WEBVTT - The Aussie samurai Gallipoli war hero spy - Part 1 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:05.240 But I think was more about the value system more 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.360 than anything. And what's really interesting is that Harry embodies 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.200 these and the values that he embodies of this disloyalty, 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.960 this courage, this bravery, which then come out it Gallipoli 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.720 are very similar to some of the values that we 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.520 sort of think of as the Anzac values that came 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.959 out of Gillipley. But in Harry's case they were very 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.720 much instilled from a young age under the Bashido code 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.080 and then being raised as a samurai obviously not without 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.919 its hazards. He was shot and wounded eighteen times at Gallipoli. 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.559 I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.520 in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:43.360 forgotten characters. Today we'll hear the mysterious story of Harry Freme, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.440 known as the Marvel of Gallipoli, who later went on 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.879 to become a spy for Australia during World War II. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.680 Harry Freme was raised in Japan as a samurai, but 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.640 through a series of strange circumstances, wound up fighting for 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.400 a frailia at Gallipoli. His story is told in a 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.919 new book called The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli by Ryan Butter. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.919 But Ryan also describes Harry as the anzac hero betrayed 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.679 by his nation. Today, in part one, we'll hear the 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:21.199 story of Harry's early life in Japan and his outstanding 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.840 bravery at Gallipoli. Make sure you come back for part 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.760 two on Thursday to hear what Harry did in the 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.760 Second World War, including being sent to Japan as a spy. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.520 Ryan believes he's uncovered a grievous historical wrong involving the 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.959 Japanese secret police and a cover up by the Australian government. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:54.920 Here's Ryan to tell the story. Welcome back to the podcast, Ryan. 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.120 Thank you very much. Jen really happy to be back now. 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.480 Harry Freme was known in his life as the Marvel 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.000 of Gallipoli. Is such a great nickname. But one of 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.559 the interesting points that you make is that most school 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.880 kids learn more about a donkey at Gallipoli than they 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:10.880 do about this man. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.280 That was one of the amazing facts I came across 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.359 that how well known this man was, but I'd never 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.280 heard of him. And it's not to disparage Simpson's donkey, 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.639 because that's also a fabulous story. But when you get 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.640 to read about what Harry did at Gallipoli, how he 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.400 was loved by the soldiers, who was known by the generals, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.639 and when he came back from Gallipoli, how famous he 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.840 was here in Australia and his name was splashed across 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.280 the newspapers. And that was because he was the first 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.360 soldier act Glypoli from Australia to win the Distinguished Conduct Medal, 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.320 which at that time was almost a proxy for the 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:46.239 Victoria Cross. 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.360 Now we'll hear a lot more later, obviously about Harry 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:54.240 Frem's heroic actions at Gallipoli, but let's begin with his childhood. 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.600 Because during the war, Harry pretended to be from regional Canada. 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.080 But that couldn't have been further from the truth, could it. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.919 No, he was actually born at Nagasaki in eighteen eighty 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.040 and to get to that birth, we've actually got to 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.160 go back to his father. So his father came out 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.400 to Australia as an eleven year old, and he was 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.520 a bit of a cad to say the least. He 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.440 got married in eighteen sixty seven to a lady called 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.640 Ellen Jane Cooka and at the time of the marriage, 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:29.839 Ellen was pregnant and William Henry was Harry's father's name. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.040 He left before the baby was born, and he'd had 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.200 a history of frequenting the bars of ille repute in Melbourne, 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.080 and we know all this from the divorce papers that 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.600 Ellen filed that even on the night of his wedding 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.360 he was off in the bars and cavaulting with prostitutes. 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.080 So he flees the marriage, and he flees Victoria and 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.320 he ends up in Tokyo. He gets up to Japan 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.920 in eighteen sixty seven, and it's a really interesting period 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.760 in Japan because it's basically the dawn of the Meiji era, 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.120 where it's Japan's coming out of isolation, forced out of 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.760 isolation by the Americans who sort of go to Japan 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.400 through Commodore Perry and say, we want to sign these treaties. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.520 We want you to open up your ports, and if 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.240 you don't, we're going to go to Tokyo and burn 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.520 it down. So they kind of had no option. But 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.159 what the Japanese wanted to do, and what they'd seen 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.599 happening in Asia was that this colonization of the Western 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.560 powers of Asia, and they said, we don't want that 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.960 to happen to us. We don't want our people being 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.039 exported for labor. So to prevent that, we need to modernize. