VR salute to Death March hero who fought back — and a young lad in search of adventure
John Kinder had the dashing looks of a movie star; but it was his extraordinary courage, defending emaciated, dying men against their brutal captors, that made him a real hero.
National
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“Let me enlist, or I’ll run away and you’ll never know what happened to me.”
Aged just 14 and desperate for adventure, Melbourne’s Archie Fingher could never have predicted how chillingly this emotional appeal to his parents would come true.
The teenager fudged his age and used his older brother’s name to go off to World War Two with his pals in the “Moonee Ponds Gang”.
Five years later he was dead; one of almost 2,500 unarmed men, the majority Australians, who lost their lives in a desperate chain of events that culminated in the hideous Sandakan Death March — our nation’s worst military atrocity, yet a story that is relatively unknown.
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Only in recent years have stories emerged of stalwarts, characters and larrikins amongst the Aussie ranks — among them Victoria’s John Kinder, a man with movie-star looks but whose true heroism would emerge in the face of terrible adversity.
So scarce were details in the aftermath of the war that Archie’s parents, who had reluctantly let him go, went to their own graves without ever discovering his fate.
“Uncle Archie has always been a big part of our family,” said his great-niece, Linda Clow, whose young son is named for Archie. “My nan would talk about how awful it was not knowing what happened to her brother.”
In a bid to find the truth, seven members of the Clow family went to Borneo six years ago with historian Lynette Silver — Australia’s pre-eminent expert on Sandakan and a consultant to a new Anzac360 production telling the story in immersive virtual reality and 360-degree vision.
Hundreds of Aussies and Brits succumbed to disease, starvation and brutality in the notorious Sandakan prison camp, while more than a thousand were forced 250km across the rugged interior as an ever-weakening labour force in a series of “death marches”.
Only six survived, by escaping; the rest died from exhaustion, illness or at the hands of their guards in the final months of the war — and in some cases, murdered days after WWII officially ended.
Among those who fell near the end was Warrant Officer Kinder, the only airman in the group and beloved as hero by his fellow captives.
He had a reputation for putting himself between the guards and men they had chosen for a beating — and was the only one of the fallen marchers to get a marked grave, survivor William Moxham carving it himself.
His nephew John Pope, of Mooroolbark, hailed the Anzac360 app as “a great way to capture young inquiring minds”.
“Throughout the war little was known about the fate of the Borneo POWs and for some 50 years their shattered families were spared the details about the suffering and atrocities that took place. My widowed grandmother lost her only son; she never got over it,” he added.
“The tragic history of the Death March must be told along with the battles at Gallipoli, Kokoda and The Western Front. We owe it to the men not to forget and pass on the story to future generations. Lest we forget.”
Archie’s family at first thought he had been on the march, before “history detective” Mrs Silver was able to tell them he died of malaria in the camp.
“We were able to stand where we think his hut was, and walk where he walked,” said Dr Clow, a Hobart-based GP. “And we were able to tell Nan what happened.”
They were also able to share the truth with Archie’s older brother Robert, whose identity Archie had “borrowed” to enlist. Ironically, Robert had been part of an Australian military unit preparing to rescue the Sandakan captives — a mission that never went ahead, due to what Mrs Silver says was bungled intelligence.
“Uncle Bob always felt guilty,” said Dr Clow, who believes the Sandakan story was at first covered up “because it was so horrific” — and as a result, is little-remembered today.
She hailed Anzac360 for bringing the story out, adding: “Hopefully this will get people talking about it.”
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See the new Anzac360 virtual reality films on Hellfire Pass and the Sandakan Death March by downloading the free Anzac360 app at the Apple Store, Google Play store or for your Oculus device.
It works best on phone, tablet or headset but can also be viewed on a desktop or laptop.
Originally published as VR salute to Death March hero who fought back — and a young lad in search of adventure