News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Too Little, Too Late

Date: April 25, 2001

"ANZAC DAY 2001  
How one man dealt with the memories
By DAVID WROE
Wednesday 25 April 2001
Treasurer of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association John Collins holds a photograph of himself at the age of 19 - the day before he sailed to Malaya. Mr Collins believes the $25,000 compensation for survivors of Japanese PoW camps is too little, too late.

Editorial
Anzac Day 2001

A close mate of John Collins once told him the best way to put the stinging memories of the Burma railway behind him was to talk them through.

It wasn't easy. How do you tell your loved ones that, on a good day, you were fed a cup of rice and some thin vegetable soup?

How do you explain that your malnourished body could not fend off the beatings, the malaria, the beri-beri, dysentery and cholera?

Fortunately, the mate was none other than the late war hero Edward "Weary" Dunlop - and Dunlop's advice was good.

Mr Collins gradually learnt to stop hating his Japanese captors on the notorious World War II railway. But he never stopped fighting on behalf of his fellow prisoners.

As treasurer of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association, Mr Collins, 78, has spent years lobbying for compensation for Australian survivors of Japanese PoW camps.

While he is thankful for some redress, the prospect of $25,000 is too little, too late, he says.

"Their youth was taken from them," he says. "A hell of a lot of them have committed suicide.

"I don't think you could put a price on something like that."

As a 19-year old army signalman, Mr Collins fought the Japanese in Singapore before being captured in 1942 and sent to work on the Burma railway, where 16,000 Australian and allied soldiers died.

For the next three years, he toiled on the railway day in, day out, with the threat of death constantly hanging over his head.

Mr Collins, who had a successful accounting practice after the war, says there are other survivors who need the money more than he does.

Nonetheless, he could put the money to good use. He and his wife Kit have house renovation plans. Or perhaps they might just take an island cruise."