Cards supplied by the Japanese

Douglas's Epitaph

Douglas Algoma Stanborough known to his friends as Doug

He was born 18 December 1917 in Leagrave (now the suburb of the city of Luton in Bedfordshire). He was the youngest child of Arthur William and Frances Amelia Stanborough. He had one brother and three sisters, Doris, Kathline, Phylis and Eric.

In 1928 at the age of 11 the family immigrated to Australia on the PO liner ORMONDE taking 6 weeks to arrive in Sydney. He really enjoyed the trip and often spoke of the various ports they called into.

They lived for a short while at Tighes Hill in Newcastle then his father bought 3 acres of land at Charlestown. He had to leave school at the age of 14, which he regretted as he was 2^nd from the top of his class and 3^rd top of the whole 5 second year classes.

This was during the depression times and in order to supplement the family income, he used a push bike that his brother gave him, riding miles to sell gum tips from the bush. This earnt him on an average day, 2 shillings and for those younger ones here today, it is equal to 20 cents.

His 2 friends Fred and Leo, who were inseparatable, enjoyed their spare time flying model airplanes. The 3 of them rode their push bikes for miles so they could go to bush dances and often would have to camp over night. When they danced at Hamilton, Fred would borrow his dad's horse and sulky.

Early in 1937 Dad, Fred and Leo joined the 39^th Fortress Engineers a CMF unit and at the same time Dad got a job with Lysaghts at Newcastle steel works.

His life in the thirties was happy even though there was a depression.

September 1939 the war broke out. He was on CMF duty doing the Dog Watch shift from 10pm to 6am when news of the war with Germany broke. The CMF unit was called into full time service and his pay sponsored by Lysaghts until he enlisted in the AIF on the 1^st of July 1940.

He was trained as a signaller with the 2/15 regiment. The unit left Australia on a coastal passenger ship to Perth where they boarded a Dutch troop ship Sybajak andf finally landing in Nee Soon, Singapore. They engaged the Japanese through Malaya retreating to Singapore. On the 15^th February 1942 the British surrendered and dad became a prisoner of war.

For the 1^st year as a POW f Troop was deployed to Bukit Timah to erect a monument to the Japanese killed in the battle. In all the monument took about 8 months to build by hand, which later, at the end of the war was blown up. Although life was no bed of roses it was not without its lighter moments. They managed to scrounge a number of 5 gallon empty petrol drums. One day on one of their regular inspection of our quarters, one of the guards accidentally kicked a drums under one of the beds, which was full of stolen petrol. The guard asked "why do you steal petrol" to which was replied "for our cigarette lighters". Thiss incident was reported to the Japanese CO and the next day they were lined up on parade. A commanding Japanese officer in a commandeered Jaguar sports car and mounting a prepared dais. They were told that it was very bad to steal petrol from the japanese trucks and if they wanted petrol for their lighters they should ask the guards and they would give it to them, which was a bit of a laugh. After being lectured for 15 minutes or so he descended from his dais and drove off. He didn't get far, his engine failed, out of petrol; someone had milked it while he was lecturing them.

After this they were moved to River Valley road in the city to work on the wharves loading Japanese ships with loot. Their own clothing had worn out or sold to Chinese traders for food. They would often go naked to work and return as well dressed gentlemen. It was a pity they couldn't keep the clothes but food was more important. They were always on the look out for rare luxuries like cigarettes and food.

At the end of their 10 hour shift they would be searched with their hands above their heads. The Japanese would never look up at them so items held in the hands went unnoticed most of the time.

Dad fell sick while the big push was on, when he recovered he was moved to Thailand near Burma, to a POW camp, Tarsau, building roads. They sabotaged the roads so that when the monsoon started the roads sunk. The Japanese reverted to bullock carts to move the supplies, neither were the bullocks feed and quickly died.  One bullock was replaced with 10 POWs.

At the end of war Dad returned home and enlisted in the regular army.

In 1946 Dad met our mother at a dance in Newcastle and after a courtship was married on 27 December 1947. They marriage of 57 years. They were blessed with 5 sons, Ray, Jeff, Peter, Ian and Don and 1 daughter, Alicia. We moved around Sydney a lot during the next 20 years living in various army barracks, finally settling in Carlton when dad resigned from the army.

In civilian life Dad was employed by Department of Main Roads as a controller on the Sydney Harbor Bridge for 11 years untill retirement.

He greatly loved his 14 grandchildren and never missed a birthday sending his own personal cards produced on the computer.

He loved the modern technology, being very computer literate, writing programs, searching the internet and in recent times even used the internet for all their shopping, emails, especially keeping in touch with his daughter who lives in WA.

Dad loved his weekend lawn bowls, which he played till he was unable to do so. He was then in his 80s.

Dad was very social person, able to communicate well and was always willing to be a working member of the many associations that he joined during his life. He would never so no to any challenge and an inspiration to all.

Dad passed away in his sleep, peacefully at home. And will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

MP3 file created in Singapore 2001 Download