War veteran and Yass resident John Cockburn is a guest of honour at the Royal Australian Air Force’s 100th birthday celebration today due to his years of service as a telegraphist throughout World War Two.
In a remarkable coincidence for the current resident of Thomas Eccles Garden, Linton Village in Yass, his 100th birthday falls on the same date as the Air Force’s 100th birthday, the 31st of March 2021.
John was part of the group of allies that miraculously escaped Singapore as it was being captured by the Japanese, making most of the perilous journey on a collier ship, all the way to Fremantle, Western Australia.
The group originally fled Singapore and made it to Sumatra, an island in Indonesia.
“We had to disperse under the instruction of the commanding officer of the time John Patrick Joseph McCauley.”
“His departing instructions to us were every man for himself,” he said.
With very few options and limited resources, John and his comrades made a desperate plea to Dutch military officials for assistance, a plea that was swiftly rejected.
“We thought we’d throw our hand in with the Dutch, but that was a forlorn hope because the Dutch didn’t want us.”
“They had enough problems with the war themselves, without having a few stragglers around knocking at their door saying ‘hey here we are we’d like to help you’,” John recalled.
In Batavia, John was battling one of the “tropical diseases” which riddled many throughout the war and had no recollection of how the collier ship, “The Edendale”, was found.
“I’ve got no idea how we got the ship in the first place; I was sick.”
“To put it crudely, I spent a lot of time with my backside off the Batavia wharves with my backside hanging over the water.”
“I’ve got no idea how the ship was obtained, except that we had to get the boat prepared and ready for sea,” he said.
To get the ship ready for their journey, John and his team were all given different
tasks, with some given the responsibility of gathering enough food to last the nine-day journey.
John’s responsibility was to hand-pack the Collier ship with enough coal to get them to Fremantle, a job that he estimates through his hazy recollection took three whole days.
The ship had minimal cover and protection, with those on board forced to sleep in open-air on its deck, an incredibly dangerous proposition when you consider they shared those seas with their enemies.”It was the risk we had to take.”
“We couldn’t do much about it,” said John.
The danger of the journey epitomised by a pivotal moment in which Japanese bombers flew over their ship.
“We just cleared Java, and a squadron of Japanese bombers came over, and they were looking for us, and they couldn’t find us because there was a heavy fog.”
“We crossed fingers on that one.”
“Had there not been fog, it’s most likely that I would not have been here,” he said candidly.
With roughly 60 people on board and surviving off nothing but bullied beef and biscuit rations for nine days, arriving in Fremantle without signalling equipment or a way of identification was a dangerous proposition in itself.
“They signalled to us at Fremantle, but we had no signalling equipment.”
“They started sending us messages from the South end naval station that I could read, and the message was “Stop! Drop anchor’,” he recalled.
After another day of waiting on the ship, they were eventually brought into Fremantle Harbour and processed in a local girl’s school, which had been taken over for military purposes.
Once word spread of their story amongst locals, the community quickly began treating them as heroes with food and drink gifts, which was more than the group could handle at that time.
“We received milk and chocolate and all that sort of stuff.”
“As you might imagine, we all got sick because we’d had several weeks without any food other than bullied beef and biscuits.”
“We couldn’t handle all the goodies that came along,” John said with a chuckle.
John grew up in the Western Australian town of Coolgardie, where he worked at the post office and was then drawn to the idea of serving his country.
He was rejected by the Post Master General army recruitment when he was 18 for being too young.
At 19, he enlisted as an air craftsman. He was left devastated when a medical assessment found him to be colour blind, which meant he was cleared for ground duties only.
His younger brother Peter followed him into the Air Force three years later and flew as a fighter pilot throughout the war.
John then retired from the Air Force in 1946, where he returned to working in the post office, this time in his new wife’s hometown of Sydney.
He held a few different roles professionally but ended up spending 24 years as the Assistant Director of Administration at the Department of Health. After which, he retired from the workforce altogether.
When his wife passed over five years ago, he moved to Yass to be closer to his daughter, who was living in Murrumbateman at the time.
At present, John is a regular visitor of the gym in town and has an involvement with the local RSL.
“There’s a lot of things I would like to get involved with, but I’m afraid those objectives are out of phase for my years,” he said with a wry smile.
We at the Yass Valley Times would like to congratulate John on an incredible 100 years of life and feel incredibly privileged to share his story.
Max O’Driscoll
