WEBVTT - The Aussie samurai Gallipoli war hero spy - Part 2 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:05.760 Now as soon as that appointment was announced, and you 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:08.000 got to remember at this stage Harry now has three jobs, 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:11.280 but none of the different departments in the Australian government 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:12.959 know that Harry's working for the others. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:16.599 I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.599 in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.599 forgotten characters. Welcome back for part two of the story 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.280 of Harry Freme, the Marvel of Gallipoli. Make sure you 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.240 listen to part one first, we're speaking again with Ryan Butter, 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.479 the author of a new book called The Bravest Scout 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.600 at Gallipoli. We'll hear soon what Harry did in the 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.240 Second World War, including being sent to Japan as a spy, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.360 and why Ryan describes Harry as the Anzac hero portrayed 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.040 by his nation. As we heard in part one, Harry 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.800 Freme showed incredible bravery in the First World War, but 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.480 struggled during the tough years of the Depression while raising 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.720 a family. Let's jump back in and find out what 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:15.319 happened next and was Harry still held in high esteem 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.800 for the incredible things that he had done at Gallipoli 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.200 by the wider community. 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.759 He was held in really high esteem by the ex soldiers. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.960 So there's a magazine called Revel which came out in 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.800 nineteen thirty one, and Harry's on the front cover, and 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.520 that magazine went out to all the X diggers, and 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.120 you know, there was seven pages dedicated to his exploits 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.640 on Gallipoli. He would go around and talk about the war, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:42.520 and there was always sort of excitement in the newspapers 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:44.679 that Harry Freme's coming. He's going to be talking, you know, 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.160 telling stories of the war. So that was always he 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.520 was very much loved by it, never forgotten by his comrades. 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.880 But in that Revelve magazine, it was a really interesting 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:57.800 line and it was written in nineteen thirty one, so 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:02.000 it's twelve years after they came back, and it says that, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.720 you know, twelve years later, the memories of Gallipoli are 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.600 fading for everybody, and so you can see how quickly 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.919 things were being forgotten. Now, obviously today you think, wow, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:12.959 how could that ever be forgotten? But in that time 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.520 set of ten fifteen years after it happened, there was 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.600 this fear that what these men had gone through would 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:18.239 be forgotten. 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.560 Now take us forward to the second World War and 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.520 the very significant events involving Harry. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.280 So by the outbreak of the Second World War in 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.240 September of nineteen thirty nine, Harry is in a desperate situation. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.040 His farmers failed, there's no fruit, he can't pay off 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.200 the debt. Four days after the Second World War breaks out, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:43.000 Edith May dies oh and Harry's left absolutely distraught. So 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.760 now he has two children to raise by himself. He's broke, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.160 the farms failed. He tries to enlist in the army 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.320 and he's told he's too old, so he can't enlist. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.600 So he goes back to his contacts in intelligence and 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.519 it's unsure if they contact him or he takes them, 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.120 but he gets a letter from a man called Jack Scott. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.280 Jack Scott's a really interesting character in the whole Harry 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.160 frame story. Jack Scott was also a GLIPI veteran. He 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.799 came back to Australia. He helped set up Legacy, the 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.360 charity Legacy, but he was also a member of a 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.560 thing called the Old Guard, which was a right wing 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.600 group set up and had about thirty thousand X diggers 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.320 involved in it, and it was to you know, sort 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.640 of promote the values and be a ball walk against 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.679 Bolshevism back in Australia during the nineteen twenties and early thirties. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.600 That kind of fades away in around nineteen thirty one 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.800 ninety thirty two and Jack Scott becomes an absolute ardent 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.800 admirer of Japan. And so throughout the nineteen thirties, Jack 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.840 Scott's writing all these pro Japanese articles, he visits Japan, 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.640 he's part of the Australian japan society. He's almost it's 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.520 almost propaganda. In nineteen thirty five, as Japan starts to 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.120 emerge as another real threat to Australia, Jack Scott is 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:00.360 recruited into military intelligence and it's really unclear through the 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.400 files if he was a sympathizer still with Japan, because 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.520 the intelligence were actually focusing on the Japanese community in 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.400 Australia and it's really hard to see what side Jack 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.760 Scott was on. But he recruits Harry Frem and he 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.080 becomes Harry Frem's handler because there was a lot of 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.640 Japanese in New South Wales and Australia, and the Australian 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.680 intelligence community were unsure how these men and women of 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.599 Japan would react if Japan declared war on Australia, so 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:29.880 they wanted to keep a close eye on them. They 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.640 mapped where they all lived, they registered where they all lived, 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:34.320 and they actually had people tailing them. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:36.800 Harry Frem was recruited to spy on. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.760 The Japanese community in Sydney, and so he came down 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.479 from Kentucky and he set himself up in Sydney. Not 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.000 long after getting to Sydney, he then gets recruited by censorship. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.080 So he was then going through the mail that the 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.520 Japanese people were sending back or was coming to Australia 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.599 trying to find intelligence information. So he's gone from working 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.200 on a failed farm to the outbreak of World War two, 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.200 and all of a sudden he's got two jobs. That's 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.640 in August of nineteen forty. In September of nineteen forty, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.640 he's then recruited by external affairs. Because what happened then 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.680 was that Australia decided they couldn't stop war with Japan. 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:15.600 They kind of felt that war with Japan was inevitable, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.120 but they thought they could push it down the road 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:18.960 a little bit further. So they decided to send an 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.360 ambassador to Tokyo, and that was a mean called John Latham, 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:24.159 and he was going to go and set up the 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:28.240 first legation or sort of embassy in Japan for Australia, 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.080 and Military Intelligence chose Harry Frame to be the interpreter 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.359 to John Latham, who would go to Tokyo with him. Now, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:37.400 as soon as that appointment was announced, and you got 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.480 to remember at this stage, Harry now has three jobs, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.760 but none of the different departments in the Australian government 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.640 know that Harry's working for the others. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:47.799 So incredible. 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.040 Yeah, So when when External Affairs decide that the military 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.680 intelligence says you should recruit Harry, so external and they 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.120 don't tell him. They don't tell External Affairs that Harry's 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.360 already working as a spy. So External affairs to find 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.159 Harry and they can't find him because of course he's 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.880 embedded in the Japanese community, he's undercover, he's working. So 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.640 we can't find Harry, and so they so military Intelligence 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:13.720 put External Affairs in touch with Harry. Harry's nomination or 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:17.440 his appointment as the interpreter is reported in the newspapers, 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.360 but at the bottom of the article it says he's 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.880 currently engaged in special defense work. Now this puts a 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.680 huge cat amongst the pigeons. Military Intelligence are furious with 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.680 External Affairs. They blame them for leaking this and they 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.640 write to them. McBride, the Minister of the Army writes 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.200 to black Jack McEwan and says, how has this name 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.520 been leaked out? And his real role has been leaked 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.040 to the press, and then External Affairs says, well, everyone 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:46.320 knows what he's working on. Everyone knows that he's doing this, 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.880 and we actually spoke with the consulate and told them 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.440 this is who we're sending and so there's this. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.279 Massive breach of security, and. 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:59.000 Military Intelligence says nobody knew that he was working as 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.280 an intelligence agent. So Harry is at this point he's 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.560 in Sydney, his cover's been blown. He's starting to be 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.880 followed by Japanese spies in Sydney. And in addition to that, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.440 because of this fear of Japanese in general, he's also 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.360 been denounced and we've got letters that people have written 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.680 to local police denouncing Harry Frame as possibly a Fifth 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.960 columnist obviously you know, a Japanese agent, when in the 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.920 reality is he's actually working for the Australians. So he's 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.160 got a head off to Tokyo, knowing that his cover's 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.440 been blown already, and that filled him with a lot 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.080 of fear. He was horrified because in July, just a 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:39.680 few months previously, a British agent in Japan, a guy 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.280 called James Cox, had been caught by the Japanese military 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.040 police called the Kempetai and he'd been taken in for 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:46.520 questioning and then they threw him out of a sixth 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.880 story window. They said it was suicide, but it was 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.560 obviously that he was thrown out. So at this point 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.400 in the story, you think, why would Harry go or 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.520 why would they send Harry? But there was this sort 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.520 of bureaucratic bungling between the three agents sees of what 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:02.280 to do and we didn't leak his name, and no, 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.280 you leaked it. But Harry still gets on that boat. 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.840 And that was one of the reason that one of 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:09.520 the reasons I wrote the book, or I started to 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.520 really look at Harry's storyer, why would he get on 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.240 that boat? And other people who have written a little 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.240 bit about his history say, it's the Bushido code, it's 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.440 the loyal the loyal samurai serving the master, or he 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.280 was obliged to go ok I come to a different conclusion. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.040 I think he was broke. He had two children to raise, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.120 and I think he thought he could go up there, 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.480 do his job and come back. So he goes up 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.280 to Tokyo. He's not well, he's got stomach problems. Just 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:43.320 before leaving, he remarries, which is really surprising. So less 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.800 than a year after his first wife died, he remarries 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.319 another lady, a nurse, and that's important. He marries a 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.360 nurse in Sydney. But he goes on January twenty seventh, 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.240 he's walking down the street in Tokyo and he gets attacked. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.920 He gets attacked by the campetite and they try to 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.040 strangle him. Somehow breaks free and he sort of hides 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:04.880 for a couple of days and then he ends up 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.400 in a hospital. He goes to the American hospital, Saint Luke's. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:09.680 He arrives at the. 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.959 Hospital and he finds that the Americans have evacuated all 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.880 of their American doctors and there's only Japanese doctors. And 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.839 so he's terrified now to say what's happened to him, 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.880 because they'll either informed the kempatite or the kempt I 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:24.960 will find out and they'll come back and finish the job. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.959 So he says nothing. They do all these tests on 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.760 him and they find that he's got damaged vocal cords. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.120 He's lost his voice now because obviously he's tried to 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.480 strangle him. He doesn't say anything to anyone, he doesn't 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.079 say anything to his other co workers at the Australian legation, 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.440 and he gets sent back to Australia. So he arrives 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.040 back in Australia in April and he's completely broken man 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.320 because he can hardly eat, he can hardly swallow, and 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.440 his throats mangled. And they put him in hospital in 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.560 Sydney and they have all these doctors come and visit him, 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.160 and eventually they have a throat specialist come and this 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.120 is all important information about the throat. But they have 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.400 a throat specialists come and no one can work out 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.600 what's wrong with him, and he's still not saying what 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.640 happened to him. Eventually they said, look, we can't do 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.520 anything for him. He's going to die. He's better off 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.160 being at home and dying with his family. So he's 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:22.200 released in early May, back back to the care of 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.480 his wife, Harriet, who's a nurse, and when he's discharged 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.040 from hospital, his file says undiagnosed, so they could never 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.280 find out what was wrong with him. A few weeks later, 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.160 on twenty seven May, he dies. He dies choking on 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.920 his own mucus in the arms of Harriet. This immediately 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.359 sets off a flurry of activity among external affairs military intelligence, 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.280 and they're trying to call the doctors. They're trying to 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.760 get hold of the death certificate, find out what happened 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.880 to him. When the death certificate finally surfaces, it says 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:59.400 that he died of gorebladder cancer. Now, this is really 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.000 tentious point historically, and the number of people have looked 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.880 at this. Now I took Harry's We've got really good 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.280 files on Harry. We've got his medical files from Tokyo. 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.320 When he was first interned in the hospital there, they 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.520 did a lot of tests on him, blood test, X rays, 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:17.760 no hint of cancer, no hint of gad bladder cancer. 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.560 When he came back, we've got his repat file and 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.640 we've got the file that says that he was discharged undiagnosed. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:28.280 So it's really interesting that three weeks after being discharged undiagnosed, 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.199 they were confident enough to say it was gallbladder cancer. Now, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.520 to give you an idea, gall bladder cancer is extremely rare, 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.320 extremely rare. And I took Harry's files to two forensic 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:44.040 pathologists and their opinion was that without an autopsy, you 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.560 can't say that it was gallbladder cancer. And in fact, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:52.200 at the time the doctors who were then investigated by 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.199 military intelligence and external affairs said well, we think he 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.280 had a problem with his throat, but we're confident was 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.880 gall bladder cancer, but we can't really link the cancer. 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:05.240 So the throat problem, it was all very unusual, and 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:10.800 you think, well, why was this unusual diagnosis given? But 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.240 then you think what the repercussions were. The Australian government 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.640 had leaked his identity as an intelligence agent. They then 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.440 sent him to Japan, and then he'd been attacked and 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.800 he's died of those injuries. Now, the last sort of 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.480 words that Harry's recorded as saying was that they got me. 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.280 And he finally on his deathbed told the men around 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.880 him that he'd been grotted. And so after he dies 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.400 and they get this sort of deathityatet saying god bladder cancer, 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.040 his wife, Harriet writes to the government said this isn't true. 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.000 He was attacked, you know, he was attacked and he 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.200 was killed and he told us this, but he was 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.560 never believed. His final words they got me were never believed, 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:49.839 and the government stuck to the story that he died 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.280 of godbladder cancer. They also said that he never worked 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.720 as an intelligence agent, that he was just an interpreter. 