Humane and intimate, how the Red Cross helped families trace the fates of WW2 soldiers

By Fiona Ross Senior Archivist at the University of Melbourne Archives, University of Melbourne
Updated June 28 2018 - 1:29pm, first published May 13 2017 - 12:00am
Australians shelter from Japanese snipers in Borneo, 1945. Australian War Memorial collection/Flickr Fiona Ross, University of Melbourne
Australians shelter from Japanese snipers in Borneo, 1945. Australian War Memorial collection/Flickr Fiona Ross, University of Melbourne

PRIVATE Rawson’s mother first contacted the Red Cross in early April 1942, six weeks after her son was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. For her, and thousands of other Australian mothers, fathers, wives, sisters and brothers, this began three and half years of longing and fear, and above all, silence.

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