Donated by Dr Rowley Richards in September 2001. As President of
2/15 Field Regiment RAA AIF Association, Dr Richards also donated their records
(AWM PR01966).
Processing and collection guide completed in 2004.
Open.
Copyright of materials described in this guide is governed by copyright law in Australia. Dr Rowley Richards retains copyright on his personal papers. For further information contact the Curator of Private Records, Research Centre.
Papers of Dr Rowley Richards, AWM PR01916.
Papers of Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, AWM PR00926
Papers of
Gunner George Sprod, AWM 3DRL/3110 and AWM 3DRL/5040
Papers of Brigadier A
L Varley, AWM 3DRL/2691
Papers of Lieutenant-Colonel William Jeater, AWM
3DRL/3589
Papers of Lieutenant Norman Martin White, AWM PR00410
Papers
of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Henry Kappe, AWM MSS1393
Dr Rowley Richards was the medical officer for the 2/15th Field Regiment in the Second World War. He served with his unit in Malaya and Singapore and subsequently as a prisoner of war in Changi, the Burma-Thai Railway ('Anderson Force' III Group), Saigon and Japan.
Dr. Richards was taken prisoner on 15th February 1942 when Singapore fell to the Japanese. For the next three and a half years he served as a medical officer, and during this time he kept comprehensive diaries and meticulous medical reports on the condition of unit members. Following the war his experiences were published in the book
Dr. Richard's personal diary commences on 7 December 1941 with the
receipt for the order for the Regiment to proceed to battle stations in
southern Malaya. The diary was kept in a small, loose-leaf notebook and
carefully wrapped and concealed in Dr. Richard's pack. It covered the period in
action, capitulation, Changi, Tavoy in southern Burma and the Burma-Thailand
Railway.
The second section of the diary covers the period 25 December
1942 to 28 January 1944 at Tamarkam near Kanchanaburi on the River Kwai in
Thailand (Siam) and covers the construction of the railway.
On arrival
at Tamarkam on 14 December 1943 everyone was thoroughly searched and the first
part of Richard's diary was found and confiscated by the Japanese without major
repercussions. The second part of the diary was not noticed.
Prior to
leaving Tamarkam on the 'Japan Party' fearing that they would fall victim to
United States submarine attacks, Richards left the second part of his diary
with Major John Shaw who carried it in the false bottom of a billy can. He
returned it to Richards in Australia in December 1945.
Richards did
however, carry a six-part summary of the diary and a table of rations and
illnesses which he buried in a bottle under the cross of Corporal Gorlick on
Paulau Damarlaut, an island off the south west coast of Singapore Island on 11
August 1944. The summary was subsequently recovered by the Australian War
Graves Commission and returned to him on 15 February 1947, just two and a half
years after it was buried.
A one- page condensation of the summary was
secreted in the tubing of Richard's stethoscope but was lost when the
During the period in Sakarta Richards kept medical records on his men
and some personal notes but did not keep a diary.
With the end of the
war, Richards helped prepare a medical report, nominal roll and other reports
relating to the Sakarta camp. He kept a personal diary from the period 15
August 1945 to 12 September 1945.
A major strength of the collection
is Richard's meticulously kept medical records and reports. These include
medical records of Anderson Force Burma from 1942 to 1944; a dysentery register
compiled in Changi in 1942 and weekly Tavoy medical reports; Burma-Thai Railway
medical reports; detailed graphs and tables of rations and sickness on
Burma-Thailand Railway; Sakarta medical reports 1944-45; 'A-Force' death
registers and certificates for 1942-44; and medical reports on Sakarta and
Japan relating to subsistence claims.