For NBHE - Justin Wong
Lynette Ramsay Silver, the Australian writer who wrote Blood Brothers : Sabah & Australia 1942 - 1945,
recently agreed to entertain our email interview despite her busy
schedule. This Australian writer had immersed herself for the past 20
years, towards championing Sabahan World War II heroes and also the
natives who helped the British and Australian POWs. Hence, I thought she
is a personality...... her work, her efforts should be appreciated. One
wonders why our State Government has yet to honour her with a Datukship, not that she would be bothered about it, I think.
NBHE : Give an introduction of yourself e.g. which part of Australia you live in, your career,
LRS :
I live in Sydney and have been investigating little known aspects of
Australian history since 1982. Previously I was a school teacher. I
really developed a passion for research in 1983, when I located vital
documents relating to gold discovery in Australia that had been 'lost'
for 134 years. Many eminent people had searched for them, without
success.
My
next book, which documented a convict unprising in Australia against
the British in 1804, was also ground-breaking research and, even now,
well over 20 years later, remains the only book on the subject.
I
then moved into world war 2 - to the intriguing world of Australian
'Special Operations'. As these missions took place in the far east, I
became well acquainted with the fall of Singapore and the occupation by
Japan of the entire area, including Sabah.
Special
Operations research soon expanded to incorporate Australian POWs. With
so many held at Sandakan and the discovery that the reason they were not
rescued was due to faulty intelligence collected by a Special
Operations team working behind the lines, the two research areas merged
and my focus turned to Sabah, where it has been for the past 20 years.
NBHE
: What motivated you to write Blood Brothers - Sabah & Australia
1942 - 1945? You must have known that it would be a huge undertaking
given that Sabah do not have proper records of that era and yet you
forged on. Most young Sabahans haven't even heard of of the many local
heroes that you mentioned in your book and yet you managed to unearth
them.
LRS : I first came to Sabah
in 1999, the year after my book 'Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence' was
published in Australia. I was very embarrassed, at the ceremony to open
the Memorial Park at Sandakan, to which I had been an honorary
consultant, that two of WW2's great local heroes, Mr Chin Chee Kong and
Mr Joseph Wong (both of whom were present and proudly wearing their
medals), were not acknowledged. I vowed that if I were ever in a
position to do something, I would make sure that the locals received the
acknowledgement they deserved.
That
chance came in 2005, with the unveiling of the Windows of Remembrance
at St Michael's chucrh, Sandakan, where many POWs had spent the night
before being marched to Sandakan camp. When commissioning the windows in
2003, my brief to the artist stipulated that the windows were to
remember the POWs who had died and the many Sabahans who had risked, and
given, their lives to help them. I asked that the story of the good
samaritan - a man who extended the hand of friendship to a total
stranger in time of need - be incorporated into the great west window.
Many
of the people in Australia and UK who contributed to the fund, set up
by my husband and myself, asked that their donations be recorded as a
tribute to these brave Sabahans. This was done, and the sentiments are
recorded in the Book of Remembrance, on display at the church.
At
the unveiling, the guest list was restricted to donors, family members
of the local people who had helped the POWs and those who had assisted
with the actual project. At my insistence, the family members of the
POWs and local people were the 'VIPs'. They, not those usually
considered to be VIPs, held centre stage. It was not until I was
presented with a beautiful painting of Mt Kinabalu by an elderly chinese
lady, to thank me for acknowledging the Sabahans in the Windows of
Remembrance that I realised how much this belated acknowledgement meant
to the local people. I was very moved. She cried and so did I.
When
we proceeded to stage 2 of the project, I moved the focus from one of
reflection to hope for the future. The new windows, unveiled in 2008,
would be celebration of 'Friendship' - the legacy left to us by Sabahans
and Australians, united in common bond in those terrible days of
1942-45.
The
particular assistance given by Kadazans and Dusuns to prisoners on the
death marches, and those who escaped, is also the reason for the
establishment in 2005 of the Sandakan Memorial Scholarship scheme. This
initiative, our way of saying 'Thank You', now helps educate talented
students from remote villages whose schooling would otherwise ceast at
primary level. Run in honorary capacity by my husband and myself, the
scheme obtains its funds from donations I solicit when I give talks on
my books. The generosity of donors is such that the trust fund is now
sufficiently large to ensure that our annual contribution to the scheme
will continue in perpetuity. We have three students at university now,
and several moving along to attain the required level for entry.
By
2009 I was very aware of the suffering of the people of Sabah at the
hands of the Japanese. In August that year, the Australian High
Commisioner to Malaysia, Penny Williams, and Kathy Upton-Mitchell,
Deputy Director of the Officer of Australian War Graves (which, since
2007 took over the running of the Anzac Day services that I had begun in
Sandakan in 1999), asked me to consider writing a 'booklet' for
Sandakan Day 2010, to draw attention to the local story.
I
was only too pleased to be asked. Having attended many memorial
services at which the entire focus was on the POWs, my discomfit at the
lack of acknowledgement had grown, not lessened, since that first
service in 1999.
However, I told my two friends that the people of Sabah deserved far more than a booklet. I would write a book.
And
so Blood Brothers was 'conceived'. But its birth was only made possible
by Datuk C L Chan, who had published the Sabah edition of my first book
in 2007, and who now agreed to publish Blood Brothers.
Because
I consider Blood Brothers to be my gift to Sabah, I received no
financial benefit from its publication. Indeed all my activities in
Sabah, from the books I write to the treks I undertake along the Death
March track, and Anzac Day Commomerative tours I accompany, are
conducted on a purely non-profit basis.
As
I have no agenda, this allows me to do what I think is best, without my
work being compromised by commercial or business considerations.
