MEMORIES of a loving father came flooding back to Wagga woman Linda Douglas when she watched the Last Post ceremony enacted at the Australian War Memorial in honour of Brigadier Arthur Leslie Varley MC and Bar.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ceremony was conducted in Canberra last Friday on the 70th anniversary of the day Brigadier Varley, as a prisoner of war, was forced into a lifeboat when the Japanese ship he was on was torpedoed by a US submarine on September 12, 1944.
He was last seen in command of about seven lifeboats and it is believed he and others on the lifeboats may have been killed by machine gun fire heard by survivors who floated off in a different direction.
"He was just shy of his 52nd birthday," Mrs Douglas said.
Mrs Douglas, 89, was told about the planned tribute to her father by her friend and military historian Di Elliott and it was arranged for her to watch the ceremony on a screen at Legacy House on Tompson Street.
"It was absolutely emotional, all the old days came back (of) my brother (Jack) and my dad, he was a wonderful father," Mrs Douglas said.
Arthur Varley was a hero in both world wars.
He served on the Western Front in World War I and was recommended for the Military Cross (MC) for his actions in June, 1917, during the Battle of Messines when he took command of two companies in forward positions that had lost all its officers.
In August, 1918, he was awarded a Bar to his MC for ensuring positions were kept supplied despite being exposed to artillery fire.
After the war, he was mentioned in dispatches.
He married Linda (nee Middleton, after whom Mrs Douglas was named) and they had three children - Jack, Robert and Linda - while living in northern NSW.
In 1940 after the outbreak of World War II, then Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Varley was seconded to the 2nd AIF and placed in command of the 2/18th Battalion, which went to Malaya.
Jack, a Lieutenant, was also in Malaya as part of the 2/19th Battalion.
On February 8, 1942, Colonel Varley was promoted to Brigadier when his commander in Singapore became extremely fatigued.
He was captured with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese a week later and was imprisoned in Changi before being shipped off to Burma where he was imprisoned with Jack.
Mrs Douglas said that while a prisoner of war, her father wrote secret diaries that he kept hidden in hollowed-out bamboo.
They were brought home by Jack at the end of the war.
"They were used in the war trials and are kept in the Australian War Memorial," Mrs Douglas said.
Brigadier Varley was recommended again for the Military Cross, but it could not be awarded to someone who had died, so he was mentioned in dispatches again.
Jack was also awarded the Military Cross for his exploits during the Malayan campaign.
Robert also joined the AIF and was killed in action in April, 1945.
"When Jack got home he said where is Bob? He did not even know he was in the army," Mrs Douglas said.
Jack introduced Linda to Wagga man and fellow POW Bill Douglas in December, 1945, and they were married the following April before moving to Wagga and raising three children.
The years have not dimmed Mrs Douglas's memories or love for the heroic men in her life.
"It was so emotional seeing that program, everything welled up inside of me, all the memories," she said.
