Speaker 1: But I think was more about the value system more
Speaker 1: than anything. And what's really interesting is that Harry embodies
Speaker 1: these and the values that he embodies of this disloyalty,
Speaker 1: this courage, this bravery, which then come out it Gallipoli
Speaker 1: are very similar to some of the values that we
Speaker 1: sort of think of as the Anzac values that came
Speaker 1: out of Gillipley. But in Harry's case they were very
Speaker 1: much instilled from a young age under the Bashido code
Speaker 1: and then being raised as a samurai obviously not without
Speaker 1: its hazards. He was shot and wounded eighteen times at Gallipoli.
Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is
Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's
Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Today we'll hear the mysterious story of Harry Freme,
Speaker 2: known as the Marvel of Gallipoli, who later went on
Speaker 2: to become a spy for Australia during World War II.
Speaker 2: Harry Freme was raised in Japan as a samurai, but
Speaker 2: through a series of strange circumstances, wound up fighting for
Speaker 2: a frailia at Gallipoli. His story is told in a
Speaker 2: new book called The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli by Ryan Butter.
Speaker 2: But Ryan also describes Harry as the anzac hero betrayed
Speaker 2: by his nation. Today, in part one, we'll hear the
Speaker 2: story of Harry's early life in Japan and his outstanding
Speaker 2: bravery at Gallipoli. Make sure you come back for part
Speaker 2: two on Thursday to hear what Harry did in the
Speaker 2: Second World War, including being sent to Japan as a spy.
Speaker 2: Ryan believes he's uncovered a grievous historical wrong involving the
Speaker 2: Japanese secret police and a cover up by the Australian government.
Speaker 2: Here's Ryan to tell the story. Welcome back to the podcast, Ryan.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Jen really happy to be back now.
Speaker 2: Harry Freme was known in his life as the Marvel
Speaker 2: of Gallipoli. Is such a great nickname. But one of
Speaker 2: the interesting points that you make is that most school
Speaker 2: kids learn more about a donkey at Gallipoli than they
Speaker 2: do about this man.
Speaker 1: That was one of the amazing facts I came across
Speaker 1: that how well known this man was, but I'd never
Speaker 1: heard of him. And it's not to disparage Simpson's donkey,
Speaker 1: because that's also a fabulous story. But when you get
Speaker 1: to read about what Harry did at Gallipoli, how he
Speaker 1: was loved by the soldiers, who was known by the generals,
Speaker 1: and when he came back from Gallipoli, how famous he
Speaker 1: was here in Australia and his name was splashed across
Speaker 1: the newspapers. And that was because he was the first
Speaker 1: soldier act Glypoli from Australia to win the Distinguished Conduct Medal,
Speaker 1: which at that time was almost a proxy for the
Speaker 1: Victoria Cross.
Speaker 2: Now we'll hear a lot more later, obviously about Harry
Speaker 2: Frem's heroic actions at Gallipoli, but let's begin with his childhood.
Speaker 2: Because during the war, Harry pretended to be from regional Canada.
Speaker 2: But that couldn't have been further from the truth, could it.
Speaker 1: No, he was actually born at Nagasaki in eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: and to get to that birth, we've actually got to
Speaker 1: go back to his father. So his father came out
Speaker 1: to Australia as an eleven year old, and he was
Speaker 1: a bit of a cad to say the least. He
Speaker 1: got married in eighteen sixty seven to a lady called
Speaker 1: Ellen Jane Cooka and at the time of the marriage,
Speaker 1: Ellen was pregnant and William Henry was Harry's father's name.
Speaker 1: He left before the baby was born, and he'd had
Speaker 1: a history of frequenting the bars of ille repute in Melbourne,
Speaker 1: and we know all this from the divorce papers that
Speaker 1: Ellen filed that even on the night of his wedding
Speaker 1: he was off in the bars and cavaulting with prostitutes.
Speaker 1: So he flees the marriage, and he flees Victoria and
Speaker 1: he ends up in Tokyo. He gets up to Japan
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, and it's a really interesting period
Speaker 1: in Japan because it's basically the dawn of the Meiji era,
Speaker 1: where it's Japan's coming out of isolation, forced out of
Speaker 1: isolation by the Americans who sort of go to Japan
Speaker 1: through Commodore Perry and say, we want to sign these treaties.
Speaker 1: We want you to open up your ports, and if
Speaker 1: you don't, we're going to go to Tokyo and burn
Speaker 1: it down. So they kind of had no option. But
Speaker 1: what the Japanese wanted to do, and what they'd seen
Speaker 1: happening in Asia was that this colonization of the Western
Speaker 1: powers of Asia, and they said, we don't want that
Speaker 1: to happen to us. We don't want our people being
Speaker 1: exported for labor. So to prevent that, we need to modernize.
Speaker 1: And so when William Henry arrives in Japan, it's at
Speaker 1: the start of this modernization phase. But of course it
Speaker 1: also upsets the local Samurai because they're losing their power
Speaker 1: as the class system gets wiped out. Everybody's equal, which
Speaker 1: means the Samurai have lost a lot of their privilege
Speaker 1: and power. Now to modernize, the Japanese said, we need
Speaker 1: the English language. So there was all these people sort
Speaker 1: of three or four thousand, they say, English teachers that
Speaker 1: were either in Japan or went to Japan, and William
Speaker 1: Henry reinvents himself as an English teacher. So when he
Speaker 1: first arrived in Yokohama, he was working on a dairy,
Speaker 1: but he then becomes an English teacher and marries one
Speaker 1: of his students, a sixteen year old Say Kitagawa, who
Speaker 1: was also from a samurai family and is the mother
Speaker 1: of Harry Frame. And then Harry gets born in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 1: Eight months later his father dies, and so you can
Speaker 1: imagine he's half Australian, half Japanese. He's got two older siblings,
Speaker 1: a brother and a sister, and he's being raised by
Speaker 1: a single mother. What also happened was that when William
Speaker 1: Henry married Say, he never got the marriage ratified by
Speaker 1: the British consul. Or the British consul knew that he
Speaker 1: was already married back in Australia, so they refused to
Speaker 1: ratify the marriage. So what that meant was that Say
Speaker 1: lost her Japanese citizenship when she married a foreigner, but
Speaker 1: she never gained British citizenship, and so Harry never had
Speaker 1: British citizenship or Japanese citizenship at that point. He would
Speaker 1: regain his Japanese citizenship later, but that made life quite
Speaker 1: difficult for them. So a few years later, Say remarries
Speaker 1: and she marries a really interesting gentleman called Mugo Hiko Koba.
Speaker 1: Now he was also a samurai, and he'd been involved
Speaker 1: in a sort of an anti emperor group, and he
Speaker 1: was involved in a rebellion. He was part of an
Speaker 1: assassination group in the Shinpuran rebellion. But after that he's
Speaker 1: found religion and he became a member of the Anglican Church.
Speaker 1: And so Harry had this unusual upbringing with the stepfather
Speaker 1: being raised on the one hand as a samurai under
Speaker 1: the Bashido Code, which was quite a strict upbringing, but
Speaker 1: obviously couched in these values of loyalty and honesty and bravery.
Speaker 1: But he was also raised in the Anglican Church in
Speaker 1: the Japanese version, Christianity had only just not long before
Speaker 1: been permitted again in Japan after being outlawed for two
Speaker 1: hundred years, so they were persecuted as Christians. And then
Speaker 1: he also had a fair skin, a father who was
Speaker 1: a cat, so his upbringing was quite difficult in Japan.
Speaker 2: Okay, so tell me more. I mean, most of us
Speaker 2: in Australia have just got no familiarity whatsoever with what
Speaker 2: it's like to be raised as a samurai. I mean,
Speaker 2: does that mean that you're being trained to be a warrior?
Speaker 1: Well, sword work is part of the training, how to
Speaker 1: use a sword, how to defend yourself. But it seems
Speaker 1: to me more that it was a way of living
Speaker 1: and a value system. There's a really good book that
Speaker 1: was written around eighteen ninety nine called The Way of
Speaker 1: the Bisheto, and it sort of goes into that there
Speaker 1: is actually no written text about the Bashido Code and
Speaker 1: being raised as a samurai. It's more there's a savant
Speaker 1: that's written something, or it's following the example of a
Speaker 1: previous samurai. But it's all about resilience in the children.
