My Search For A Scottish Soldiers Grave

By Neil MacPherson ex POW, William's Force Burma Railway

In April 1998, after fifty-six years I journeyed back to Thanbyuzayat in Burma to pay my respects to those mates who died on the Burma Siam Death Railway and were buried in the war cemetery there.

On my return to Australia in my continued long search for my Scottish ancestors a new found cousin's brief and vague report stated, "his brother Teddy had joined the Gordon Highlanders, gone out to Singapore and was never heard of again". This was a challenge that I could not ignore; my first move was to enlist the help of my Genealogical Researcher in Scotland who trolled through the British Prisoner of War dead. Here she found the following entry "Frederick Cresswell Dickson, age 28, born Scotland, died 2nd September 1943, place Asia, Cause of Death prisoner of war.

The next inquiry was to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which produced the following, Private Frederick Cresswell Dickson, Reg No 857642, Gordon Highland 2nd Battalion, died as a prisoner of war 2nd September 1943, buried at Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery Burma, Plot B1, Row C, Grave 7.

Then followed instructions how to get to Thanbyuzayat, the Visa requirements and the warning that the area was close to rebel held territory. How sad that I had actually visited the Thanbyuzayat War cemetery several weeks before without knowing I was at the site of my cousin's grave.

My next move was to write to the Gordon Highland Regiment Association in Viewfield Road Aberdeen, Scotland the address supplied by my helpful Researcher. The prompt reply included my cousin's Army Photograph his then next of kin, address and the added information that my cousin had died in Nikki in Thailand, close to the Burma border. At that time I was working at the 105 Kilo camp in Burma, 6 kilometres from the border unknowingly just 30 kilometres from my dying cousin

Frederick Cresswell Dickson was a member of F Force made up of 3334 British and 3666 Australians, this force suffered the highest death rate of any group on the railway, the British death rate of 2037 was 61%, Australians lost 1060 which was 29%

You may wonder why my cousin who died in Thailand and was buried in Thanbyuzayat, Burma 130 kilometres from where he died. The jungle graves were located in camps over the full 415 kilometres of the railway, at the end of the war the Commonwealth War Graves Commission teams recovered all the remains from these cemeteries. Those graves located in Nikki and camps north of that point were recovered and re-interred at Thanbyuzayat. Those remains located in graves south of Nikki were re-interred in Chungkai and Kanchanaburi war cemeteries in Thailand.

On the 2nd May 1999, after attending the annual Anzac Quiet Lion Tour of Thailand, I again made the long journey to Thanbyuzayat from Bangkok, via Rangoon and Moulmein to pay my respects to a cousin I had never known. A cousin who I had 56 years ago, unknowingly shared the horrors of the Death Railway To kneel before his grave was an emotional experience that will remembered for many years, another of the many Scottish soldiers who are buried far from their native land in foreign ground.