Trying to trace an Australian POW

CTNana · 20-11-2007, 11:49 PM

Is there any way of tracing an Australian relative who was captured and was a Japanese POW. There is some family controversy as to whether he was re-arrested when he got back to Australia because he refused to follow an order and hit the officer concerned.

Any ideas?

Kyt · 21-11-2007, 12:00 AM

Do you know what service he was? Or even a name. The first place to look would be:

World War Two Nominal Roll

The site lists all Australians who served during the war. It also states whether they were POW. If you find your relative then we could see if his service file has been digitised. If it hasn't then you could still aplly for it (costs Aus$16).

CTNana · 21-11-2007, 12:11 AM

Wow got it first hit Kyt!

Not sure whether it is politic to publish his details until I get a reply back from Australia. It does say under "honours" - "None for Display" but doesn't actually qualify what that means in the notes. Any ideas?

Kyt · 21-11-2007, 12:14 AM

Honours means medals (except campaign medals).

If you would like to PM me the details I could do a bit of digging and let you know.

CTNana · 21-11-2007, 12:51 AM

Have done so Kyt. It was the None Displayed rather than simply None which confused me.

Is there a British equivalent site for all those who served rather than just the CWGC for casualties. I thought the Australian site was excellent especially given the limited amount of information I had.

Kyt · 21-11-2007, 12:59 AM

I'm afraid only the Australians have produced such a comprehensive database. All the other Commonwealth countries are still hiding behind their privacy laws.

The Australians have done a fantastic job. It's a pity the others haven't done the bare minimum of providing even just details like name, number and unit.

Kohima · 30-05-2008, 01:57 AM

What you really need to do is to go down to the National Archives & look up the JIC's.

It is not known if they are 100% complete, but if held prisoner there should be a JIC held for him.

Regards

simon

Brian S · 30-05-2008, 10:12 AM

It is possible your man made a report when Liberated.

Those made by returning Prisoners of the Japanese are in Files WO344/361 to WO344/410 and are in Alphabetical sequence.

Kohima · 31-05-2008, 12:35 AM

As an addendum to my initial post, I was of course refering to the National Archives in the UK, however you will be able to obtain his service record from the Australian National Archives, you can do this on-line & can either have it mailed in hard copy form or alternately you can view on line after the clearence of the record which ususally takes about 1 month after ordering.
Here is a link:
RecordSearch - National Archives of Australia
Regards

simon