William James Hammond as a resident of Murchison Victoria during the Second World War, interviewed by Leonie Plunkett

Hammond speaks of his family; his service background and experience; the Army's purchase of land from the Hammond family for the establishment of Camp 13, part of an Australia-wide network of camps built in 1941 to house Italian, German and Japanese prisoners of war (pow); relationships between the camp's administrators and its prisoners; the impact of the camp on the local community in wartime; the dispersal of the Italian prisoners in to farm work after 1943; the repatriation of prisoners once the war had ended; his friendship with one of the camp's former inmates; past enemies' cooperation in honouring the war dead - Italian prisoners are buried in Murchison's Ossario and German prisoners are buried in the German National War Cemetery at Tatura; his view of Murchison community's memory of Camp 13 now that 50 years have elapsed since its demolition in 1947. The Army eventually sold the campsite back to its original owners, the Hammond family, and Murchison returned to being a peaceful country town beside the Goulburn River.
A transcript of this recording may be available. For further information please contact the Sound section.