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.080 So you can see this real sort of muddying of 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.800 the waters from the austraa In government. All that his 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.280 wife was asking for was a burial and a headstone. 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.080 Now the government paid for the plot of land, but 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.559 they never gave him a headstone, which to me just 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.520 seemed remarkable that this man had lived this remarkable life. 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.280 Was his service was always denied by the Australian government. 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.880 He served in World War Two. They denied that they 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.000 were responsible for how he was killed. And I think 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:26.200 there's definite responsibility there in one leaking his identity and 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:26.880 then sending him. 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.400 Still, we'll be back after a short break to find 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:44.120 out what happened next, So stay with us. So those 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.559 final words they got me was that to his wife Harriet. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.560 They were to his final words they got me were 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.400 to his wife Harriet and five other people standing around 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:54.119 his bedside. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.960 Ah okay, and the fact that he was a spy, 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.480 so that's not acknowledged. For example, his biography on the 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.000 mini biography, on his Australian War Memorial biography, that's not 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.480 mentioned there is it, for example, no that talks about 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.360 his service at Gallipoli, but there's no mentions career. 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.440 So my purpose in writing this book was trying to 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.360 get the Australian government to recognize that Harry Frame had 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.880 served his country and was deserving of an official he 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.840 died in service, or he died in connection to his 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:34.400 service and was worthy of receiving the official war commemoration headstone. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.000 That's what I was trying to do, gather information to 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.640 do that, because they'd never They just said he died 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.240 and if your death isn't connected to your service, you 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.280 don't get the little ADF badge on your grave. And 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.400 I thought that badge meant a lot to Harry and 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:48.200 it would have been good. 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:48.480 That he had it. 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:50.840 So that's what I set out to try to do. 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.840 And I'm not the first because in nineteen sixty three, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.200 his wife Harriet wrote to Robert Menzies and basically told 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.400 him the story that I've told you today about Harry 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.080 and his service and his time in Tokyo. And they 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.160 went back and said, no, he died of gallbladder cancer, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.280 unconnected to his service. There's nothing we can do for him. 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.440 He didn't you know, he doesn't deserve a headstone. In 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.280 twenty nineteen, another author, Brian Tate, who'd written about Harry, 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.040 he contacted the government and they said, well, he died 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.440 of gallbladder cancer. There's nothing we can do. So it 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.240 was the same story. I was a little bit more fortunate, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.320 but again it's they never the government said yes, he 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.320 died because of his service, but not because he was 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.480 garrotted or strangled in Japan. They say he died of 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:39.280 gallbladder cancer, which was caused from smoking. Oh. Interesting, now, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.880 the ANZACs were given cigarettes in their rations, and Harry 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:47.440 was a smoker. And so I received this determination from 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.840 the Veterans Affairs Department and they said, we've reviewed the case. 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.400 We're going to give him a gravestone because we can 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.920 connect his service to his death through and to me, 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.000 it left a bit of taste because I didn't want 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.200 them to do it that way. I wanted them to 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.480 admit that he didn't die of gored bladder cancer. He 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.280 was strangled as an intelligence agent and he died of 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.800 that serving Australia. He wasn't just an interpreter. Yes, the 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.240 cover was he was an interpreter, but he's actually working 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.280 as an intelligence agent. And if you think of how 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.120 the US honor their intelligence agents, you know, to get 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.240 the star on the wall at Langley for their men 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:24.320 that have died in service. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.600 Harry didn't get a star. He didn't even get a headstone. 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.960 However, they have now said yes he will get it, 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.160 and they've put up a plaque in honor of Harry 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:35.520 frame at the Rookwood Cemetery. 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.520 So Ryan tell us more about how Harry has been remembered. 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.400 So when I first read about Harry, the story was 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.120 that he was in an unmarked grave in Macquarie Cemetery 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.560 in North Sydney, and so I went up and visited it. 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.800 And when I got there, there's actually a little black 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.640 marble headstone and it's only small, and I looked at it, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.920 but there were details on the headstone that were incorrect. 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.080 Harry's date of birth was incorrect, and it also had 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.440 his daughter Grace her birth day and her date of death, 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:03.560 and the date of death was also incorrect. It was 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:05.680 out by about thirty years. And so I went in 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:07.919 and I said, well, who put this headstone here? And 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.040 they said, no, we don't know. We've got no record. 