80-year-old POW letters donated to Australian War Memorial

Australian Community Media

Letters sent to a WWII prisoner of war by his Bowral family have been donated to the Australian War Memorial, filling a rare gap in its collection.

Transcript

00:00They wrote for two years, not knowing if he was dead or alive.

00:04He didn't know they were writing.

00:06Letters written 80 years ago to World War II prisoner of war,

00:10Private John Franklin, have been donated to the Australian War Memorial.

00:14The love between all of us when we need to keep that connection,

00:19that family connection, so strong.

00:21Franklin, captured by the Japanese and sent to Japan's Kawasaki shipbuilding factory

00:26and coal mines, received only a fraction of the 31 letters and telegrams

00:31his Bowerl family sent between 1942 and 1945 due to wartime censorship.

00:37When you read the one from the mother and she says,

00:41every time I'm knitting a pair of socks,

00:46I think of you and I know you haven't any.

00:50These sort of things, this is the mother just trying to wish that she could knit the socks

00:55and give them to him, but it's never going to happen.

00:58They tell the nation's story.

01:00They tell the story of one young man, sadly imprisoned in Changi,

01:05and of the family's love and their hope for him,

01:08the very, very sporadic communication they had throughout the war

01:11and through the telling of this story,

01:14we get to tell the story of all of those who endured.

01:17The letters offer a rare glimpse into the emotional toll of separation,

01:21with curators calling them a unique record of Australia's wartime experience.

01:27They will now be preserved, digitised and displayed.

01:30Well, I am delighted that the letters are going to the war memorial.

01:35And as I said, at 91, I'm glad it's now.

01:38It could have been too late.

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