Chapter 18
In early 1987, the Reparations Committee began providing stories to every reporter who would listen. Given David’s background, he had many contacts he could call on.
The information from Canada about suing the Japanese was like the light at the end of a tunnel for us. I had reporter mates in Melbourne and Sydney who I’d worked with before I retired, and they gave me the names of a few more journalists who they thought would be sympathetic to our cause. I knew the Australian government hated the publicity because Japan was its main trading partner. I also knew the Japanese were embarrassed by our campaign, and of course I knew Weary Dunlop and his mob were furious.
We sent out press releases bloody everywhere. We took care that they were always factual – we didn’t have to exaggerate. The truth alone was horrific enough. These stories certainly denigrated the Japanese, but then that was the point of the whole business.
We told the papers that we were suing for $500 million, that the Japanese behaviour in the war had been barbaric, and that we could never forgive and forget. Bruce Ruxton was behind us. He said that former Nazis were being chased all over Europe for what they did but that nobody was saying boo about the Japanese war criminals.
Now, making public any action that needs bureaucratic approval from an organisation or association is often frowned upon. Bureaucracies generally like to consider proposals without the pressure of publicity. The federal level of the Ex-POWs Association was, therefore, not amused when the Reparations Committee of the small Gold Coast branch broadcast to the world that it intended to go after the Japanese government – via the United Nations – for reparations, especially since it stated clearly that it expected the support of all other state branches and the federal executive. By publicising the cause, David had ensured that the committee’s intentions could not be ignored.
David very much wanted the support and the authority of the Federal Council. As it was, the Reparations Committee was acting under the authority only of the Gold Coast branch, and with the tacit support of the Queensland State Council. David did not believe that the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty had put an end to any hope of compensation. He had sought some expert opinions on this from the lawyers who were working on the Canadian claim. He knew he had to inform the rank and file of the movement in order to gather their support. Newspaper articles were one of the best ways to achieve this.
David knew that some ex-POWs believed that this effort would be all too late and therefore hopeless.
People often asked me why we were taking action at this late stage. I’d say to them, ‘Well, what about the Jews?’ They had been bringing World War II holocaust criminals to justice for years after the war.
In Japan, hundreds of war criminals were still living a peaceful existence because the Allies hadn’t meted out the same justice to those who had mistreated and tortured us. Every POW who didn’t come back died in his own kind of hell. Many might have welcomed a quick death, but thousands died clinging to the belief that life was better than death. We who survived believed that no amount of money could compensate us for that pain. However, I thought that what little we might get would be of some comfort to survivors and widows, and I was determined to get it for them.
The year 1987 was a busy one for the members of the Reparations Committee. In addition to publicising their cause through newspapers, they corresponded with the ex-POW associations in Canada, Britain, Holland and New Zealand. They worked hard to gain support from the other higher levels of the Australian Ex-POW Association, the government, the RSL and the Red Cross.
After the Queensland State Council approved the Gold Coast branch’s reparations proposal in February 1987, it was sent to the Federal Council with the request that it also give approval. As the committee chairman, David asked that a poll be organised of all members of the association, Australia-wide, to ascertain the feelings of grassroots members. David doubted that this would be as straightforward as it appeared, but the process had to be followed.
Greta supported and helped David throughout this very busy time. She typed and organised and made their house at Mount Tambourine available as the committee’s headquarters. David, George Stevenson, Peter Collas and Joy Cox planned, wrote letters and developed an application form with which Ex-POWs could register their support for the compensation bid. A $10 registration fee was requested from each claimant to fund all the administrative work.
David continuously lobbied the various state councils of the Ex-POW Association, informing them of what the committee was planning and what it expected of the Federal Council. Everyone knew what was happening. The committee was determined to succeed. Even at this early stage, as a result of the publicity and their committee members’ letters, applications began to trickle in, along with donations to the cause.
By the end of April, there had still been no response from the Federal Council. The committee resolved to take the initiative and hurry things along a bit. They sent a document with much information to all the main office-holders of the Federal Council and all the state councils. They also requested that information be published in Barbed Wire and Bamboo, the official magazine of the Ex-POW Association. The article never appeared; David was sure that the Federal Council had blocked it.
I figured that if the members of the Federal Council were unsure of how to go about their business, with regard to the claim for reparations, then we should set them right! I reminded them again of our activities and enclosed copies of everything they needed to understand our position. Even at this stage, I was quite willing to hand the whole kit and caboodle over to the Federal Council, if this was what they wanted, but I didn’t believe it was.
