Gympie resident Corporal Patrick James Bourne to be honoured at Australian War Memorial in Canberra

A Gympie-born prisoner of war, whose tragic story exemplifies the horrors faced by so many Australians in WWII, will be honoured at The Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Corporal Patrick James Bourne was born in Gympie, and died in service as a prisoner of war held by the Japanese on May 27 1945.

The fascinating and tragic service of a Gympie-born soldier held prisoner during WWII will be commemorated at the Last Post Ceremony on June 27, at Canberra’s Australian War Memorial.

Corporal Patrick James Bourne grew up in Toogoolawah alongside three siblings, and initially worked as a linotype operator and printer before serving in the part-time militia with the 2/14th Light Horse for two years.

He then enlisted with the Second Australian Imperial Force on July 15, 1940.

A year later, he would embark from Fremantle for active service in Singapore — he would never return home.

Corporal Patrick James Bourne will be honoured at the Last Post Ceremony The Australian War Memorial in Canberra, a daily ceremony remembering the legacy of Australian military service.

Following Singapore’s surrender to Japanese forces on February 15 1942, Corporal Bourne and around 15,000 fellow Australians were taken as Japanese prisoners of war.

In August that year, the corporal was sent aboard a Japanese ‘hell ship’, bound for the Sandakan war camp in Borneo, alongside 1500 other Australians collectively known as B Force.

B Force was subject to notoriously brutal conditions in constructing airfields.

Sandakan worsened throughout 1943 and 1944 as beatings and tortures increased, and the number of sick rapidly grew.

In January 1945, the Japanese began to fear an Allied invasion of Borneo, and forced their war prisoners to march more than 200 kilometres from the camp to Ranau in what became known as the Sandakan Death Marches.

Weakened by starvation, disease and brutal treatment, very few would survive the walk.

For better or worse, Corporal Bourne never made it to the march — too sick to move out of Sandakan, he reportedly died at 29 years of age of malaria on 27 May 1945, less than four months before the war’s end.

“Through our daily Last Post Ceremony, we not only acknowledge where and how these men and women died, we also tell the stories of who they were when they were alive, and of the families who loved and, in so many cases, still mourn for them,” Australian War Memorial Director Matt Anderson said.

The Last Post Ceremony honouring the service of Corporal Bourne will be live streamed to the Australian War Memorial’s YouTube page.

Originally published as Gympie resident Corporal Patrick James Bourne to be honoured at Australian War Memorial in Canberra