Revealing memoirs a PoW’s tale
SITTING in his barracks in Afghanistan, then-Army reservist Jason Tuffley felt the emotions rise deep within him.
It was late 2017 and thousands of kilometres away from his family and friends, he sat holding 59 photocopied pages filled with faded handwriting that told the harrowing tale of survival of a Digger he came to know only briefly as an old man.
The 46-year-old read the memoirs of the late Arthur Dean, whose war journey took him from Southport to Singapore and Japanese captivity in World War II, and began slowly and painstakingly typing out the words.
Today the police officer will think of former Corporal Dean as he lays a wreath at the Surfers Paradise cenotaph at Anzac Day commemorations.
“I got to know Arthur in his 90s when he was living in a nursing home in Southport with his wife and even then he was sharp as a tack and really funny,” Senior Sergeant Tuffley said.
“He was part of what was known as F-Force and his journey finished at Hellfire Pass, but he had that Australian sense of humour and always told me about the funny side of the war.
“Arthur told me that no Australian was allowed to die without another being in attendance which struck me as an incredible act of mateship and compassion.
“During my own deployment I was on my own in a foreign country and when you are
there you reflect on those who have gone before, so I took his memoirs and started typing them up.”
Arthur Thomas Albert Dean was born in Kelvin Grove, Brisbane in July 1913, but spent most of his life on what would become the Gold Coast.
He joined the second Australian Imperial Force in 1940 at the age of 27 as an escape from the tough financial times which followed the Great Depression.
During his service he saw the fall of Singapore in 1942 and spent much of the war as a captive of the Empire of Japan.
The corporal and his fellow soldiers were forced to work as slave labourers for the Japanese and build the infamous Burma Railway.
At the end of the war in 1945, he returned to Australia to work for what became the Gold Coast City Council.
Mr Dean’s story went unwritten for decades until 2001 when, at age 88, he was inspired to finally commit his memories to paper.
“Yesterday was Victory in the Pacific Day and the period (since the war ended) has been 66 years, so before time catches up I will put a few items on paper as far as my memory allows,” he wrote on August 16, 2001.
Sen-Sgt Tuffley met Mr Dean in 2006 at a Southport nursing home. He was visiting another veteran and struck up a conversation. They bonded over their shared military history.
The older veteran allowed the younger man to make copies of his diaries in the hopes of having them transcribed.
“Life catches up with you and it took me a number of years to do,” he said. “Life goes on and I never got to say goodbye to Arthur before he died.”
Sen-Sgt Tuffley is hoping to contact Mr Dean’s surviving family to give them a copy of the transcribed diaries.
However, he has been unable to find them. Council and defence authorities do not have photos of Mr Dean, but his military records are held in Canberra and he is honoured on a war memorial in Victoria commemorating prisoners of war.
Sen-Sgt Tuffley, now the officer-in-charge at Surfers Paradise Police Station, comes from a family with a long military tradition which settled in the region more than 130 years ago.
“My family has been on the Coast since the 1880s and my father was in the Army while my grandfather served on the Western Front in World War I with the 24th Battalion,” he said. “I grew up with reminders of this and wanted to follow them.”