Speaker 1: And there's these stories of how the parents would make
Speaker 1: the children walk across snow for a couple of miles
Speaker 1: to get to school, kind of like the old stories
Speaker 1: that our grandparents tell us here without the snow, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of testing these children and making them stay
Speaker 1: up all night reading. It's yeah, but I think it
Speaker 1: was more about the value system more than anything. And
Speaker 1: what's really interesting is that Harry embodies these and the
Speaker 1: values that he embodies of this loyalty, this courage, this bravery,
Speaker 1: which then come out at Gallipoli are very similar to
Speaker 1: some of the values that we sort of think of
Speaker 1: as the Anzac values that came out of Gillipoli. But
Speaker 1: in Harry's case, they were very much instilled from a
Speaker 1: young age under the Bashido code and being raised as
Speaker 1: a samurai.
Speaker 2: Amazing. So how do you go from being raised in
Speaker 2: a Japanese samurai family to fighting for Australia at Gallipoli.
Speaker 1: Well, in the case of Harry, frame was a very
Speaker 1: roundabout way and it's a part of his remarkable life.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen ninety six, and we know this because
Speaker 1: he wrote this to Charles Being, the official war historian.
Speaker 1: Charles Been was fascinated with Harry after he met him
Speaker 1: at Glipoli. But so Harry leaves in eighty nine and
Speaker 1: he goes to England to further his Education's that's what
Speaker 1: he says. But actually he takes to wandering, as he
Speaker 1: says to Charles Been, and he signs up onto sailing
Speaker 1: ships and he works for a long time as a
Speaker 1: ship's cook, and he sails all around the world. And
Speaker 1: we have his seamen's log book from about nineteen oh
Speaker 1: two to nineteen twelve, and we don't have it between
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety six and nineteen oh two, but it's very possible.
Speaker 1: And the story that he always told that he'd actually fought.
Speaker 1: He fought in the Mexican Army under Porfiitio Diaz, and
Speaker 1: he also went down to German East Africa and fought
Speaker 1: for the Germans there. So it was almost like a
Speaker 1: soldier of fortune. And he has these little gaps in
Speaker 1: his seamen logs book where he looks like he's taken
Speaker 1: off for a little bit, you know, some of his
Speaker 1: cruises were three weeks and was he went all over
Speaker 1: the world. He was India, West Indies, Argentina, Peru, China.
Speaker 1: He'd sailed all over the world. So in nineteen oh
Speaker 1: six he marries Edith May, and she's an english woman.
Speaker 1: At that time there was a large population of Japanese
Speaker 1: at Middlesbrough and they were there in the shipbuilding industry
Speaker 1: after Japan and England had signed a Treaty of Commerce
Speaker 1: and Navigation. So he marries Edith May, but he only
Speaker 1: stays about three weeks and then he's back on the
Speaker 1: ships and he's just constantly sailing, and over the next
Speaker 1: couple of years he's probably only at home for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks at the time in nineteen eleven. He
Speaker 1: finally lands in Australia in late nineteen eleven, stays a
Speaker 1: couple of months and then returns to England. At some
Speaker 1: point in nineteen thirteen, he again comes back to Australia
Speaker 1: and without Edis May, he's just by himself, but he's
Speaker 1: still married and he ends up at glenn Innes and
Speaker 1: I don't know how we ended up at glenn Innis,
Speaker 1: but when World War One breaks out, he's actually a
Speaker 1: horse breaker and he's breaking in horses in Glen innis
Speaker 1: so obviously a very talented guy and that he could
Speaker 1: sort of turn his hand to different things. Goes down
Speaker 1: to Sydney, signs up and then he's in October he's
Speaker 1: on the SSA freak heading to to the Middle East
Speaker 1: into Egypt, whether than deployed to Glipoly.
Speaker 2: Amazing and what happened next.