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.920 And so when William Henry arrives in Japan, it's at 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.600 the start of this modernization phase. But of course it 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:43.000 also upsets the local Samurai because they're losing their power 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.480 as the class system gets wiped out. Everybody's equal, which 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.480 means the Samurai have lost a lot of their privilege 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.600 and power. Now to modernize, the Japanese said, we need 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.720 the English language. So there was all these people sort 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.320 of three or four thousand, they say, English teachers that 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.080 were either in Japan or went to Japan, and William 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.320 Henry reinvents himself as an English teacher. So when he 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.800 first arrived in Yokohama, he was working on a dairy, 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.520 but he then becomes an English teacher and marries one 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:15.960 of his students, a sixteen year old Say Kitagawa, who 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.680 was also from a samurai family and is the mother 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.040 of Harry Frame. And then Harry gets born in eighteen eighty. 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.920 Eight months later his father dies, and so you can 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:31.640 imagine he's half Australian, half Japanese. He's got two older siblings, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.640 a brother and a sister, and he's being raised by 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:38.760 a single mother. What also happened was that when William 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.080 Henry married Say, he never got the marriage ratified by 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.479 the British consul. Or the British consul knew that he 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.760 was already married back in Australia, so they refused to 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.680 ratify the marriage. So what that meant was that Say 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.919 lost her Japanese citizenship when she married a foreigner, but 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.279 she never gained British citizenship, and so Harry never had 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.560 British citizenship or Japanese citizenship at that point. He would 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.440 regain his Japanese citizenship later, but that made life quite 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.240 difficult for them. So a few years later, Say remarries 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.280 and she marries a really interesting gentleman called Mugo Hiko Koba. 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.640 Now he was also a samurai, and he'd been involved 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.560 in a sort of an anti emperor group, and he 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.200 was involved in a rebellion. He was part of an 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.960 assassination group in the Shinpuran rebellion. But after that he's 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.720 found religion and he became a member of the Anglican Church. 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.160 And so Harry had this unusual upbringing with the stepfather 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.039 being raised on the one hand as a samurai under 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:37.080 the Bashido Code, which was quite a strict upbringing, but 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.479 obviously couched in these values of loyalty and honesty and bravery. 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.240 But he was also raised in the Anglican Church in 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.920 the Japanese version, Christianity had only just not long before 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.240 been permitted again in Japan after being outlawed for two 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.320 hundred years, so they were persecuted as Christians. And then 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.040 he also had a fair skin, a father who was 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.560 a cat, so his upbringing was quite difficult in Japan. 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.000 Okay, so tell me more. I mean, most of us 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.360 in Australia have just got no familiarity whatsoever with what 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.840 it's like to be raised as a samurai. I mean, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.440 does that mean that you're being trained to be a warrior? 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.240 Well, sword work is part of the training, how to 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.560 use a sword, how to defend yourself. But it seems 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.120 to me more that it was a way of living 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:26.240 and a value system. There's a really good book that 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.080 was written around eighteen ninety nine called The Way of 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.920 the Bisheto, and it sort of goes into that there 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.280 is actually no written text about the Bashido Code and 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.160 being raised as a samurai. It's more there's a savant 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.440 that's written something, or it's following the example of a 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:45.560 previous samurai. But it's all about resilience in the children. 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.040 And there's these stories of how the parents would make 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.560 the children walk across snow for a couple of miles 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.960 to get to school, kind of like the old stories 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.000 that our grandparents tell us here without the snow, but 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.600 it's kind of testing these children and making them stay 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.080 up all night reading. It's yeah, but I think it 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.040 was more about the value system more than anything. And 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:11.520 what's really interesting is that Harry embodies these and the 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.160 values that he embodies of this loyalty, this courage, this bravery, 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.960 which then come out at Gallipoli are very similar to 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.360 some of the values that we sort of think of 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.200 as the Anzac values that came out of Gillipoli. But 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.640 in Harry's case, they were very much instilled from a 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.760 young age under the Bashido code and being raised as 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:31.440 a samurai. 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.120 Amazing. So how do you go from being raised in 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:41.120 a Japanese samurai family to fighting for Australia at Gallipoli. 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.040 Well, in the case of Harry, frame was a very 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.640 roundabout way and it's a part of his remarkable life. 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.800 So in eighteen ninety six, and we know this because 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.160 he wrote this to Charles Being, the official war historian. