Gordon Jamieson: Gold Coast World War II veteran who survived Thai-Burma Railways dies at age 102
One of Australia’s last living World War II veterans to survive the infamous Thai-Burma Railway has died after an incredible life which took him around the world.
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One of Australia’s last-living World War II veterans to survive the infamous Thai-Burma Railway has died.
Gold Coast resident Gordon Jamieson passed away this week at the age of 102 after a life travelling the world, having a family and witnessing some of the very worst of humanity.
He spent his final years at the Cedarbrook aged care facility in Mudgeeraba.
Mr Jamieson, was born in the small Queensland town of Amiens on June 14, 1921, and enlisted in the army in July 1940 at the age of 19 “to go on an adventure”.
He was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army in Malaya on February 15, 1942, following a 10-week battle.
Imprisoned first in Singapore’s infamous Changi Prison, Mr Jamieson was one of 2800 Australians sent to work on building the Thai-Burma Railway.
This duty on the so-called “death railway” saw just five of his 16-man platoon survive the war.
“We became slaves and thus began, unexpectedly, a 42-month phase of my life, a period of tragic events the memories of which will remain for all time,” he told the Bulletin in 2021
“On the completion of a strenuous day at work our boys would commence the walk back to camp, several kilometres in pouring rain with little or no footwear.
“Then someone would start to sing a tune … and others would follow, and the heads would be lifted proudly.
“The workforce had been reduced to one-third strength due to illness and death, mostly caused from diseases and tropical ulcers resulting in limb amputations.”
Mr Jamieson was a prisoner of war for more than four years and was finally liberated from captivity in September 1945 after the Empire of Japan finally surrendered.
He weighed just 40kg when he was freed.
Returning to Australia, Mr Jamieson married his wife Shirley and they spent 62 years together, travelling the world and having three children.
The family lived in Broadbeach for many years, where Mr Jamieson worked in a range of jobs, including owning a tractor business, a cafe, working in a chicken abattoir and running an engineering firm until his retirement in the 1980s.
In 2013 the veteran was invited to visit the set of the 2013 Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth-starring film The Railway Man, which was set on the same stretch of the Thai-Burma Railway he had worked on.
In recent decades he lobbied for repatriations to be paid to former prisoners of war and spoke out against armed conflict.
“My wartime experiences convinced me of the futility of war,” he said.
“The memories of my war are not those of victorious battles or ignominious defeat, but of the human spirit of our Australian soldiers.”
In 2021, at the age of 100, he performed a final service pleading with the community to get vaccinated against Covid-19, criticising anti-vaxxers for invoking the horrors of the Holocaust.
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