Speaker 1: So he's part of the landing. He lands on Gallipoli
Speaker 1: at about seven forty am on the twenty fifth of April,
Speaker 1: and you can imagine the chaos. But of course he's
Speaker 1: been in wars before. He's a scout, so he's sort
Speaker 1: of the reconnaissance and he's basically Charles Been describes him
Speaker 1: as being the most ubiquitous soldier at the landing, in
Speaker 1: that he was everywhere. He was running around, he was
Speaker 1: taking water to advance positions, he was rounding up shirkers
Speaker 1: as they were called, or stragglers, which I think is
Speaker 1: a bit harsh because honestly, it was absolute chaos on
Speaker 1: the beach that morning. In the first few days, he
Speaker 1: was holding different positions, he was fighting, he was going back,
Speaker 1: he was taking weapons and tools to people that was
Speaker 1: sort of stranded. There was no firing line. It was
Speaker 1: sort of like all patches of men just trying to
Speaker 1: get up the get up the slopes, but Harry was
Speaker 1: kind of everywhere. And it was for that efforts on
Speaker 1: the first morning he won his Distinguished Conduct medal. And
Speaker 1: what had happened. He'd gone ahead, he'd found a trench
Speaker 1: which was full of Australians and they'd been cut off
Speaker 1: and they were held down by enemy fire and they
Speaker 1: couldn't move, and they'd run out of water. It was
Speaker 1: obviously quite hot. They were in a pretty desperate situation
Speaker 1: and they're at the point where they either have to
Speaker 1: surrender or be killed. And so Harry jumped out of
Speaker 1: the trench, ran back down to the Australian positions in behind,
Speaker 1: got water, got tools, went back up and relieved that position.
Speaker 1: That allowed them to hold that position. That position then
Speaker 1: became Quinn's Post, and Charles been rite later that Quinn's
Speaker 1: post was the most advanced Anzac position and it was
Speaker 1: kind of the key to the whole defenses, and that
Speaker 1: position would never have been held without Harry Freem and
Speaker 1: his efforts on that morning and the end of that
Speaker 1: afternoon to do that. Once the once that initial landing
Speaker 1: and invasion went into trench warfare were then his talents
Speaker 1: as a scout really came about, and the troops knew
Speaker 1: him as the Mexican scout now because he'd fought in Mexico.
Speaker 1: He quickly got rid of his sort of the Australian
Speaker 1: Army issue paraphernalia. And by that I mean he stopped
Speaker 1: using the rifle, the three or three rifle, and he
Speaker 1: wore two revolvers, one on each hip. He had a
Speaker 1: third revolver under his arm pit. He had a bowie
Speaker 1: knife tucked down into his boot. He wore a straight
Speaker 1: brimmed hat, he didn't have sort of the slouch hat
Speaker 1: with the one side up, and he wore a bandanna,
Speaker 1: a really distinctive blue and white bandanna that a lot
Speaker 1: of souliers mentioned if they saw Harry Freeman always had
Speaker 1: on his bandanna. Now, his role as a scout at
Speaker 1: Gallipli was every night he would crawl out of the
Speaker 1: Australian trenches and he would map and sort of reconna
Speaker 1: the Turkish trenches where the guns were, where the troop
Speaker 1: strength were. And you can imagine how dangerous that was
Speaker 1: going out up to the sides of the trenches. He
Speaker 1: referred to himself as a peeping tom and that he'd
Speaker 1: sneak up on his belly and peer over into the
Speaker 1: Turkish trenches at night. Now obviously not with its hazards.
Speaker 1: He was shot and wounded eighteen times.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. But so it was he taken out
Speaker 2: of action with those wounds.
Speaker 1: No, I can imagine, you know, when they say in
Speaker 1: the in the files, it'll say who's wounded. It could
Speaker 1: have been a flesh wound, It could have been a graze.
Speaker 1: He got shot through the hand, he got shot through
Speaker 1: the toe. At one he had an operation to remove
Speaker 1: shrapnel from his thigh, which must have been quite a
Speaker 1: serious one. And later on back in Australia, he's visited
Speaker 1: by a journalist and the journalist rights that his body's
Speaker 1: just covered in scars. So yeah, quite a gallant guy,
Speaker 1: but wasn't taken out. He was finally taken off the
Speaker 1: peninsula during the loan Pine attacks in August. He participated
Speaker 1: in them, but he was not in the actual fighting.
Speaker 1: He participated in digging communication trenches up to the newly
Speaker 1: held positions after the initial Loan pine attacks. But then
Speaker 1: when that was settled into those positions, he was again
Speaker 1: up out of a trench looking for machine gun inmplacements
Speaker 1: when he got hit by seventy five millimeters shell smashed
Speaker 1: his shoulder, fell back into the trench, broke his collar bone,
Speaker 1: and that was his war over.
Speaker 2: We'll be back soon to hear more about Harry's incredible bravery.
Speaker 2: So stay with us.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Tell us about that nickname, the Marvel of Gallipoli. Did
Speaker 2: Charles bean coin that one? Or just an anonymous journalist
Speaker 2: back in Australia?
