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‘We can chart the future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led us to the present.’ Adlai Stevenson, 1952
Today the world is beset by acts of terrorism and the threat of war. Colin Finkemeyer, a memember of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment and a POW of the Japanese for three and a half years, has written It Happened to Us - Mark III, to remind us of another time, only 60-odd years ago, when Australia, ill prepared for battle, entered WW2 and lived under the threat of a possible Japanese invasion.
Colin passes on his knowledge of these times in the hope that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated, and before the events become only a distant memory.
As a POW at Changi, Nagasaki and on the Burma-Thai railway, Colin and his mates suffered under the inhumane treatment meted out by their guards. The torture was not only physical; powerless to act, the men endured the taunts of their captors, who delighted in boasting of their plans to invade Australia. Yet out of this misery sprang a great courage, sustained by the mateship between the POWs.
One of the most moving stories in the book, among many, involves the execution of eight men who tried to escape from the Burma railway. Tied to posts near newly dug graves, the men faced the firing squad without blindfolds, and in the final moments bade their mates a brave ‘cheerio’.
Intertwined with these stories are accounts of the battles that raged in the Pacific as Japan pushed southwards. In Australia, many of our northern towns and shipping on the east cost came under attack. Without the intervention of the US after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Australia would not have survived to become the country it is today.
The freedom we now enjoy came at a cost to another generation, It Happened to Us - Mark III reminds us how high was the price paid, and the danger of complacency about those hard-won freedoms. We should not forget.
This thought-provoking book should be read by everyone who cares for Australia and its way of life.
PATRICK CARLYON
May 2003
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