WW2 Australian 2nd 4th Machine Gun Prisoner of War ‘Burma Railway’ Casualty Medal Group

Description

WW2 Australian 2/4th Machine Gun Prisoner of War ‘Burma Railway’ Casualty Medal Group to WX9849 Archibald McIntosh. 1949-45 Star, The Pacific Star, 1939-45 War Medal & Australian Service Medal 1939-45, all impressed named to WX9849 A.J.J.McINTOSH. Medals are court mounted for display. Copied service record, papers, War Crimes reports and a friend’s letter to parents outlining McIntosh’s death included. Archibald James McIntosh was born on the 16th June 1920in Edinburgh, Scotland. He enlisted for the 2nd A.I.F. at the Claremont Showgrounds Recruit Reception Depot on the 6th December 1940. He was allotted to the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion, qualifying as a Signalman, with further training in various camps around Australia. The battalion left Darwin on 30 December, sailing via Port Moresby. Following a Japanese attack on Rabaul, New Britain, the convey turned around and sailed to Sydney and then Fremantle. Sailing under escort the convoy finally reached Singapore at the end of January 1942. It was not long before the 2/4th was in action. Following the Japanese invasion of Singapore island, McIntosh as a wireless operator would have been well aware of the desperate situation he and his mates were in, with casualties amounting to 137 men killed/missing and 106 men wounded, he and the remaining members of the unit is listed as a Prisoner of War on the 15th February 1942. He was sent to Changi Prison Camp, listed as Prisoner 3/8580 and was sent to work on the infamous Burma-Thai Railway. He spent his time in the Shimo Sonkurai Camp, where he died of Beri Beri & Dysentery on the 11th of October 1943. He is buried in Tanbaya Cemetery, Thailand, Grave No. 598. His mother and father, who lived in Bassendean were only told in October 1945 that their son had died.