The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NX58805) Private Dudley Boughton, 2/18th Battalion, AIF, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (NX58805) Private Dudley Boughton, 2/18th Battalion, AIF, Second World War.

NX58805 Private Dudley Boughton, 2/18th Battalion, AIF
Illness 28 January 1944

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Dudley Boughton.

Dudley Boughton was born on 12 July 1914, the second eldest of five children born to John and Helene Boughton, in Stanmore, in the inner west of Sydney. Known as “Dud” to his family and friends, he attended Sydney Boys’ High School with his older brother Jack, and the brothers were known as gifted academics and athletes. Dudley Boughton was involved in surf lifesaving, and was keen rower. After school he worked as a labourer and worked at Harbottle Brown, a liquor company.

In 1939 he married his sweetheart Mary Rath, and the couple lived in Manly.

Boughton was described as a “very likeable person, well read and versed in life itself. Very well educated, a person who did not suffer fools gladly.”

Boughton enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 11 July 1940, the day before his 26th birthday, and soon began training at camps in Manly, and in Wallgrove, in Sydney’s west. He was one of two Boughton brothers to serve in the Second World War; his older brother Jack enlisted in 1943 and served in New Guinea.

In April 1941 Dudley Boughton embarked in Sydney for service abroad, and in mid-May arrived at Singapore, the major British base in south-east Asia. Boughton reached Singapore at a time when Japan had not yet entered the war, but when Allied authorities were preparing for likely Japanese aggression. He served with the Australian 8th Division Headquarters unit, and in September 1941 joined the 2/18th Infantry Battalion.

Boughton served with the 2/18th Battalion on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. Once Japan entered the war and began advancing towards Singapore, he took part in the battalion’s successful ambush of Japanese troops at the Nithsdale estate near Jemaluang. Later, he provided support during the Allied withdrawal to Singapore in the south.

Once on Singapore, Boughton and his battalion took up positions with the rest of the 8th Division on the north-west of the island. It was on this sector of the island that, on 8 February 1942, the brunt of the Japanese attack fell. Boughton and his battalion came under extremely heavy artillery and mortar fire that caused havoc among the troops and damaged communication wires. One platoon reported around 55 shells falling on their position per minute.

The bombardment was followed by an overwhelming Japanese infantry invasion, which resulted in the Allied surrender of Singapore on 15 February. Boughton was among the 130,000 troops, including nearly 15,000 Australians, taken prisoners of war by the Japanese.

Boughton spent his first months in captivity at Changi prisoner of war camp where his carpentry skills led him to be used to build a shrine to the Japanese dead. In November 1942 he was assigned to a labour group known as C Force, and was one of 300 Australians sent to the Naoetsu 4-B Camp on Japan’s west coast, north-west of Tokyo. Conditions at Naoetsu were incredibly harsh. In often freezing conditions, the men endured regular beatings, worked for over 12 hours a day for months on end in chemical and smelting plants. Disease and malnutrition were rife.

Boughton kept a diary of his experiences as a prisoner of war, which he kept hidden from the Japanese guards. On Christmas Day 1942 he wrote of how he thought of home and of his wife. On 29 November 1943 he wrote: “Go on another 19 hour shift. Bitterly cold today. Twelve months since we left Singapore and what a year! I can only pray that we are not here another 12 months. If we are, there are plenty who won’t go the distance at the rate the boys are going.”

Less than two weeks later, he recorded the death of his mate Sergeant Jack Hogarth, with whom he had worked in the bottling plant in Manly before the war.

On Christmas Day 1943 he wrote that he had lost over 20 kilograms, and was feeling the effects of illness. Less than a week later he wrote that his time as a prisoner of war that it was “definitely the worst and most dangerous period of my life … My thoughts, when capable of any, have been solely on decent food … I just can’t describe how I feel except that I can barely move.”

One month later, on 28 January 1944, he died from illness.
He was 29 years old.

Shortly before his death, Boughton entrusted his diary to his best mate in the camp, Sapper Norman Reed. After the war, Reed carried it back to Australia and gave it to Boughton’s grieving family.

Boughton is now commemorated at the Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan, along with over 1,500 Allied servicemen of the Second World War.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among almost 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Dudley Boughton, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section