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.520 Charles Been was fascinated with Harry after he met him 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.440 at Glipoli. But so Harry leaves in eighty nine and 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.640 he goes to England to further his Education's that's what 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.280 he says. But actually he takes to wandering, as he 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.720 says to Charles Been, and he signs up onto sailing 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.120 ships and he works for a long time as a 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.880 ship's cook, and he sails all around the world. And 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.200 we have his seamen's log book from about nineteen oh 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.960 two to nineteen twelve, and we don't have it between 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.559 eighteen ninety six and nineteen oh two, but it's very possible. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.880 And the story that he always told that he'd actually fought. 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.920 He fought in the Mexican Army under Porfiitio Diaz, and 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.480 he also went down to German East Africa and fought 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.480 for the Germans there. So it was almost like a 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.400 soldier of fortune. And he has these little gaps in 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.679 his seamen logs book where he looks like he's taken 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.600 off for a little bit, you know, some of his 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.559 cruises were three weeks and was he went all over 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.560 the world. He was India, West Indies, Argentina, Peru, China. 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.200 He'd sailed all over the world. So in nineteen oh 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.120 six he marries Edith May, and she's an english woman. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.800 At that time there was a large population of Japanese 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.240 at Middlesbrough and they were there in the shipbuilding industry 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.760 after Japan and England had signed a Treaty of Commerce 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.440 and Navigation. So he marries Edith May, but he only 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:15.199 stays about three weeks and then he's back on the 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.199 ships and he's just constantly sailing, and over the next 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:19.800 couple of years he's probably only at home for a 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.920 couple of weeks at the time in nineteen eleven. He 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.760 finally lands in Australia in late nineteen eleven, stays a 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.800 couple of months and then returns to England. At some 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.599 point in nineteen thirteen, he again comes back to Australia 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.719 and without Edis May, he's just by himself, but he's 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.599 still married and he ends up at glenn Innes and 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:43.199 I don't know how we ended up at glenn Innis, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.800 but when World War One breaks out, he's actually a 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.640 horse breaker and he's breaking in horses in Glen innis 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.120 so obviously a very talented guy and that he could 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.800 sort of turn his hand to different things. Goes down 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.400 to Sydney, signs up and then he's in October he's 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.840 on the SSA freak heading to to the Middle East 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.080 into Egypt, whether than deployed to Glipoly. 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.319 Amazing and what happened next. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.200 So he's part of the landing. He lands on Gallipoli 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.240 at about seven forty am on the twenty fifth of April, 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.440 and you can imagine the chaos. But of course he's 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.920 been in wars before. He's a scout, so he's sort 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.320 of the reconnaissance and he's basically Charles Been describes him 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.240 as being the most ubiquitous soldier at the landing, in 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.760 that he was everywhere. He was running around, he was 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:34.640 taking water to advance positions, he was rounding up shirkers 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.520 as they were called, or stragglers, which I think is 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.160 a bit harsh because honestly, it was absolute chaos on 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.079 the beach that morning. In the first few days, he 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:46.880 was holding different positions, he was fighting, he was going back, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.319 he was taking weapons and tools to people that was 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.000 sort of stranded. There was no firing line. It was 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:53.720 sort of like all patches of men just trying to 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.240 get up the get up the slopes, but Harry was 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.120 kind of everywhere. And it was for that efforts on 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.200 the first morning he won his Distinguished Conduct medal. And 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:06.600 what had happened. He'd gone ahead, he'd found a trench 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.400 which was full of Australians and they'd been cut off 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.320 and they were held down by enemy fire and they 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.560 couldn't move, and they'd run out of water. It was 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.080 obviously quite hot. They were in a pretty desperate situation 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:17.600 and they're at the point where they either have to 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:23.600 surrender or be killed. And so Harry jumped out of 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.400 the trench, ran back down to the Australian positions in behind, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.319 got water, got tools, went back up and relieved that position. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.720 That allowed them to hold that position. That position then 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.800 became Quinn's Post, and Charles been rite later that Quinn's 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.400 post was the most advanced Anzac position and it was 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:42.640 kind of the key to the whole defenses, and that 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.200 position would never have been held without Harry Freem and 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.000 his efforts on that morning and the end of that 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:51.840 afternoon to do that. Once the once that initial landing 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:56.280 and invasion went into trench warfare were then his talents 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.640 as a scout really came about, and the troops knew 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.680 him as the Mexican scout now because he'd fought in Mexico. 