Home-made POW shorts : Driver D S Shipston, 2/105 General Transport Company, Australain Army Service Corps

Pair of shorts made from light-weight khaki cotton, probably material from a shirt. The shorts have a waistband and are fastened with a tab fitting on each hip which closes using a handmade celluloid button. Below each tab is a small opening. There is no fly opening. The shorts have four closed pleats; two at the front and two at the rear, and a patch pocket on the right side of the seat. The shorts have been hand sewn and hemmed with khaki cotton, mainly in a simple running stitch. There is some repair stitching with black cotton on the inside leg.

Pair of shorts made and worn by VX32651 Driver D S Shipston as a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War. Born in Elsternwick, Victoria on 28 May 1919, Donald Saxon Shipston enlisted in the AIF on 17 June 1940. He was initially allocated to No 2 Sub Park, 1st Australian Corps Petrol Park which had been formed at Puckapunyal, Victoria to provide transport services to the 7th Division.

The unit embarked on the Mauretania at Port Melbourne on 29 December 1940 bound for the Middle East. First based in Palestine, No 2 Sub Park supported the Australian push against the Italians across Libya to Benghazi. After further service in Greece, Egypt and Syria, a reorganisation of the 1st Australian Corps Petrol Park saw No 2 Sub Park become the 2/105 General Transport Company and brought back to help meet the Japanese threat in the Pacific.

Landing in Java in February 1942, 2/105 General Transport Company became part of the ill-fated Australian and Dutch forces swept up in the Japanese advance. With the rest of his unit, Shipston became a Prisoner of War of the Japanese on 9 March 1942. He spent the next three and a half years in captivity in Java and working on the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway. Shipston survived captivity returned to Australia at war's end. He was discharged from the Army in December 1945.