Dental Instruments : Surgeon Lieutenant S E L Stening, RAN

Three improvised dental instruments - a root elevator, excavator and scaler, made from fencing wire.

These dental instruments were made for Surgeon Lieutenant Samuel Edward Lees Stening at Taisho POW Camp by QX6204 Major Robert Valentine Glasgow, 8 Division Ammunition Sub Park, as no dental equipment was available.

Stening was born in Sydney, NSW on 14 May 1910 and was a surgeon lieutenant in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve when he enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy on 14 May 1940. He was appointed to HMAS Waterhen on 17 October and was aboard the ship when it was attacked on 28 June 1941 in the Mediterranean, by dive-bombers. There were no casualties, and Stening was transferred to HMAS Stuart for two weeks before joining HMAS Perth on 17 July as the ship's assistant medical officer.

On 1 March 1942 the Japanese torpedoed and sank HMAS Perth in the Sunda Strait, resulting in 353 casualties. Stening sustained a fractured skull and was picked up by a Japanese destroyer, along with a large number of other survivors. The next day they were transferred to the transport ship Somedong Maru. There, Stening helped tend to the wounded, removing shrapnel, dressing wounds and treating eyes damaged by fuel oil. After travelling for eight days, the ship anchored off Merak Harbour at the north western end of Java. Some of the prisoners were transported to the civilian gaol, while others were sent to the cinema at Serang, fifty miles west of Batavia. Stening was taken to the gaol where he stayed for the next month, although he was released for several days to help provide medical care to the 600 men held in the cinema.

On 5 April Stening, along with a small number of POWs (including four other Perth officers) was taken from Serang to Batavia, where he embarked for Japan. He arrived at Moji on 5 May and went by train to Ofuna near Yokohama, an interrogation camp under naval control. From there he was taken to Zentsuji, the main prisoner of war camp in Japan.

On 15 October 1943 Stening was transferred to Oeyama Camp on Honshu Island and assumed duties as the camp medical officer. This camp was near a nickel mine where the inmates, clad in threadbare garments, carried out heavy work in the rain, which turned the ground into a morass. As hunger increased, the inmates became difficult to handle. They stole from each other and from the Japanese. These latter thefts, if detected, were severely punished. In May 1944 Stening was empowered by the camp commandant to take control of discipline and punishment in the camp.

In June he was sent to Taisho Camp, Osaka, where some inmates laboured, while others had more specialised tasks at the Osaka ironworks. Conditions began to improve from November, coinciding with the start of air raids over Honshu Island and especially over Osaka itself. The food supply, both legal and illicit increased, work decreased and Japanese officers began to live at the camp, which they thought had a lower chance of being bombed.

On 17 May 1945 the entire camp, excluding a few men who were sick or otherwise useless to the Japanese, moved to Takefu camp about 110 kilometres north east of Osaka. Stening was the only medical officer there, in fact the only officer. Work in the nearby carbide factory was hard. There were many accidents, and increasing numbers of men failing in health, driven incessantly on inadequate rations.

Japan surrendered on 15 August, and gradually the prison camps across Japan were liberated. Stening was recovered from Takefu on 10 September and promoted to surgeon lieutenant commander on 21 September. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1946 for his work in caring for wounded and sick men after the sinking of the Perth, despite being wounded himself and received unstinted praise for his courage, care and protection of his fellow men during their years of internment. Post war Stening resumed his life as a doctor specialising in paediatrics. He was transferred to the Retired List, Commonwealth Naval Forces on 31 March 1958.