Allan Charles Herd
Allan's enlistment photos
.jpg)
- Born 1917 in Grafton, NSW, Australia
- Joined Australian Army on 20 May 1940 at Homebush, NSW (a suburb
of Sydney, NSW), Number NX25438
- Posted to the 2/6th Field Company, Royal Australian Army
Engineers, attached to the 7th Division, 2nd AIF
- Embarked from Sydney for the Middle East on the original "Queen
Mary" and changed ships in Bombay to the Dutch liner "SS Slamat"
and arrived in Egypt
- Transferred with 7th Division to Palestine where the division took
part in the successful Palastine-Lebanon-Syria campaign
against the Vichy French.
- 2/6 Field Company attached to the British army during the defeat
of Italian forces in the Sahara Desert prior to the arrival of Rommel
and the German Afrika Korp.
- 7th Division was withdrawn for return to Australia for defense
against the Japanese
- "SS Orcades" was separated from it's convoy after stern debate
between the Australian Government and Winston Churchill, who want
to send the 7th Division to Malaya and the Australian Govt refused.
- "SS Orcades" was carrying
around 3,000 Australian troops, mostly
support, and landed in Batavia, Java, without their weapons,
which were with the rest of the convoy, which proceeded home to Australia. Parts of "Black
Force" were, therefore, poorly armed
and short of ammunition.
- 2/6 Field Company was attached to "Black Force" commanded by
Brigadier Arthur S Blackburn,
V.C., commanding officer of the
2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion- "Black Force" comprising
of Dutch, Australian,
British & American troops and under the overall command
of the Dutch Army.
- The Dutch surrendered to the Japanese and the remaining British,
Australian & American troops were also ordered to surrender
- The 2/6 field Company (and Allan) were rounded up as prisoners of
war and incarcerated in an old Dutch military base later known
as "Bicycle Camp" in February 1942.
Note: The 2/6 Field Company did continue to fight through many battles with the 7th
Division throughout the remainder of WW II.
- Subsequently transferred to Changi, Malaya and finally to the
Burma end of the brutal Burma-Thailand Railway work gangs
- Allan survived the railway and was again sent through several
camps in southeast Asia to the docks in Singapore.
- From Singapore to Japan, on the "hell ship"
Teia Maru" (ex Aramis), Allan was part of the third
group to arrive at Fukuoka #17
Omuta, Kyushu. The group was a mix of Australian, British, and Dutch POWs who arrived on 18
June 1944.
They would be forced into slave labor in the coal mines.
- Allan survived the coal mines (somehow) until the wars end
when the prisoners were rescued by the American army and
transferred to and American hospital ship "USS Haven". Allan was eventually repatriated to
Australia, where he spent some time
in the hospital before release and demobilization.
- Allan's Camp 17 prisoner number was 1444 ~ in Japanese "Sen
Yon Harku Yon Ju Yon"
- Allan
married after the war and produced three children (one of whom is deceased). Both he and
his wife are still alive.
Allan is 92 and his wife is 89 - tho neither are in the best of
health. (as of April 2011)
Credit: Alexander C Heath, whose wife is the
niece of Allan Charles Herd
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