JAPAN-AUSTRALIA GRASSROOTS EXCHANGE PROGRAM

2025 Participants

Attendees included Mr Arthur Pegg from RSL Tasmania and Mr Maxwell Tysoe from RSL WA along with Dr Robert Webster, RSL Victoria State President, representing RSL Australia.

Arthur Pegg - RSL Tasmania

Arthur Pegg is the son of Private Frederick Pegg, 2/40 Battalion. Private Fred Pegg fought during World War Two in Java and Timor. In February 1942, he was declared missing and was later confirmed as a prisoner of war (POW). He was held as a prisoner of war in Java and then Changi prison camp. Fred was a band man in his battalion and carried his bugle throughout his years in the prison camps. Fred gained possession of a Union flag. On it are scrawled 89 names and details of Fred and his fellow POWs, with hometowns and Service Numbers included. The flag, blood-soaked and bullet-hole-ridden, has been donated to the Swansea RSL Sub-branch. It carries the legacy of the prisoners at Changi, those who made it home and those who did not. 

Arthur himself has proudly served his community, volunteering in the rural Tasmanian town of Campbell Town as both a volunteer driver for the Fire Brigade and as the driver for the ambulance with his wife providing nursing assistance. Arthur is looking forward to paying his respect to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and understanding the devastating effects of war from the Japanese perspective. He wants to share his father’s stories and hear the stories of others.

Harry Maxwell Tysoe - RSL WA

Harry Maxwell Tysoe is the grandson of POW Private Harry Tysoe, AIF 2/4th MGB, who died as a POW and is buried at Yokohama War Cemetery. He is also the grandson of POW Private Alfred Platt, AIF 2/3rd MGB, who made it home after being a POW in Java, Thailand and finally, Japan.

Private Harry Tysoe 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion, left his wife and four children at home and sailed aboard the Aquatania, arriving in Singapore on 25 January 1942. Singapore fell just weeks later and Harry was taken as POW. Harry was to call the different camps of Johore Bahru, Adam Park and Selarang Barracks Changi his home for the next 16 months. In May 1943, Harry, along with some 500 British and 300 Australians, formed ‘J’ Force and were loaded on the Weills Maru (Wales Maru) bound for Japan. It reached Moji Port, Kyushu, Japan, on June 7 1943, where the POWs were split up. Harry and 250 other Australians were sent by train to Kobe. Harry passed away on 26 November 1943 as a result of progressive cardiac failure and beriberi. His body was cremated at Kobe, and his ashes were kept, along with other POWs’ remains, by a kind priest at a temple called Juganji in Osaka. This temple was later moved to the outskirts of the city after the war. His remains are said to have been re-inturned at Yokahama War Cemetery – Japan at Plot B Row A Grave 14. Harry’s family did not find out his fate for another two years.

Alfred Platt (Alf) grew up in an orphanage in England. He emigrated to Australia in 1922 at 16 years of age. He worked on a farm and met his wife, Lillian, and they had two daughters together. They farmed Lillian’s family farm until the war broke out. Alf enlisted and was sent to Syria to train. In late 1941, the conflict in Asia was brewing, and Australian soldiers were called home from the Middle East to protect Australia from invasion from the north. The journey home was diverted, and they disembarked in Sumatra, where they were involved in direct conflict with the Japanese, minus their kitbags, Vickers Machine Guns and ammunition, which had been sent on to Australia on other transports. Alf became a POW in March 1942. He was transported to Thailand to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway. He survived the horrors of labouring on the Railway and was shipped via Singapore as a working party to Japan. In Japan, he was transported to Ohama by barge to advance the Japanese war machine again, this time as a labourer in Nippon.  Alf and his fellow POWs were recovered from Ohama on September 13th 1945. After several months of rehabilitation, he was discharged in February 1946.  Farm life beckoned him back to Narrikup, where he farmed happily with Lillian, his daughters Merle and Lorna and new son John until he retired to Albany in 1965. Alf passed away in Albany in 1977 aged 71, a life well lived.

Harry Maxwell Tysoe is the President of 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion ex members association and has been an advocate for both 2/4th and 2/3rd MGB Units for the past 15 years. He is the co-author of the 2/4th website, a Justice of the Peace and a retired School Principal. He is most interested in visiting the grave site of his paternal grandfather at Yokohama and the places where grandfathers were held.