{"id":105,"date":"2019-11-19T12:50:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T12:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.btrma.org.au\/wordpress\/?p=105"},"modified":"2020-05-01T11:53:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T03:53:20","slug":"vale-neil-ormiston-macpherson-oam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/?p=105","title":{"rendered":"Vale Neil Ormiston MacPherson OAM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\nNeil Ormiston MacPherson WX16572 of 2\/2nd Pioneer Battalion of Williams Force Burma Thailand Railway 1942-1944, Japan 1945. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nBorn 14th May 1922. Enlisted 22nd September 1941. Died 30th March 2019. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTrained with 11th Battalion Senior Cadets in 1938-39.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTrained at Northam Training Camp. November 1941 to the Middle East on \nHMT Queen Mary. To Palestine for training. Transferred from 24TH \nInfantry Training Battalion to 2\/2 Pioneer Battalion. January 1942 left \nMiddle East on HMT Orcades with 2\/3rd Machine Gun Battalion and others \nto Dutch East Indies. Full Pioneer Battalion landed at Tanjong Priok, \nJava and saw action against the Japanese before capture. Transferred to \nSingapore on Kendon Maru and to Rangoon, Burma, on Mayabashi Maru in \nOctober 1942. To Moulmein on Yamagata Maru. Joined Williams Force.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn February 1942, 3000 Australians, the vanguard of the 7th Division, \nreturning to Australia from the Middle East on the SS Orcades, were \ndiverted to Java to help stem the Japanese invasion sweeping towards \nAustralia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOn the 8th March 1942 the Dutch authorities surrendered the island along\n with all allied forces. At age 19 years Neil MacPherson became a \nprisoner of a cruel and brutal regime and joined over 22,000 fellow \nAustralians. Of those over 8,000 or 36% paid the supreme sacrifice, most\n were to suffer intolerably cruel and lingering deaths.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn September 1942 under the command of legendary C.O. Lt Colonel \nWilliams, 1800 prisoners from Java were shipped to Burma in dreadful \nconditions in three separate Hell Ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn Burma, Williams Force of 800 men was made up of 450 of Pioneers from \nthe Middle East, the rest mainly young sailors, survivors of HMAS Perth.\n The officers had been in action in Syria and Java so was held in high \nesteem by the Pioneers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nArriving in Thanbyuzayat in October 1942, Williams Force joined \nBrigadier Varley\u2019s A Force of 3000 Australians just arrived from the \nport of Tavoy. A Force was the first Australians to start work on the \nBurma Thailand Railway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe next Australians, Dunlop Force No 5 Group, arrived in Burma in \nJanuary 1943 from Java and was the first Australian group to commence \nwork on the Thailand end of the Burma Thailand railway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe following 15 months were to test the mettle, morale, and Anzac \nspirit of the Australian prisoners in Burma. A starvation diet of a hand\n full of rice and watery (usually meatless) stew. Work clearing the \njungle, on embankments, on cuttings, on bridges in the heat of the dry, \nand the misery and slush of the wet.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clothes and footwear, long destroyed in the foetid jungle the \nonly protection from the burning heat and the rain, was a loincloth. Bed\n bugs and lice left by native workers made for harrowing and restless \nnights, deaths were continuous and the numbers dwindled as work hours \ngrew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nNo 1 force actually worked continually through the wet, from Thanbuzayat\n right through into Thailand where the two ends of the Railway were \njoined on 17th October 1943.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWith no drugs whatsoever, malaria, dysentery, beri beri, pellagra, \ntropical ulcers smallpox and finally cholera took its toll. The \ndedicated Doctors and medical staff were supermen, working with make \nshift tools, without them losses would have doubled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nThe survivors, wrecks of men in rags, staggered out of their jungle \ncamps in January 1944 to be transported to the well organised, \nbetter-equipped camps in Tamarkan & Kanburi (Kanchanaburi and Tha \nMakan).\nDespite a continuing death rate from the results of the ordeal, after \nsix months of improved food and lighter work survivors regained some \nsemblance of health but this transpired to be a well designed plan by \nthe captors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nThousands of Railway workers, Australians in a majority, were selected \nfor shipment to Japan as slave labor, to work in mines, factories and on\n the docks. Thousands of them died in Hell Ships from attacks by US \nsubmarines and aircraft. Neil Macpherson\u2019s luck as a survivor continued.\n He was on the last ship, the Awa Maru (his fourth Hell Ship), to \nsuccessfully make the journey. He arrived in Japan in January 1945, the \ncoldest winter Japan experienced in 40 years, to spend the remaining \nmonths working in a coalmine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAn unknown author described conditions on board these Hell Ships thus:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cCrowded onto cramped platforms, with barely enough space to turn \naround, a mass of unwashed bodies struggling to survive in a sea of \nsweat and revolting smells, in the stifling heat of the holds. Initially\n in the tropical heat near the equator, but the ensuing month was to see\n us making our way across snow covered decks for our limited toilet \nfunctions\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFinally, the ordeal was over, the Japanese capitulated and the POWs were liberated. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOn 16th August, 1945, the prisoners of Neil\u2019s group were freed. Left \nSenryu on 14th September for Nagasaki where they boarded ships en route \nto Okinawa. They travelled by B24 Liberator bombers to Luzon Island and \nby C45 Transports to Manila. By aircraft carrier HMS Formidable to \nSydney and train to Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFinal discharge was on 11th February 1946.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nThe exPOWs took up life where they left off, brought up families, helped\n build a great nation, most drew a curtain on the horrors through which \nthey had lived.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMaturing quickly, they adapted, found a maturity far above their age, \nlearned self discipline – most importantly they discovered \u201cmate-ship\u201d. \nNeil MacPherson was fond of quoting Duncan Butler of the 2\/12th Field \nAmbulance who wrote the poem Mates with the theme.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo prisoner on the railway survived who did not have a mate\u201d.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nVale Neil Ormiston MacPherson OAM \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Ormiston MacPherson WX16572 of 2\/2nd Pioneer Battalion of Williams Force Burma Thailand Railway 1942-1944, Japan 1945. Born 14th May … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}