News-Info-Alerts

Re: At the Hands of the Japanese

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: November 27, 2002

"Memorial at last for secret unit
By CATHERINE MASTERS

Frank Wigzell waited a long time to stand before a memorial to his fallen friends - nearly 60 years.

The secret ceremony at the SAS barracks at an Auckland military base where the memorial was unveiled was so charged that the tough old soldier struggled to contain a tear.

At 81, the Aucklander finally has somewhere to lay a wreath on Anzac Day, to salute mates who, in his eyes, have finally been acknowledged as having existed.

In World World II, Mr Wigzell was part of Z Special Unit, a commando unit which predated the SAS and was so clandestine no record of its existence or his participation in it ever appeared on Army records.


Mr Wigzell wrote a book about the unit but said that even after the official secrecy had lifted, the Army and successive Governments never officially acknowledged the 22 New Zealanders who served with it. Only four are still alive.

The men were attached to the Australian Army, part of Special Operations Australia. Mr Wigzell and others faced extraordinary peril in the jungles of Japanese-occupied Borneo.

He was the first New Zealander to parachute behind enemy lines, luckily landing among local headhunters whom he befriended and trained, gathering crucial intelligence about the Japanese for sabotage actions. He did this alone, only rarely coming into contact with other Allied soldiers.

Another New Zealander, Ernie Myers, from Invercargill, also parachuted into the jungle but died a gruesome death within days, tortured and beheaded by the Japanese.

Others got into Borneo by submarine, snake-boat and kayaks.

Three more died, including Major Don Stott, already a war hero for bravery in Greece.

At the ceremony, Mr Wigzell met Major Stott's great-niece, Rachael Stott, who is also an Army major.

Ms Stott grew up knowing that her great-uncle had gone missing in action, presumed drowned, but knew little else until Mr Wigzell's account of the unit was published.

Major Stott disappeared as he tried to kayak to shore by stealth in his first mission in Borneo.

His body was never found, but Mr Wigzell believes that Major Stott sank under the weight of his pack, weapons and radio.

"When he got off the submarine it started to blow. It's a very shallow bay and it got worse and worse."

"We were of the opinion that he went straight to the bottom."

Ms Stott, an Army psychologist, said she was honoured to meet Mr Wigzell and that she was awed by what the men had endured in Borneo while in their early 20s.

Although the SAS would not speak to the Herald, for security reasons, Ms Stott said the memorial came about after members read Mr Wigzell's story in the Herald last month. "When they heard they just went, 'Wow'."

One SAS officer at the ceremony simply said: "They're part of our family - part of the Special Forces family."

©Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald"