Description
Object description
Two undated postcards (one 'pro forma', the other entirely typewritten) sent to his mother while he was a prisoner of war in Borneo, one certainly and the other probably written in Sandakan camp (1943 - 1944), together with an ms letter (22pp), dated 23 August 1946, to York's brother Aubrey, from Squadron Leader Edward E Hardie, who had been the Senior British Officer in the camps at Malang and the Koan School, Batavia, in Java (March - September 1942) and, after their transfer by sea via Singapore (September - October 1942), in the camps in Borneo at Jesselton (October 1942 - April 1943) and Sandakan (April - August 1943) in which York was also a prisoner of war. In his letter, which is accompanied by a pencil head and shoulders sketch of Hardie drawn by a fellow prisoner of war in Borneo in 1943 and a copy of a signed wartime photograph of York (who was serving as an aircraftman in No 153 Maintenance Unit RAF when he was taken prisoner in Java and who died at Sandakan camp on 5 April 1945), Hardie comments on living conditions in the different camps, the gradual deterioration in the health of the prisoners because of the shortage of food and the large numbers of sick men in Sandakan by 1943 and gives what details he can about the deaths of almost all the prisoners who remained in the camp after the majority of the officers, including Hardie, were moved by the Japanese to Kuching in August 1943.
Content description
Two undated postcards (one 'pro forma', the other entirely typewritten) sent to his mother while he was a prisoner of war in Borneo, one certainly and the other probably written in Sandakan camp (1943 - 1944), together with an ms letter (22pp), dated 23 August 1946, to York's brother Aubrey, from Squadron Leader Edward E Hardie, who had been the Senior British Officer in the camps at Malang and the Koan School, Batavia, in Java (March - September 1942) and, after their transfer by sea via Singapore (September - October 1942), in the camps in Borneo at Jesselton (October 1942 - April 1943) and Sandakan (April - August 1943) in which York was also a prisoner of war. In his letter, which is accompanied by a pencil head and shoulders sketch of Hardie drawn by a fellow prisoner of war in Borneo in 1943 and a copy of a signed wartime photograph of York (who was serving as an aircraftman in No 153 Maintenance Unit RAF when he was taken prisoner in Java and who died at Sandakan camp on 5 April 1945), Hardie comments on living conditions in the different camps, the gradual deterioration in the health of the prisoners because of the shortage of food and the large numbers of sick men in Sandakan by 1943 and gives what details he can about the deaths of almost all the prisoners who remained in the camp after the majority of the officers, including Hardie, were moved by the Japanese to Kuching in August 1943.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 2005-08