Information from Lynette Silvers Book entitled “The Bridge at Parit Surlong”

Ben Hackney was a grazier in the Bathurst District where his family were among the early pioneers. At the age of 26, Ben Hackney became part of the 2/29th Battalion, training at Bathurst, then embarked with the Battalion for Malaya in July, 1941.

He was severely wounded in the Battle of Muar in January 1942. After 36 days in the jungle, Ben Hackney was captured and imprisoned in Pudu Gaol, Kula Lumpur, before being transferred to Changi on Singapore Island. He survived the experiences of F Force in Thailand. His evidence of the Parit Surlong massacre was crucial to the successful 1950 prosecution for war crimes of Lieutenant-General Takamo Nishimura.

With Nishimura dead and Australia entering into a peace treaty with Japan, the events of 1942 were now a fading memory, however Hackney did not forget. He did not marry the girl whose photo had sustained him during his ordeal, but he did marry in the early 1950’s. He fathered a child, a girl, but the marriage was short lived. Haunted by the memories when awake and tormented by dreadful nightmares when asleep - he remained on the land raising cattle and sheep on Wonolabee property near Bathurst, his only brother Tom died in 1947 in a horse accident. For the last ten years of his life he became a virtual recluse, crippled with arthritis, he never forgave or forgot those responsible for the massacre at Parit Surlong. He died of emphysema in May 1984, leaving this legacy to his old battalion, the 2/29th. Ben Hackney’s death went almost unnoticed, apart from the usual announcements placed in newspapers by the funeral director.

About Ben Hackney

[From the Australian War Memorial]

Lt BC "Ben" Hackney, 2/29th Australian Inf Bn

was one of only two men to survive the Japanese massacre of wounded at Parit Sulong during the fighting on the Malay Peninsula in 1942.

The force commanded by Lt-Col CGW Anderson attempting to withdraw along the Bakri to Parit Sulong road was stopped at the bridge over the river at Parit Sulong. Unable to withdraw on the road, Anderson's men were forced to disperse through the jungle and swamps.

They left behind 165 wounded who could not travel, including Lt Hackney. After they were captured by the Japanese the wounded PoW's were brutally herded together; many of the PoW's were forced into a shed from where on the evening of the 22nd January 1942 they were tied together in small groups and taken away to be killed.

Lt Hackney, feigning death, was left behind. He crawled away and eventually found another member of his battalion, Sgt Ron Croft, who had also escaped, and they were also joined by a British soldier. The three eventually reached a Malay house where they were given assistance. Hackney who could not stand, convinced the others to leave him. The Malays, fearing reprisals by the Japanese, carried him off some distance from the house and left him. He managed to crawl from place to place, but was generally refused assistance by Malays, who feared reprisals, but was given assistance by Chinese.

On the 27th February 1942, thirty-six days after he escaped the massacre, he was caught by a party of Malays, one dressed as a policeman, taken back to Parit Sulong and handed over to the Japanese. He was again subjected to brutal treatment by the Japanese, but after a series of moves on 20th March 1942 he arrived at the Pudu gaol at Kuala Lumpur. He was later taken with other PoW's to Changi gaol.

He survived the war and returned to Australia.