Final chapter: The SS Tanda, the ship that carried Harry Freame to his death.This is the seventeenth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the thirteenth on the life of Harry Freame. And so our story comes to an end. .
On 11 October 1940, Harry
Freame sailed for Tokyo on the SS Tanda
to set up the new Australian Legation.
Harry was worried by all
the publicity, including the identification of his previous intelligence
activities. He thought that he had been followed in Sydney in the weeks before
his departure. He was right to be worried.
The economic sanctions
imposed by the United State in1939 in response to the Japanese invasion of
China were biting hard. Japan was already considering pre-emptive military
action. The month before he sailed, Japan had signed the Tripartite Pact with
Germany and Italy.
The new Australian
Legation could probably have done little in any case, but the delays in
appointing Sir John Latham meant that it was arriving after the signature of
the Tripartite Pact.
John Fahey
records that as the political climate worsened, the feared Kenpeitai was
instructed to crack down on foreign intelligence activities in Japan.
Many Australian
service members would meet the Kenpeitai to their cost. Founded in 1881 as the
military police wing of the Imperial Japanese Army, it had evolved into
military police plus intelligence plus enforcement wing. It was, in effect, a
law in itself.
Political
considerations limited action against US nationals, but all others were
targets. Harry Freame had a particular problem because he was half-Japanese.
Events now are as
confused as anything else in Harry Freame’s life.
The family believed,
and there is evidence to support this view, that he was garroted on 27 January
1941, destroying his larynx. The official Australian position at the time was
that he had throat cancer. Later family attempts to gain adequate compensation
would be unsuccessful.
Severely ill and
barely able to speak, Harry Freame was repatriated to Australia where he died
and was buried on 29 May 1941. It had been quite a life!
This is not quite the
end of our story, nor the last sad part.
Finding the orchard
unprofitable with wartime restrictions, Harry Jnr decided to enlist. He tried
to join the air force, but was unsuccessful. He therefore joined the 33rd
Battalion, a militia unit, on 31 October 1941.
On 27 March 1943, he
entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon, graduating as head of his class on
4 April 1944. He had now achieved that office rank his father had sought so
many years before.
Harry Jnr was posted
as Lieutenant to the 2/24 Battalion where he served on Tarakan. On 7 May 1945,
Australian papers carried stories of a successful attack he had led on a Japanese
pillbox. He was killed the following day.
It happened almost by accident. Suffering from a tooth abscess, Harry Jnr had called into a medical post. Invited to stay overnight, he was asleep when a Japanese soldier crept in and threw a fused shell under his bed. He died instantly.
It happened almost by accident. Suffering from a tooth abscess, Harry Jnr had called into a medical post. Invited to stay overnight, he was asleep when a Japanese soldier crept in and threw a fused shell under his bed. He died instantly.
Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 5 June 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here 2017, here 2018, here 2019
2 comments:
The stated circumstances of Harry's son LT Freame 0f 2/24 Inf Bn are questionable. How could a single Japanese soldier infiltrate a secure area where the field hospital was located, carrying a fused shell. He would have passed many more attractive targets than a hospital tent. What happened to that Japanese soldier? Did anyone see him? Even the detonation of a suspected "fused shell" is questionable. The more logical theory is that he was "fragged" by a disgruntled Australian soldier who had some issue with LT Freame. In a time of war, it was more palatable to claim enemy action and the medical staff of the Field Hospital were preoccupied with patients, and furthermore, he was not one of theirs. The "Japanese soldier" story made the problem go away.
A belated thanks for this interesting comment. You make some fair points that at this point I'm unable to assess without more information!
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