Coolie basket : Private L G Gaffney, 8 Division Employment Platoon

Rattan 'coolie basket' with two carrying handles and an open 'shovel' shaped side.

Leslie Gordon Gaffney was born at Inverell, NSW, in 1915. He was working as a station hand near Tamworth when he enlisted for service in the second AIF on 25 March 1941. After training he was assigned as a private, service number NX71862, to an employment platoon attached to 8th Division Headquarters. He sailed for service in Malaya on 29 July 1941.

After fighting in Malaya and Singapore Gaffney became a prisoner of war of the Japanese after the surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942. He was assigned to Japanese work parties on the island.

On 21 April 1943 Gaffney entrained with F Force, a mixed British and Australian force of 7000, sent to work on the Burma-Thailand railway in the north of Thailand. Transported to Bampong, F Force marched to Nieke, 180 miles to the north, and then on to Lower Songkurai. The force was then divided among five work camps, with Australians at Upper and Lower Songkurai, and at Konkoita. It was estimated that 90 percent of the force suffered from malaria. Of the 3662 Australians in the force, 1438 died, mainly from cholera, dysentery, malaria and deficiency diseases caused by malnutrition. The death rate overall for all members of F Force was 44 per cent. The survivors returned to Singapore from November 1943.

Gaffney recovered sufficiently to be allocated to a work party reclaiming wetland for the construction of a new airfield on the island. At the end of the war he left Singapore for Australia on the troopship 'Duntroon', on 19 September 1945. He brought with him this coolie basket, as well as a short handled hoe, called a chunkel. Although he had used both items in a Singapore work party they were typical of the rudimentary tools used in the construction of the Burma-Thailand railway. A single coolie basket could hold up to 50kg of blue metal ballast and was carried between two men.

Despite needing further medical treatment, Gordon Gaffney was discharged from the army at his own request on 14 December 1945. He returned to Tamworth and set up a taxi business the following year. In 1995 he was photographed in Tamworth with his basket and chunkel. The chunkel has since been lost.