Donated 80-year-old letters from home to POW fill a gap in the Australian War Memorial's collection

ABC NEWS (Australia)

31 letters and telegrams sent to a World War two prisoner of war by his family have been donated to the Australian war memorial in Canberra. The gift commemorates 80 years since the end of the war in the pacific and they fill a gap in the memorial's collection.

Transcript

00:00For two years, John Franklin's family wrote him letters, not knowing if he was dead or

00:07alive.

00:08The family in Bowerall, New South Wales refused to give up hope their boy, a Japanese prisoner

00:12of war, would come home.

00:15They wrote letter after letter.

00:16These are the first letters that John's family wrote to Uncle John.

00:22The letters reveal the agony of war, that it's two-way, that there's the suffering

00:29of the prisoners and then there's the anguish of those left behind.

00:34They share moments of ordinary life.

00:36When you read the one from the mother and she says, every time, every time I'm knitting

00:41a pair of socks, I think of you and I know you haven't any.

00:48Those letters have now been donated to the War Memorial.

00:51There are almost 10,000 letters in the Australian War Memorial's private collection and yet

00:56these latest gifted letters fill a gap otherwise missing from the record.

01:00He was at, you know, the Kawasaki factory in Kobe.

01:04I'm not aware of any other letters in the collection that relate to that camp so it's really quite

01:08unique.

01:09So we very much like to fill those gaps in the collection that give a bit more of a comprehensive

01:13view of Australia's military experience.

01:15Finally, in 1945, the family received a letter from John.

01:19I feel as though I've been born and am starting life all over again.

01:24I feel pretty guilty for the worry I must have caused you, but everything is okay now.

01:28I wish you could see me here puffing on a big cigar after a snack of doughnuts and coffee.

01:32Don't try and send money or anything, but I'd give a fortune for a letter.

01:37Often what soldiers had to do if they kept a diary was they had to keep that diary hidden,

01:41for example.

01:42So written records between a family in Australia and a young man as a prisoner of war in Japanese

01:49is terribly rare.

01:51Questions from a loving family now shared with the nation.

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