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.079 He quickly got rid of his sort of the Australian 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.840 Army issue paraphernalia. And by that I mean he stopped 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.520 using the rifle, the three or three rifle, and he 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.040 wore two revolvers, one on each hip. He had a 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.760 third revolver under his arm pit. He had a bowie 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.240 knife tucked down into his boot. He wore a straight 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.080 brimmed hat, he didn't have sort of the slouch hat 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.720 with the one side up, and he wore a bandanna, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.320 a really distinctive blue and white bandanna that a lot 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.400 of souliers mentioned if they saw Harry Freeman always had 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.800 on his bandanna. Now, his role as a scout at 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.040 Gallipli was every night he would crawl out of the 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.600 Australian trenches and he would map and sort of reconna 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.760 the Turkish trenches where the guns were, where the troop 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.679 strength were. And you can imagine how dangerous that was 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:51.880 going out up to the sides of the trenches. He 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.120 referred to himself as a peeping tom and that he'd 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.880 sneak up on his belly and peer over into the 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.760 Turkish trenches at night. Now obviously not with its hazards. 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.040 He was shot and wounded eighteen times. 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.360 Oh my goodness. But so it was he taken out 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:09.079 of action with those wounds. 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.440 No, I can imagine, you know, when they say in 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.400 the in the files, it'll say who's wounded. It could 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.160 have been a flesh wound, It could have been a graze. 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.920 He got shot through the hand, he got shot through 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.360 the toe. At one he had an operation to remove 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.680 shrapnel from his thigh, which must have been quite a 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.720 serious one. And later on back in Australia, he's visited 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.840 by a journalist and the journalist rights that his body's 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:32.280 just covered in scars. So yeah, quite a gallant guy, 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.760 but wasn't taken out. He was finally taken off the 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:41.120 peninsula during the loan Pine attacks in August. He participated 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:42.920 in them, but he was not in the actual fighting. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.040 He participated in digging communication trenches up to the newly 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.960 held positions after the initial Loan pine attacks. But then 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.640 when that was settled into those positions, he was again 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.120 up out of a trench looking for machine gun inmplacements 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.360 when he got hit by seventy five millimeters shell smashed 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.160 his shoulder, fell back into the trench, broke his collar bone, 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:04.440 and that was his war over. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.600 We'll be back soon to hear more about Harry's incredible bravery. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:10.680 So stay with us. 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:20.360 Now. 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.240 Tell us about that nickname, the Marvel of Gallipoli. Did 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.680 Charles bean coin that one? Or just an anonymous journalist 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:27.440 back in Australia? 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.120 That was just an anonymous journalist back in Australia Because 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.400 he'd won the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and he won it 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.480 very early. His name was put in all the newspapers 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.680 because you can imagine everyone's sitting back in Australia waiting 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.160 to hear how their troops are performing, and then they 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.360 hear this story that this Harry Frame has won the 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.720 Distinguished Conduct Medal. Nobody knows that he's Japanese born. Everyone 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.240 thinks Harry Freme, he's probably a good white guy from 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.640 glenn Innis, so everyone's very proud of him. And then 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.440 when the soldiers come back a lot of people are 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.360 talking about him. People being interviewed, they mentioned him. There's 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.480 a story that he was actually captured by the Turkish 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:06.920 troops one day. He was going into the trenches and 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.320 he got captured, and as he's being led back away 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.640 from the front, he breaks free, shoots the guards that 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.920 are escorting him back, and makes it back to the 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.720 Australian lines. And so that story is told by another 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.680 soldier to a journalist when he gets back to Australia. 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.320 But also any attack that was going to take place, 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.080 the generals would come to Harry and say, you know, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:30.560 what's the best way to do. How do we go? 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.320 What's the land like? Because he knew that land between 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.960 the Australian trenches and the Turkish trenches so well. It's 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.040 known as no man's land and that was his area. 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.640 So he was front and center of all the planning 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.480 and all the sort of intelligence work on Gallipoli. Later on, 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.280 when Charles Bean's running his history of World War One, 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.400 he actually writes to Harry and says, can you draw 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.120 me a map of the Turkish trenches of this particular 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.840 section where he was operating, And Harry was able to 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:01.080 draw that. So soldiers talk of the word freme, of 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.320 the name Freme being a household word at Gallipoli. He 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.560 was that well known. And what's really interesting, he was 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.959 known by the soldiers, but he was also known by 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.800 the generals, and as you can imagine, the British Australian 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.120 generals and the rank and file, there's always those tensions 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.080 when you talk about the history of Gallipoli. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.960 Yeah. Well, in our episode on Charles Bean, we were 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.520 told that he was a very dry writer. If anything, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.000 he was too dry, So he probably would have he 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.600 probably would have said that the marvel of Gallipoli was hyperbole. 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.879 He probably wouldn't have used an expression like that, I 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:32.760 can imagine. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.760 But he did. In his official history he refers to 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.800 Harry Frem as the finest scout at Gallipoli. 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.000 Yeah, which is a big statement for him, I would 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:42.879 imagine praise. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.399 He was fascinated. He went and spent two days with 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.960 Harry seven and eighth June nineteen fifteen. He went and 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.280 spoke to Harry. And it's quite interesting because Bean was 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.960 also a public and outspoken supporter of the White Australia policy, 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.240 and Harry told him that he was Canadian. But Bean 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.680 actually writes in his diary he says he's Canadian, but 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.280 he's obviously Chinese or Japanese. But despite that, there's probably 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:12.359 five or six mentions of Harry's exploits in Bean's official history, 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:14.800 and he kept in touch with him. And I've actually 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.680 been really lucky enough. There's a lady, Susan McGregor who 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:22.000 holds Harry's personal collection and his handwritten letters from Charles 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.320 Bean to Harry after the war, and it's my dear 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.360 Harry and my dear Frame, and he's very highly regarded. 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.840 So now, did Harry cover up his Japanese heritage throughout 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:34.640 his whole time in the Australian Army. 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:37.840 He did to certain people, and to others he didn't. 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:39.800 So when he came back to Australia there was obviously 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.000 a lot of press interest in him, and in those 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:47.320 interviews he said he was from Canada, but to close 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.440 friends he said that he was Japanese and they knew 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.360 that story. But what's also interesting is when he came 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.560 back he went into the soldier settlement scheme here and 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.520 he was obviously Harry Frame of Glipoli, Canadian born x 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.119 Sea Cook, ex Horse Break, et cetera. But at the 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.840 same time, because of what was happening with Japanese relations. 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.320 There was the Australian Intelligence School and they recruited Harry 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.480 to teach Japanese to their offices. So he was kind 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:19.879 of living a double life very early on. So by 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:21.680 day he was sort of at the Soldier settlement and 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.000 then he'd catch the train down from Bathist where it was, 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.080 and then he was teaching Japanese to the Australian intelligence 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.800 officials because and this was about nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen. 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.600 Because even though Japan was an Australian ally during the 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.240 First World War and the ship that Harry sailed on 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.320 to the Middle East was actually escorted by a Japanese warship, 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:46.120 by nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen, Australians feared a Japanese invasion 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.399 and so it was quite unusual for it would have 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.240 been an unusual situation for Harry to come back to Australia, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.080 the country he had fought for, and the fear was 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.000 that japan were about to invade, even though they were 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.440 an ally. To give you an idea of how difficult 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.560 it would have been for Harry coming back to Australia 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.280 in nineteen sixteen with the fear of Japanese invasion. Was 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.959 that during the debates around conscription, both sides of the debate, 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.040 the ones that wanted conscription and the ones that didn't, 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.239 all used Japan as an argument. So the ones that 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.879 wanted conscription said, We're going to be invaded by Japan 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.000 at some point, so we need to send as many 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.040 people to help Europe now so that when Japan invades, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.800 they'll help us in return. And the ones who are 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.359 against conscription said, Japan's going to invade, why would we 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.960 send people over to Europe. We need everyone here at home. 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.479 So for Harry, he's probably thinking, you know, I've been 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.800 raised in Japan, where I was kind of an outsider 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.360 as a foreign having a foreign father, and now I'm 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.439 back here and I've sort of sacrificed such a lot 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.320 for the Australian Army at Gallipoli, and now I'm also 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:53.840 on the outside back in Australia. So it would have 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.399 been a very difficult time for him. So he had to, 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.160 I think create another identity for himself, and I think 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:00.720 that identity was Harry Frame. 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.640 Now Bean said that he thought he was Japanese or Chinese. 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:10.080 So what did Obviously our listeners can't see photos, although 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.760 we will put some photos of Harry in with the 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.479 story that accompanies this podcast online. So can you explain 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:17.320 what Harry looked like? 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.400 Yeah, he was about six foot tall. He's described as 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:22.600 in the Terminology of the Day. He was tall, dark 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.480 and live. He had a tattoo of a snake down 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.240