This book is written by the daughter of a man whose story should be told. An ordinary Australian, a grazier who volunteered to fight for his county and who experienced unimaginable inhumanity as a PoW in F Force on the Thailand-Burma Railway.
But Rod endured and survived — so he is no ordinary man. He is another one of our unsung heroes whose story needs to be recorded and read. This is the story of one man but it is also the story of many.
Quotes from We Only Had Hoes
There was an army great coat in the lumber room at 'Ladas Downs' with the red and blue colour patch of the 8th Division on the shoulder. As a child I asked Dad if he had worn it during the war. He said, 'They couldn't send us back to Australia in what we had on.' I was curious, there was a story here. Sixty-seven years later here it is.
The Thailand-Burma Railway has been described as one of the most extraordinary engineering feats of World War II —achieved by men with hoes, baskets, elephants, bamboo, axes, sledge hammers, drill rods and some explosives.
I was at Shimo Songkurai Camp and Songkurai Camp on the Railway. I highly endorse We Only Had Hoes and know that it is true. This book's authenticity stands up to scrutiny.
I am one of the very few Allied air crew to survive and escape after being shot down in Japanese occupied coastal Burma. I believe that it is important that the 2,802 Australians who died on the Burma Railway are remembered. Catherine McKenzie's 'We Only Had Hoes' should be on all Australian bookshelves, and her words on the dedication page widely known.
It is written not to recriminate, but with a wish to record and so remember what humans can do to each other.
Known too, should be the quoted facts from McKernan's 'This War Never Ends' – Sixty-five ex-prisoners of the Japanese had committed suicide between 1945 and 1960, and a further 900 had also died in that 15 year period, all of them relatively young men (p163).
Phone: 07 5524 2165 |
Copyright © Catherine McKenzie 2010 - 2011. All rights reserved.