Speaker 1: That was just an anonymous journalist back in Australia Because
Speaker 1: he'd won the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and he won it
Speaker 1: very early. His name was put in all the newspapers
Speaker 1: because you can imagine everyone's sitting back in Australia waiting
Speaker 1: to hear how their troops are performing, and then they
Speaker 1: hear this story that this Harry Frame has won the
Speaker 1: Distinguished Conduct Medal. Nobody knows that he's Japanese born. Everyone
Speaker 1: thinks Harry Freme, he's probably a good white guy from
Speaker 1: glenn Innis, so everyone's very proud of him. And then
Speaker 1: when the soldiers come back a lot of people are
Speaker 1: talking about him. People being interviewed, they mentioned him. There's
Speaker 1: a story that he was actually captured by the Turkish
Speaker 1: troops one day. He was going into the trenches and
Speaker 1: he got captured, and as he's being led back away
Speaker 1: from the front, he breaks free, shoots the guards that
Speaker 1: are escorting him back, and makes it back to the
Speaker 1: Australian lines. And so that story is told by another
Speaker 1: soldier to a journalist when he gets back to Australia.
Speaker 1: But also any attack that was going to take place,
Speaker 1: the generals would come to Harry and say, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the best way to do. How do we go?
Speaker 1: What's the land like? Because he knew that land between
Speaker 1: the Australian trenches and the Turkish trenches so well. It's
Speaker 1: known as no man's land and that was his area.
Speaker 1: So he was front and center of all the planning
Speaker 1: and all the sort of intelligence work on Gallipoli. Later on,
Speaker 1: when Charles Bean's running his history of World War One,
Speaker 1: he actually writes to Harry and says, can you draw
Speaker 1: me a map of the Turkish trenches of this particular
Speaker 1: section where he was operating, And Harry was able to
Speaker 1: draw that. So soldiers talk of the word freme, of
Speaker 1: the name Freme being a household word at Gallipoli. He
Speaker 1: was that well known. And what's really interesting, he was
Speaker 1: known by the soldiers, but he was also known by
Speaker 1: the generals, and as you can imagine, the British Australian
Speaker 1: generals and the rank and file, there's always those tensions
Speaker 1: when you talk about the history of Gallipoli.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in our episode on Charles Bean, we were
Speaker 2: told that he was a very dry writer. If anything,
Speaker 2: he was too dry, So he probably would have he
Speaker 2: probably would have said that the marvel of Gallipoli was hyperbole.
Speaker 2: He probably wouldn't have used an expression like that, I
Speaker 2: can imagine.
Speaker 1: But he did. In his official history he refers to
Speaker 1: Harry Frem as the finest scout at Gallipoli.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a big statement for him, I would
Speaker 2: imagine praise.
Speaker 1: He was fascinated. He went and spent two days with
Speaker 1: Harry seven and eighth June nineteen fifteen. He went and
Speaker 1: spoke to Harry. And it's quite interesting because Bean was
Speaker 1: also a public and outspoken supporter of the White Australia policy,
Speaker 1: and Harry told him that he was Canadian. But Bean
Speaker 1: actually writes in his diary he says he's Canadian, but
Speaker 1: he's obviously Chinese or Japanese. But despite that, there's probably
Speaker 1: five or six mentions of Harry's exploits in Bean's official history,
Speaker 1: and he kept in touch with him. And I've actually
Speaker 1: been really lucky enough. There's a lady, Susan McGregor who
Speaker 1: holds Harry's personal collection and his handwritten letters from Charles
Speaker 1: Bean to Harry after the war, and it's my dear
Speaker 1: Harry and my dear Frame, and he's very highly regarded.
Speaker 2: So now, did Harry cover up his Japanese heritage throughout
Speaker 2: his whole time in the Australian Army.
Speaker 1: He did to certain people, and to others he didn't.
Speaker 1: So when he came back to Australia there was obviously
Speaker 1: a lot of press interest in him, and in those
Speaker 1: interviews he said he was from Canada, but to close
Speaker 1: friends he said that he was Japanese and they knew
Speaker 1: that story. But what's also interesting is when he came
Speaker 1: back he went into the soldier settlement scheme here and
Speaker 1: he was obviously Harry Frame of Glipoli, Canadian born x
Speaker 1: Sea Cook, ex Horse Break, et cetera. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, because of what was happening with Japanese relations.
