Vale John ‘Jack’ Langford Murchie ( 6 Sept 1919 – 8 July 2015)
John (Jack) Murchie was born in Melbourne on 6th September 1919. Finishing school, he joined GMH in March 1936 and commenced work at NASCO (Holden Spare Parts).
Other well-known contemporaries of Jack who also joined GMH in 1936 were Jack Heenan, Jack Rawnsley, Syd Holmes, Gordon McCann, Fred Findlay, Howard Smith, Len Martin and Keith Nicholson
At the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939, Jack was a Spare Parts Interpreter at NASCO. In 1940 the Federal Government introduced National Service for males between 19-21 years of age, using the ballot system. Jack was balloted in and called up for three months basic training in the Army, completing his term as a gunner with the 4th Field Artillery Regiment at a camp in Seymour, Victoria and returned to his job at NASCO.
By this time GMH was heavily involved in the war effort and was covered by Manpower Regulations which meant that employees were exempt from military service unless they volunteered. After much persistent effort and pleading by Jack, his American boss Harry Cavanaugh (Parts Manager at NASCO) finally gave in and released Jack as he had in fact volunteered for active duty.
He was posted to the 22nd Brigade Unit in the 8th Australian Division bound for Singapore. A sister unit, the 27th Brigade, was also assigned to the 8th Australian Division and it is interesting to note that other GMH – NASCO personnel such as Fred Findlay, Kevin Costello, and Clive Thornycroft were posted to the 27th.
Jack’s unit sailed from Port Melbourne on 2 November 1941. Following a short period of shore leave in Perth the ship arrived in Singapore on 20th November.
It is now a fact of history that the Japanese army invaded Malaya in early December 1941 and swept down the peninsula towards Singapore which fell to the Japanese on 15th February 1942. Jack along with his mates became a POW in the notorious Changi prison camp.
Early in 1943 the Japanese were selecting POW’s held in Changi to be posted to Thailand for work on the Burma-Thailand railway. One of Jack’s mates had already volunteered to be posted to Thailand and Jack wanted to go with him. After some to-ing and fro-ing with the authorities Jack finally got his way and was assigned to ‘D’ Force for posting to Thailand. Little did he know what was ahead of him and his mates.
After a tortuous rail and truck journey lasting several days, ‘D’ Force finally arrived at a railway camp named Tamarkan near the River Kwai from where working parties were sent out daily to labour on the railway line or manually dig cuttings and form embankments through which the rail line passed.
Working conditions and food were horrific and within very short time tropical diseases such as beri beri, malaria, dysentery and skin ulcers were rife among the POW’s. The sick were in a pretty bad way and a great majority succumbed without the proper medication. Malaria accounted for many deaths as most of the POW’s had some form of malaria. There was little or no treatment for ulcers, the infection just ate away the flesh of the limbs and there were many cases where doctors had no choice but to amputate the limbs. Jack had sustained a bad leg ulcer but he managed to scrounge some sulphur tablets from a fellow Dutch POW and with this treatment the ulcer had almost completely healed. A crushed sulphur tablet sprinkled on an ulcer or wound was the original antibiotic!
His period in the Tamarkan camp came to a close when the railway was nearing completion and the Thai railway line was finally linked with the Burma side in October 1943. After the railway was completed, the POWs still had almost two years to survive before their liberation. During this time, most of the POWs were moved to hospital and relocation camps where they could be available for maintenance crews or sent to Japan to alleviate the manpower shortage there.
The fittest POW’s (and there weren’t too many of them by this time) were medically examined and had to achieve a certain physical standard to be chosen to be sent to Japan. Jack was keen to be chosen but the doctor didn’t think his leg ulcer had healed well enough to beincluded.However, in his inimitable style, Jack was able to convince the doctor that the wound had cleared up and the doctor agreed to let him go.
Towards the end of 1943, the chosen Australian group, comprising about 250 of the fittest POW’s, were transported to Singapore and then by ship to Japan. After several weeks, Jack and his group arrived in Nagasaki and were assigned to work in a Mitsui owned coal mine and billeted in huts at a mining camp about 3 km. from the mine itself. Working parties walked to the mine each day; and worked three 12-hour overlapping shifts. Jack became one of the Saitan (coal extractor) group, and was paid 25 cents a day.
Right through 1944 and early 1945 there were regular air raids by the US Air Force in what they referred to as ‘pattern bombing’ - bombing different places in a set pattern each night. On one occasion incendiary bombs landed in Jack’s camp and burned down one of the huts.
The Australian mine workers were advised that in the event of America invading Japan they should be prepared to take over the camp because the Japanese certainly had no intention of letting the POW’s free. The Japanese had dug a large trench in the camp that was capable of housing 250 people or more, which the prisoners were forced to use every time there was an air raid. They were convinced this was to be their final resting-place in the event of an American invasion.
When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 the Japanese guards became more hostile and aggressive and were merciless in their treatment of the POW’s. A few days later, when the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on 9th August, the Japanese attitude changed immediately and they became more affable.
Hostilities ceased on 15th August, 1945, but the POW’s were not officially informed by the Japanese Camp Commandant until the 19th, although the POW’s had already anticipated the end as there had been no air raids or calls for working parties to the mine.
Jack being Jack, couldn’t wait for the Australian authorities to arrange for his return home, so he took off from the mining camp with a couple of his mates and found himself on a train containing American ex-POW’s bound for an airport for their return to the USA. At the airport they boarded a Mitchell B25 bomber and were flown to Manila in the Philippines.
From there, Jack and his mates were ‘given a lift’ in the USS aircraft carrier Formidable which brought them to Circular Quay in Sydney. After spending two weeks with his mother in Sydney where she lived, Jack returned to Melbourne for discharge at Royal Park on 21st December 1945 and was re-employed at NASCO in January, 1946.
He continued with NASCO for many years and for a period in the 1970’s was transferred to Sydney with his family as the Zone Sales Manager for NSW. He took up golf and squash and became an A-Grade Pennant squash player. Returning to Melbourne he continued to work with NASCO and retired to his home in Frankston in January 1980 after 44 years of service with GMH.
Following the death of his wife Hazel in April 2014, Jack entered the Vasey RSL Village in Frankston where he died peacefully on 8th July 2015 at the age of 95 years after a long and eventful life.
Jack leaves behind a loving, extended family of a son, daughter, two step-sons and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
RIP Jack – a life well lived; you served your country well.