I knew that the state representatives on the Federal Council, including George Beard and Clarrie Wilson from the Queensland Council, were still voting with Weary at the Federal Council meetings. I’m bloody sure they had their eyes on other prizes; they just wanted to keep sweet with their pals in the government. I knew that many of the office-bearers in the various state councils and the Federal Council had received government awards – usually as a result of proposals from other state or Federal Council members. No doubt all were well deserved, but I could not help wondering if a sense of obligation kept them from supporting an organisation whose actions tended to embarrass that government by continually insulting its chief trading partner.
As a result of the Reparations Committee members’ publications in various newspapers, they gained a great deal of feedback and were able to gauge the general feeling for their cause. Bruce Ruxton wrote that ‘support for the reparations committee at RSL meetings has been overwhelming’. J. L. Fitzgerald, the secretary of the Victorian Ex-POW Association, wrote: ‘I personally fully support your effort, and will do everything possible to bring about a satisfactory result.’ He was from Weary’s own branch. Similarly, George Morgan, President of the Wollongong branch, wrote that ‘you have my fullest support and again I thank you for the great work achieved’.1
But of course there were also some detractors. Jim Boyle, secretary of the Federal Council, wrote to Ralph Coutts, secretary of the Queensland Council, saying, ‘I think that their [the Reparation Committee’s] enthusiasm far outstrips their discretion but let’s wait and see what transpires’.2 By far, however, the feedback was positive.
Between early June and the end of November 1987, there was frequent correspondence between officials of the Reparations Committee and both the Queensland State Council, on the one hand, and the Federal Council, on the other. The main protagonists in these discussions, at either end, were David and Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop.
In a series of letters, Weary argued – mostly in exasperation, judging from their tone – that ‘there is a repugnance among many members about approaching the Japanese on this matter’. He stated categorically: ‘Do not raise the hopes of unfortunate people by premature glowing newspaper articles about receiving reparations money . . . It is a lightweight approach to seek reparations without Government support . . . It would be too difficult to collect and collate claims without Government participation and support.’
He even seemed to be unwilling to take any action to find out what the rank and file felt about claiming reparations: ‘We should let the Canadians do the hard work and see what happens . . . Too many years have passed to make a claim now . . . Just leave it to the states to vote yes or no.’ The final blow for the Reparations Committee came when Weary informed it that ‘South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales are all against the proposal and West Australia needs more time before making a decision.’3
The Reparations Committee members were very disappointed with Weary’s comments, but David argued back with polite enthusiasm. ‘We can’t let the Canadians down,’ he wrote. ‘We too should do some of the heavy lifting . . . My committee believes that any problems of communication and funding can be overcome by good leadership and by being single-minded of purpose . . . We do not think that our costs will diminish through ongoing delay.’
The committee members were shocked by some of Weary’s comments, and David’s responses conveyed this:
We were surprised that a “repugnance” exists among ex-POWs in respect to this claim because our enquiries reveal the exact opposite . . . Some German war criminals are only now being brought to justice in Europe so in no way are we behind in our actions . . . You will doubtless agree that all ex-POWs practiced optimism to see us through our darkest years, so surely optimism in this matter is more likely to bring a successful conclusion.
David also included what he considered practical advice in his responses: ‘Let us consider motions from the branches without delay and encourage members to express views freely and without influence . . . [We should] conduct a referendum using a coupon in Barbed Wire and Bamboo that would cost nothing.’ Finally, he added, ‘I hope that I am mistaken in thinking that individual thoughts and feelings of the executive are taking precedence over the needs and wishes of the rank and file.’4
Despite these practical suggestions by the Reparations Committee, Weary’s final communication on the matter was military in tone and straight to the point:
State Branches were asked to vote and they have done so . . . Please take note that any further action by you or your committee in relation to the question of reparations which involves this association or its Branches throughout Australia must cease forthwith.
By order of the Federal Council.5
Now David’s back was really up. It was like the 1986 conference on the Gold Coast all over again. Most of the state executives were led by men of the same mind as Weary. The rank and file of the association had basically been ignored.
Some people in these circumstances might have been persuaded to give up, but the response just made David and his committee more determined than ever. They could not accept that they ‘must cease forthwith’. The mood at the next Reparations Committee meeting was dark.