Speaker 1: There was the Australian Intelligence School and they recruited Harry
Speaker 1: to teach Japanese to their offices. So he was kind
Speaker 1: of living a double life very early on. So by
Speaker 1: day he was sort of at the Soldier settlement and
Speaker 1: then he'd catch the train down from Bathist where it was,
Speaker 1: and then he was teaching Japanese to the Australian intelligence
Speaker 1: officials because and this was about nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: Because even though Japan was an Australian ally during the
Speaker 1: First World War and the ship that Harry sailed on
Speaker 1: to the Middle East was actually escorted by a Japanese warship,
Speaker 1: by nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen, Australians feared a Japanese invasion
Speaker 1: and so it was quite unusual for it would have
Speaker 1: been an unusual situation for Harry to come back to Australia,
Speaker 1: the country he had fought for, and the fear was
Speaker 1: that japan were about to invade, even though they were
Speaker 1: an ally. To give you an idea of how difficult
Speaker 1: it would have been for Harry coming back to Australia
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen with the fear of Japanese invasion. Was
Speaker 1: that during the debates around conscription, both sides of the debate,
Speaker 1: the ones that wanted conscription and the ones that didn't,
Speaker 1: all used Japan as an argument. So the ones that
Speaker 1: wanted conscription said, We're going to be invaded by Japan
Speaker 1: at some point, so we need to send as many
Speaker 1: people to help Europe now so that when Japan invades,
Speaker 1: they'll help us in return. And the ones who are
Speaker 1: against conscription said, Japan's going to invade, why would we
Speaker 1: send people over to Europe. We need everyone here at home.
Speaker 1: So for Harry, he's probably thinking, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: raised in Japan, where I was kind of an outsider
Speaker 1: as a foreign having a foreign father, and now I'm
Speaker 1: back here and I've sort of sacrificed such a lot
Speaker 1: for the Australian Army at Gallipoli, and now I'm also
Speaker 1: on the outside back in Australia. So it would have
Speaker 1: been a very difficult time for him. So he had to,
Speaker 1: I think create another identity for himself, and I think
Speaker 1: that identity was Harry Frame.
Speaker 2: Now Bean said that he thought he was Japanese or Chinese.
Speaker 2: So what did Obviously our listeners can't see photos, although
Speaker 2: we will put some photos of Harry in with the
Speaker 2: story that accompanies this podcast online. So can you explain
Speaker 2: what Harry looked like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was about six foot tall. He's described as
Speaker 1: in the Terminology of the Day. He was tall, dark
Speaker 1: and live. He had a tattoo of a snake down
Speaker 1: his right arm. His features were very much Eurasian. What
Speaker 1: would say Eurasian today? I mean he's very clearly of
Speaker 1: now I think now Japanese descent. But at that time
Speaker 1: I'm not sure too many people in Australia had seen
Speaker 1: someone from Japan despite the fear mungering, so he was
Speaker 1: able to pass unnoticed. He was described as having a
Speaker 1: strange intonation of speech. Now, obviously he had a strong
Speaker 1: Japanese accent. Japanese was his first language. He learned English later.
Speaker 1: I've seen his written English and you can see that
Speaker 1: it's not his first language. The way he writes, the
Speaker 1: shape of his characters is very much influenced by Japanese writing,
Speaker 1: and he sentence structure. It's very much he is a
Speaker 1: second language English speaker.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Now, did he experience racism during his military career.
Speaker 1: He did and he didn't, Jane, if I could put
Speaker 1: it that way amongst the men know, and this is
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing, I think, because you know where
Speaker 1: by the time we get to Gallipoli, where fourteen years
Speaker 1: into the wide Australia policy, he was loved by the
Speaker 1: men because of the work he did and how brave
Speaker 1: he was. But he did in terms of the officer class. Now,
Speaker 1: Harry's dream at Gallipoli was to become an officer. And
Speaker 1: when he got taken off the peninsula injured, he went
Speaker 1: back to London to recover and he started a letter
Speaker 1: writing campaign to the commanders of the first Battalion that
Speaker 1: he was in and other generals, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them wrote back in support and saying he was the
Speaker 1: finest soldier they had at Gallipoli and he should be
Speaker 1: given a commission, he should be an officer. The men
Speaker 1: loved him, they would follow him. But there's one really
Speaker 1: interesting letter from General Walker, who was in charge of
Speaker 1: the ANZACs, and he wrote a letter of recommendation to
Speaker 1: Cyril White, who was also one of the ANZAC commanders,
Speaker 1: and said, you know, Harry wants a commission. He deserves
Speaker 1: one and we should give him one, but godly another
Speaker 1: general won't want to give one to a Mexican. And
Speaker 1: so he had this, you know, the perception that not
Speaker 1: that he was Japanese. They got that wrong, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't give, you know, an officer's commission to a Mexican.
