Surgical knife: Sergeant Frederick Stanley Bates, 2/12th Field Ambulance

Places
Accession Number AWM2017.1363.2
Collection type Technology
Object type Medical equipment
Physical description Aluminium, Steel
Maker Unknown
Date made c 1942-1943
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Description

Large knife with overall length of 14 inches (350mm). The hollow aluminium handle bears asmall impressed stamp near its juction with the blade showing a crown above a snake twined around a staff. The blade is steel. The symbol of the medical Rod of Asclepius suggests that the knife was once part of an officially issued medical kit, from the Dutch East Indies Forces.

History / Summary

Associated with the Second World War service of Frederick Stanley Bates. Bates was a locomotive driver when he enlisted in the Second AIF on 15 July 1940 was taken on strength by the Australian Army Medical Corps on 13 August. Bates joined the newly formed 2/12th Field Ambulance on 22 November and was appointed acting sergeant. The 2/12th was attached to 23 Infantry Brigade, 8 Division and in the capacity of providing medical support for 23 Brigade the 2/12th entrained for Darwin on 12 March 1941. Promoted to sergeant on 1 July and following the beginning of the Pacific War Bates was attached to Gull Force embarking for Ambon on 13 December. Arriving on the island four days later Bates was captured by the Japanese on 1 February. Officially reported missing the next day he was confirmed a prisoner of war on 17 February.

In October Bates, then held in the prison camp at Tan Toey on Ambon, was transported to Hainan Island off the coast of southern China, together with 262 Australian prisoners and 245 Dutch prisoners. This included some, but not all of the surviving members of the field ambulance and one of their doctors. On Hainan the men were housed at Hashio prison camp on Bakli Bay in three long huts, one for the Australians, one for the Dutch and one for the hospital, which was staffed by 2/12 Field Ambulance and Dutch medics. The hospital staff rarely worked outside the camp and also grew vegetables to supplement the meagre rations supplied by the Japanese.

Bates survived captivity and was liberated from the from the Bakli Bay camp in 1945 and returned to Australia aboard HMS Striker, arriving in Sydney on 9 October. He spent a period of time recovering at Concord Repatriation Hospital before being discharged on 3 January 1946 at his own request on compassionate grounds.