Many times over the past few years as I have worked on this wonderful Kinkaseki and Taiwan POW project, people have asked if had any relatives who were Far East prisoners of war. I have always replied that I did not, that all my relatives were involved in the war in Europe.
In addition to my involvement in the POW project, I have - for several years, been interested in tracing the family history on my mother’s side (I know very little about my father’s side of the family), and have been working on building a family tree as time has permitted. About a year ago I finished the main draft and sent copies to some of my relatives for their reference. My mother’s father came from Norfolk in England, and like every family tree we had branches of relatives seemingly everywhere. One of my grandfather’s uncles emigrated to Australia in 1876 and carried on the clan “down under”. A cousin in Toronto knew of these relatives and sent a copy of my family tree to them. I received a letter from an uncle in Brisbane in January this year, telling me the story of our family there.

“The Cobon twins” - Temple Burke Cobon & John James Cobon - died 1944

It turns out that my mother had two twin cousins -born in 1918, who were called up in 1940 with the 2/10th Field Reg’t. R.A.A. After training, they were part of the 22nd Brigade, 8th Division AIF which was sent to Singapore in February 1941.
After taking part in the battle for Malaya and Singapore, they were taken prisoner by the Japanese and within several months were sent to Burma as part of “A” Force to work on that end of the infamous Death Railway. They worked their way down the line, finally finishing up at Tha Makam where the main bridge over the Kwai river was built.
Following the completion of the Railway, they were returned to Singapore in June of 1944, and in September were put on the hellship Rakuyo Maru for a journey to Japan. On September 12 the Rakuyo Maru was torpedoed by an American submarine in the South China Sea and 1159 POWs were lost when the Japanese left them to die. My mother’s two cousins were among those who perished.
So now after all this time, I find out that I DO have a personal relationship to some FEPOWs after all. My relatives in Australia sent me the photograph of my second-cousins (pictured above) who are remembered on the War Memorial in Borneo.
My second-cousins were John James Cobon and Temple Burkitt Cobon. They were only 26 years old when they died. It certainly is a small world!

BUSY DAYS. . . (con’t. from page 3)

I spent ten days in the Norfolk area and had the opportunity while there to attend the annual FEPOW memorial church service in the 1000 year-old abbey at Wymondham. I met many POWs and their families there, and I also took the opportunity while in the UK to call many of my Taiwan POW friends on the phone. It was a great time of reunion and all too soon it came to an end.
Then it was back to Canada again to spend some more time with my family there. My son and I worked on the website (see article on page 8) and all in all the trip was very worthwhile.
The summer months have been busy ones too, as we have been putting together the POW Honour Roll and exploring for camps. It seems that the task is never done, but we get such joy from doing it that it hardly seems like work at all sometimes.