Speaker 1: So we had that and he never did get the
Speaker 1: officer's commission, which was which was a real shame because
Speaker 1: he wanted to Even when he was back in Australia,
Speaker 1: he wanted to go back over because they said, you'll
Speaker 1: only get an officer commission if you're back in the field,
Speaker 1: and so it was his desire to get back into
Speaker 1: the field. And he actually got out of the hospital
Speaker 1: in London, stowed away on a ship to Egypt, got
Speaker 1: back to the camps, but then was put back into
Speaker 1: the hospital and sent back to Australia against his will.
Speaker 2: And Ryan did Harry stay in Australia after the war.
Speaker 1: Well, he got back in nineteen sixteen and he was
Speaker 1: one of the first soldier settlers. So the soldier settlement
Speaker 1: schemes were being set up for these returning soldiers, and
Speaker 1: he got sent out to Bathist at a little place
Speaker 1: called Montavella, and there was a lot of excitement about
Speaker 1: these schemes in the newspapers. Harry got out there with
Speaker 1: another eight soldier settlers and it quickly became apparent that
Speaker 1: the soldier settler scheme was actually a get rich quick
Speaker 1: scheme for the New South Wales government. And what they
Speaker 1: were doing is they were basically siphoning off funds to
Speaker 1: build the soldier settlement houses. The men were working growing
Speaker 1: fruit to sell to Sydney, but they were never told
Speaker 1: how much their fruit was being sold for. They were
Speaker 1: never told how much they owed. So the scheme was
Speaker 1: you'd be given your block of land, you'd sell fruit,
Speaker 1: and then some of that money would go to pay
Speaker 1: off the land, and over thirty years, kind of like
Speaker 1: a mortgage, you'd pay it all back. But they were
Speaker 1: selling the fruit, but they weren't ever told how much
Speaker 1: money they owed when they'd be out of debt or anything.
Speaker 1: So at that stage all of them walked off the land,
Speaker 1: including Harry. Harry then goes up to Armored to another
Speaker 1: soldier settlement scheme and it's the same situation in that
Speaker 1: quickly he discovers there's corruption and he denounces this corruption
Speaker 1: up there and in that case, what they were doing
Speaker 1: the new South Wales minister who was in charge of it,
Speaker 1: a gentleman called Ashford. They had commissioned the construction of
Speaker 1: these cold storage rooms for the fruit. Well it was
Speaker 1: going to be another four years before there were any
Speaker 1: fruit from these fruit trees, but they commissioned them because
Speaker 1: then the soldiers would then have to pay them off,
Speaker 1: and then they took the money that they were going
Speaker 1: to get from it. So very corrupt. Harry denounces it,
Speaker 1: and it goes to a royal commission to investigate these
Speaker 1: all the soldier settlement schemes, and it finds out that
Speaker 1: this corruption is rife. But what's really interesting, and I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting, Jen, how we think about the ANZACs
Speaker 1: now and they're rightly revered for what they did and
Speaker 1: what they went through. But at the time, when you
Speaker 1: read through the old newspapers, the soldier settlers were kind
Speaker 1: of doubted and they were sort of, oh, these guys
Speaker 1: have got it easy, and now they're complaining and there's
Speaker 1: all these well they don't even look that damage, you know,
Speaker 1: why aren't they at the war And a lot of
Speaker 1: the men that were coming back in sort of nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen and seventeen. They might have looked okay, but they'd
Speaker 1: been gassed in the German trenches. So I had all
Speaker 1: these broken men sent out to these really rural areas.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have had experience on farms. The
Speaker 1: land wasn't great for what they were supposed to be doing,
Speaker 1: the growing of fruit and vegetables, and there was obviously
Speaker 1: deals being done by people selling land to the government,
Speaker 1: selling you know, friends in the government and getting that money.