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:11.960 Maybe someone's just walked in and put it there, which 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.239 to me seemed a bit strange, so I left it. 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.639 Later on, when the Wargraves Commission said they will put 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:22.080 a commemorative headstone on Harry's grave, they have a condition, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.320 and the condition is that there can be no existing 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.919 headstone on the grave. And so of course I had 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.120 a problem that there was now a headstone on there, 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.480 even though it was incorrect, but they wouldn't touch it 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:33.879 as long as that headstone was there. So I went 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:35.960 back to the cemetery. I said, look, I really need 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.760 to find out who put this headstone on there, because 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:40.600 we need to remove it so that the Wargraves can 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.280 put their proper one on there. And they dug and 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:45.400 dug and dug, and they finally they found out who 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.640 put it in there, and it was actually a man 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:52.280 by the name of Malcolm frem Ah, and he'd come 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.640 across Harry's story, and he was obviously a distant relative. 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.159 So he was a descendant of William Henry Frame, so 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.879 Harry's half brother. So when William Henry Freme absconded to Japan, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.040 he left a little boy in Australia and Malcolm is 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:10.480 descendant from that little boy. 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.560 Oh wow, yeah, So I'm not sure what the terminology is. 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.119 It's like a distant, distant, distant half uncle maybe something 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.840 like that. So he'd heard Harry's stories. That is not 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:22.760 right that he has an unmutt grave. So he put 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.000 the headstone. So I contacted Malcolm and Malcolm was great. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:26.840 I said, like, this is what we've got to do 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.840 now when you go in to start touching headstones and 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:34.800 grave sites. Between when Malcolm had put the headstone and 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.760 when I had come along with the Wargraves Commission, the 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.600 laws had changed and now nobody can remove that headstone 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.360 because Malcolm nor I are the owners of the plot 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.159 and so we were unable to remove that existing headstone. 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:51.960 So instead, what the war Graves Commission does is they 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.440 put a park up in the memorial cemetery which is 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:55.040 at Rookwood. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.760 Okay, convoluted. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.000 And Ryan, what happened to young Harry. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:08.040 So after Harry died, the government confiscated his land at 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.320 Kentucky and young Harry had been working on that farm. Now, 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.640 obviously Harry died in May. In October, the government said 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.840 you haven't been paying your debt, and so they took 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.639 the farm off young Harry. So he went into the 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.679 army and he went down to Duntroon in the officer school. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.879 He was a remarkable man, young Harry. He was like 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.840 an amazing cricketer, amazing rugby player. He holds the record 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:33.840 for the most tries in a rugby match for dun Trouon. 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.080 He graduated first in class from Duntroun and he got 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.840 sent to fight the Japanese in Borneo. And he always 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.400 blamed the Japanese for his father's death, and he said 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.200 they're going to be paid back in kind. 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.679 And so he could have had an easy job. You know. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.080 This was in May of nineteen forty five. He goes 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:58.680 up to Borneo, distinguished himself in battle in his first contact, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.199 and then he had his was from a tooth problem 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.399 as a saw tooth, and he gets sent back to 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.240 the field hospital and that night, this is on May eight, 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.439 so it's the day that victory was declared in Europe, 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.280 but obviously not in Borneo. On May eight, a Japanese 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.200 soldier infiltrated the field hospital and threw a grenade under 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.360 his bed and killed him. And it was goodness, it's 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:23.280 just such a waste of a life, as so many 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.040 for those young men. But he was such a brilliant 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.960 academic athlete, and he was also killed by the Japanese. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.000 Ah my goodness, what a tragedy. 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:35.280 Yeah, definitely. 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.280 And then so then only left then was Gracie Young, 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.879 Gracie Frame. And so she'd lost, you know, within a 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.200 couple of years and a six year period, she'd lost 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.000 her stepmother, she'd lost her father, and she lost her brother, 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.200 and she lived to quite an old age. She passed 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.240 away in twenty nineteen. So that was the story. And 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.800 then she was the last descendant directly from Harry. 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.200 And just finally, Ryan, how would you like Australians to 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:02.560 remember Harry frem. 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:04.600 As the marvel of Gallipoli? 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.320 I think he it's such a great So I think 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.760 we have a lot of stories about who we are 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.520 that come from Gallipoli, and I think I think what 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.320