Unofficial Australian Ex POW Medal : Private J T Marsden, 2/20 Battalion

Unofficial Australian Ex POW medal. This medal is silver in colour and hangs from a ribbon with vertical green, grey, light blue, red, navy blue and yellow stripes. The green is representative of the jungle and the yellow of the desert. The suspender has the words 'PRISONER OF WAR' embossed on it and a representation of a length of barbed wire along the bottom. The medal itself is in the shape of a cross with a large circular centre and wide arms. The four arms curve outward from the centre and have convex ends, giving the medal a circular appearance. On each of the arms is a crest of one of the branches of service; The Royal Australian Navy, The Australian Army, The Royal Australian Air Force and also the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps. In the centre is an enameled disc which contains a green representation of Australia on a white background.

This medal was purchased by John Talbot Marsden, or his family, in the 1990s. It was produced for the Tasmanian Ex POW Association. Private (Pte) John Talbot Marsden of Mount George, New South Wales, a bush worker by trade, enlisted in the AIF on 20 June 1940 and embarked from Sydney on 3 February 1941. He arrived in Singapore with 2/20 Battalion on 18 February 1941. When Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 Marsden was officially listed as 'Missing/Prisoner of War' . He spent the next three and a half years in the Japanese prison camp at Changi and was released on 5 September 1945. He embarked from Singapore aboard Hospital Ship Oranje on 15 September that year and arrived in Sydney on 28 September. That same day he had his left leg, badly wounded by shrapnel, amputated at the thigh. Marsden was discharged on medical grounds on 26 November 1946.