Speaker 1: And also that a lot of the women went out
Speaker 1: there with their husbands who had come back and found
Speaker 1: that the husbands were either depressed or violent or just
Speaker 1: not up to the work. And then there wasn't that
Speaker 1: much sympathy in the Australian papers for these men as well.
Speaker 1: You know, they've been given this land and they've got
Speaker 1: it easy. They don't mind drinking, but they don't want
Speaker 1: to work hard. But it really wasn't that. But what
Speaker 1: was really interesting about Harry at Kentucky, and if you
Speaker 1: think about his birth back to Japan at the start
Speaker 1: of the modernization of Japan, Harry had that in him.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of articles of the day that
Speaker 1: Harry was the first one to get radio. He was
Speaker 1: the first one to get the machine Deanery. He was
Speaker 1: trying to modernize and modernize all the time with machines.
Speaker 1: He was the first person in the area to get
Speaker 1: a car, which he crashed a couple of times. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a great driver. But it's really ching that he
Speaker 1: that that that Japanese upbringing was always with him and
Speaker 1: he never turned his back on his Japanese ancestry, really
Speaker 1: embraced it as much as he could. And in the
Speaker 1: in the Kentucky Soldier Settlement community up near Armadale, he
Speaker 1: was a real leader and at any event, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always he was decorating the hall for the local
Speaker 1: ball he was building the tennis courts. He was a
Speaker 1: leader of the RSL, He was a member of the
Speaker 1: local political party, the United Australia Party, so heavily involved.
Speaker 1: And the conclusion I came to about Harry during the
Speaker 1: Soldier Settlement, because it never made money a lot of
Speaker 1: the time he was starving, was that he need He
Speaker 1: really found an identity for himself at Gallipoli, and that
Speaker 1: identity existed as long as you know, the soldiers around
Speaker 1: him existed. And I think he really tried to hold
Speaker 1: that community together. His wife, Edith May, came out and
Speaker 1: joined him in late nineteen nineteen and she lived up
Speaker 1: at Kentucky as well, and they had their first son,
Speaker 1: young Harry, who was born in nineteen twenty one. But
Speaker 1: then his wife fell ill at like maybe like a
Speaker 1: we know, not one hundred percent, but it seems like
Speaker 1: she went into a post natal depression and then in
Speaker 1: sort of a couple of years later, she went back
Speaker 1: to England with young Harry and left the older Harry
Speaker 1: by himself at Kentucky. Oh no, so he didn't for
Speaker 1: the first couple of years, and that really affected him
Speaker 1: a lot. So when Edith May came back from England,
Speaker 1: Harry had hired a living maid, and it appears that
Speaker 1: when Harry was first in Australia he'd actually fathered a
Speaker 1: child to this lady. Her name was Josephine Clark, and
Speaker 1: so she reappears at Kentucky living in the family house
Speaker 1: with the son, which we assume, and there's not one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, but I'm pretty sure it was Harry's child.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine this really difficult family situation. And
Speaker 1: then we start to lead into the depress years. There's
Speaker 1: no money, there's no fruit, and that goes on till
Speaker 1: about nineteen thirty four, when finally Josephine Clark leaves the
Speaker 1: family household, but by then Harry's had another daughter to her,
Speaker 1: and that's young Gracie, who Harry and Edith may adopt
Speaker 1: as their own. But Gracie grew up never knowing that
Speaker 1: her real mother was Josephine Clark. So really really tough times.
Speaker 1: But I think what it demonstrates, Jen, is that today
Speaker 1: we revere the ANZACs, but when they came back, they
Speaker 1: had it tough. They had it really, really tough, and
Speaker 1: Harry's story is just one of many.
Speaker 2: We'll leave part one of the story of Harry frem there.
Speaker 2: Come back on Thursday to hear part two to find
Speaker 2: out what happened when Harry was sent to Japan as
Speaker 2: a spy for Australia. Thanks for listening. This has Been
Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's
Speaker 2: forgotten characters, written and hosted by me Jen Kelly, by
Speaker 2: Phoebe Zukowski and produced by John ty Burton. You can
Speaker 2: find all the stories and photos associated with our episodes
Speaker 2: at Heraldsun dot com dot Au slash ibaw. If you've
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