Fortunately,
I have have the overwhelming support of my husband, Neil. The deadline
to publish Blood Brothers on August 15 2010 - 'Sandakan Day' in Sabah
and the launch date - was very tight. To enable me to submit the
completed manuscript by 1 April 2010, Neil took over the entire
household - All cleaning, shopping, cooking, washing and ironing. My
focus was entirely on the book, from 8 am until often 2 am the next
day.
I always find that the writing is easy enough. The research in this case was difficult.
Although
Mary Chin, of the Daily Express, had written an article published in
2009, asking for local people who had family members connected to the
POW story to contact me, most of the emails I received were from
Sabahans asking me what I knew about a relative - not providing me with
any information.
However,
I did have a very good response from some, which was vital, along with
some useful material collected by Sabah Tourism a few years ago. This,
coupled with wonderful interviews I had conducted with Mr Chin Chee
Kong, whom I knew from the late 1990s due to his family connections in
Australia; From Sabahans I had met and talked to over the years; And
from material available in Australian archives - gave me enough to put a
story together.
The
first two chapters of the book, which deal with Sandakan's history from
1873 to 1942, when the Japanese arrived, were the hardest part to
research. I wanted readers to understand the phenomenal development of
Sandakan from a small bamboo and attap kampong to the beautiful
town it became, pre-war. Life for the expatriates and hard working
locals who had prospered to make this British-controlled outpost a jewel
in the Crown of the Empire, was exceedingly pleasant until January of
1942, when the Imperial Japanese army arrived. It was all downhill, from
then on.
I
was fortunate to locate the family of an Australian Army officer who
had been involved in the post-war reconstruction of Sandakan, reduced to
a mass of ruins and charred timber at war's end by allied attacks and a
Japanese scorched earth policy. Families of local people living outside
Sabah also sent me some great material, so that bit by bit I was able
to build a picture of the years of occupation as well as the days
immediately following the liberation.
Having
accessed hundreds of WW2 files in order to write my first book, I now
re-combed these documents to extract the names of local person
mentioned, so that I could create an honor roll. This list is by no
means complete, but its compilation was dependent entirely on what was
available here, and from Sabah.
NBHE
: Are you satisfied with your finished product? Do you think it could
have been better? Are you satisfied with the impact of your work to
Sabahans and Australians. You said that other respondents had emerged
belatedly with more information after your book was published. Do you
plan on making a second edition on Blood Brothers with the new
information?
LRS :
I am happy with the finished product, based on the material I was able
to source. I really enjoyed writing this book, which gave me a great
deal of satisfaction. Had more material been available, I could have
definitely improved upon it. For example, it was not until launch day
that a local veteran, who had an interesting story to tell, actually
told it. I was disappointed that, despite the appeal in the Daily
Express that neither this man, nor members of his family, had come
forward.
If
the current print run sells out, I will definitely ask Datuk C L Chan
to consider publishing a revised edition to include any new material
that has come to light.
NBHE
: What is/are the most memorable moments you had while
collecting/researching for Blood Brothers? And was/were there any major
obstacle/s to your efforts?
LRS :
The realisation of just how sophisticated Sandakan was before 1900 (for
example, a telegraph line linked Sandakan to Labuan - throug the
uninhabited jungle and then underwater!) and the discovery that a friend
I have known for years had a fabulous diary, written by her father. She
was born in Sandakan, and her dad, a local planter, had detailed
exactly what happened in Sandakan from November 1941, when war clouds
were gathering, until the end of the war. I only found out that she had
this when I asked her if she had any photos of Sandakan pre-war.
Material
supplied by the Funk family was also very helpful, as was the
generosity of the family who posted me an entire photo album of the
re-building of Sandakan, immediately post-war. I scanned the photos at a
high resolution and, with the family's permission, have been able to
make them available to the Sabah government.
There
were no major obstacles to overcome that I can remember, apart from
finding the source material the deadline. It took me from August to
Chrismas 2009, working 24/7, to collect the material, so I had just four
months to collate it, find out if there were any 'holes', collect more
information if necessary, write the manuscript, knock it into shape for
publication and source additional illustrative material and maps. The
publisher did a brilliant job with the layout, and everyone worked very
hard to ensure that copies were at hand for the launch at Sandakan on 15
August by the Governor General of Australia and Datuk Peter Pang,
representing Sabah's Chief Minister, who was overseas at the time.
NBHE
: What development do you wish to see or hope for in the future where
the 'kinship' of Sabahans and Australians is concerned?
LRS :
I hope that strong bonds between Sabah and Australia will continue. It
is wonderful that, wherever I go, in large towns and in the smallest,
most humble villages, friendship and hospitality is always extended to
Australians.
The
bonds forged originally during the war, and with the liberation of
Sabah in 1945, were strengthened with the Colombo Plan, an educational
initiative by our government that saw many young Sabahans studying in
Australia, and the assistance given by our Defence Forces during the
Indonesian Confrontation in the 1960s. This was followed by the building
of a number of major roads in Sabah's interior in the 1970s, with
Australian assistance. And now, especially since 1999, we see an
increasing number of Australisn travelling to Sabah to pay homage to our
shared war experience.
I
am hopeful, with many younger Australians coming to Sabah to walk along
the Death March track, opened up by my friend Tham Yau Kong and myself
in 2006, that the 'Ties that Bind' Australians and Sabahans together
will not only continue, but strengthen.
Because
of my close connections to your country, I am often called 'An Honorary
Sabahan'. I consider it a great privilege and honour to be considered
to be one of you.
End
Mrs
Silver will be at Western Australia on 12 September 2011 in yet again
another self-funded mission to promote Sabah and its history. She will
be in Sabah again to attend the Remembrance Sunday service in Labuan on
13 November 2011.
