CHRISTIE Edwin Robert (Ted) VX35469 HQ Coy A Force

Description

Outdoor portrait of VX35469 Private (Pte) Edwin Robert (Ted) Christie, 2/29 Battalion, of Koondrook, Vic. A butter factory worker in civilian life, Pte Christie enlisted on 15 July 1940. He served as a driver in Singapore before his unit moved into Malaya. Whilst there he narrowly escaped capture by the Japanese. Pte Christie and another driver, Mick Armstrong, joined up with British troops and made an arduous journey back to Singapore, arriving the day before the surrender. Pte Christie was made a prisoner of war and was initially interned at Changi. He then worked on the Burma Thailand railway before being selected for a work party for Japan. At this point he passed a diary he had been writing on scraps of paper to a fellow prisoner who was being moved to Japan. The diary had been hidden in the dressings of a prisoner who was an amputee. Pte Christie was killed when the Japanese prison ship in which he was travelling, the Rakuyo Maru, was sunk by the United States Navy submarine USS Pampanito on 12 September 1944. He was aged 28. After the war, Pte Christie's diary was returned to Australia to his fiancee, Jean Cunningham