Handcarved cameo pendant : Staff Sergeant C C Oliver, 2/3 Reserve Motor Transport Company

Cameo pendant handcarved from a beetlenut. The oval pendant depicts the profile of a young woman and has a loop at the top for suspension from a chain.

This cameo was carried by NX68601 Staff Sergeant Clive Clayson Oliver during his captivity in Thailand and Burma. The cameo shows a profile of his wife, Rita May Oliver whom he had married in 1936. It was carved from a beetlenut by a friend of Oliver who used a photograph to capture Rita's likeness. Oliver enlisted in the Army on 4 March 1941 with the 2/3 Reserve Motor Transport Company and was attached to the 3rd Indian Corps in Malaya. He was captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore and served the remainder of the war in captivity on the Burma-Thai Railway. A speaker of Japanese, he spent much of his captivity serving as an interpreter for Doctor Edward 'Weary' Dunlop. At the end of the war he returned home to Rita and their two children. He was discharged on 23 November 1945.