UK). All of County Donegal, including the Burma along the route of the terrible predominantly protestant Welchtown, Burma-Thailand Death Railway. formed part of the Free State. Frank's life experience was based on three Frank’s (Church of Ireland) family were things: the desire for adventure and forced to chose to flee Donegal due to opportunity, the impact of war, and the intimidation by zealous post-Partition value of family life. republicans known as ‘the raiders’. Firstly, the desire for adventure and Like so many other east Donegal opportunity, that is, ‘the Irish rover’ factor. Protestants, Frank’s family were excluded Seeking adventure and opportunity has by the Border Commissioners (the British characterised the history of people named Government) from becoming part of Scott (Latin Scotti ) for centuries, and the Northern Ireland at the time of Partition, history of the Scotts in the province of and chose the path of emigration, firstly to Ulster in north Ireland is part of the rich England. but often conflicted history of Ireland over My father espoused neither unionist nor many centuries. nationalist ideology, nor sectarianism, and Many say this history can be traced back to especially not any religious bigotry. He Irish sea raiders who migrated from Ireland was just an Irish boy from Donegal. to Scotland in the 5th Century AD, and He could be described as having an open who in fact gave Scotland its’ name. mind and a very humanist outlook, no The Scotti became intermingled with other doubt reinforced by his dreadful invaders of the British Isles and the name experiences as an Australian Prisoner of Scott became common on the Anglo- War of the Japanese, where it was Scottish border. necessary for mates, irrespective of politics or religion, to support each other in order It is thought that Frank's forbears, seeking to survive; No Australian prisoner ever new opportunities, migrated to the died alone on the Burma-Thailand province of Ulster in north Ireland in the Railway. 1600's or 1700’s as part of the English sponsored 'Plantation of Ulster'. Frank’s ‘Irish rover’ father, Lewis Henry Scott, supported unenthusiastically by his The earliest Scott of Frank’s line that I have mother Christina Jane Scott, settled in a record of is a John Scott, b. 1800, a Massachusetts the United States of America teacher living just north of Donegal Town, in the 1930’s, and took up American in charge of a school comprised of Church citizenship.