‘Who the hell do they think they are?’ one member asked.
‘Are we still in the bloody army?’ said another. ‘Is this an order from Brigade Command?’
‘Fuck ’em! Let the mutiny begin!’
David had never kowtowed to any officer while he was in the army, and he was not about to start now. He could not understand why Weary, who had looked after his men so well when they were prisoners – and indeed had suffered alongside them – could possibly think of letting these bastards off the hook now that they had a chance to do something about it. David was sure that most POWs felt as he did; the general enthusiasm for the reparations movement proved it.
David had got in touch with Bill Holtham, the chairman of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors Association in Britain. He had informed David that in Britain they too had a great deal of opposition from the headquarters of their association. Bill was sure it was because many of them had been awarded honours of one sort or another from the Queen; therefore they simply refused to support anything that would upset the government.6
David had been wondering for a while whether this was indeed the case with the Federal Council of the Australian Ex-POW Association.
When we got that reply from Weary telling us to ‘cease forthwith’, I saw red. I could feel all the old hatreds and the anger come flooding back. I really thought we had been positive and had responded to his points calmly and reasonably; to be ordered to ‘cease forthwith’ was unbelievable!
Anyhow, we stayed polite. We should probably have written back saying ‘stick it up your arse’ or something similar, but we didn’t. We just said that we would carry on with the authority from our own Gold Coast branch and the Queensland State Council. I did make some comment about him not being able to read properly. And then, would you believe it, we had another order telling us once more that we ‘must cease’. So that was it. We just ignored him after that.
The Reparations Committee met and discussed at length what they would do from here on. They were agreed that the rank and file of the association, except for those in Queensland, had not yet had a say in all of this. Secondly, they knew that there would be many ex-POWs of the Japanese who were not members of the association but who would be eligible to apply for reparations money. The obvious solution was simply to appeal to ex-POWs and their families directly. They also reckoned that so long as the Reparations Committee kept up its pressure, the state councils would eventually come around.
On 19 June 1988, the Queensland State Council of the Ex-POW Association passed the following official motion:
(a) That a committee be formed to take all the steps necessary on behalf of this Council to prepare and submit a claim to the United Nations Sub Committee on Human Rights, to be called the Queensland Reparations Committee.
(b) That the Committee already appointed by the Gold Coast Branch, namely D.W. Barrett, Chairman, P. I. Collas, Secretary and G. Stevenson be authorised to act as the Queensland Reparations Committee with power to co-opt other members to assist.
(c) That the Queensland Reparations Committee be authorised to raise funds to meet all the expenses of taking the necessary action, such funds to be controlled by the Gold Coast Branch in a separate account under the control of its treasurer.
(d) That the said Committee report to this Council at its regular
meetings and from time to time as requested as to progress made.7
By this motion, the Reparations Committee was empowered and expanded considerably. They now had the necessary authority to pursue their claim on the Japanese government through the United Nations.
We redoubled our efforts and used every means possible to publicise the mission. It was a terrific committee at this time. We got the addresses of every Ex-POW Association branch, every Battalion Association and every RSL club. We wrote articles to be published in every magazine. I got on to all my old mates at Yaffa who had close connections with all the newspapers. We advertised the fact that every ex-POW (Japan) could apply for reparations money, provided that he complete a form, and we let it be known that we would also accept donations.
Soon the completed forms came rolling in, along with their $10 registration fee. Usually an additional donation was included too.
In October 1988 the Federal Council of the Ex-POW Association appointed a new executive. The president was now Bill H. Schmitt, and with this change came the acceptance of the Reparations Committee.
David received a letter dated 26 October 1988 from Clarrie Wilson, who remained the Queensland delegate to the Federal Council. Wilson explained that the Federal Council now accepted the fact that the Reparations Committee was under the control of the Queensland Ex-POW Association; it was thus entitled to continue its claim for reparations from the Japanese. Furthermore, they could now have access to the association’s magazine, Barbed Wire and Bamboo.8
At this time, a mate of mine in the real-estate industry was selling blocks of land on Russell Island off the Gold Coast. I asked him if I could have a good block and he said sure, and he quoted me a very attractive price. ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I need it for free, and I’m going to raffle it.’ I told him not to worry, that there would be so much publicity, Australia-wide, that he would have to buy more development land to take advantage of the demand. I got the block for free.
The newly renamed Australian Reparations Committee was well on its way.