The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (QX15677) Sergeant Walter John Hancock, 2/29th Australian Infantry Battalion, Second Australian Imperial Force, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Alison Creagh, the story for this day was on (QX15677) Sergeant Walter John Hancock, 2/29th Australian Infantry Battalion, Second Australian Imperial Force, Second World War.

This video recording of this ceremony will not be released to the Public.

QX15677 Sergeant Walter John Hancock, 2/29th Australian Infantry Battalion, Second Australian Imperial Force
Died of illness 15 August 1945
Photograph: P02468.066

Story delivered 26 May 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sergeant Walter John Hancock.

Walter Hancock was born on 6 September 1902 in Ballarat East, Victoria, to Albert and Clara Hancock.

In his early years, Hancock had an easy familiarity with the military, being a member of the senior cadets for four years, and in the mid-1920s serving as lieutenant with the 8th Battalion, known as the City of Ballarat Regiment.

After resigning from his commission in the Militia in 1925, he followed a career in printing, working as a compositor – manually arranging type for printing – and as a printer’s overseer.

He married Lillian and the couple had at least one child, Albert John Hancock. But the relationship didn’t fare well. By 1937 Walter had left Lillian and was working as a printer in Brisbane. The next year Lillian began divorce proceedings and was pursuing him for maintenance.

With the advent of the Second World War, Hancock was called up for active service. In 1940 he was back in the Militia with the rank of captain, acting as the Assistant Area Officer for the 51st Battalion in Cairns.

In late June 1941, Hancock enlisted. Over the next few months he was promoted to lance corporal and acting corporal, and attended NCO school.

On 20 January 1942, Hancock embarked from Sydney with reinforcements for the 2/26th Battalion, which had suffered heavy losses fighting the Japanese at Bakri. He was promoted to acting sergeant on 1 February during the defence of Singapore.

Two weeks later, the British commander on Singapore surrendered. The men of the 2/29th Battalion were to spend the next three-and-a-half years as prisoners of war. Concentrated in Changi jail, the battalion was used to supply labour for work parties.

Hancock was one of the first Australians to be sent to Borneo as part of “B Force”, a group of nearly 1,500 who sailed from Singapore on 8 July 1942 in one of the so-called “hell ships”, the Ubi Maru. Prisoners were crammed into the holds, forced to sit and sleep on small, crudely constructed wooden bunks. The atmosphere was stiflingly hot and putrid, and latrines were little more than wooden structures suspended over the edge of the ship. With many prisoners suffering from dysentery, conditions became foul.

After arriving in Sandakan Harbour and then establishing camp, the prisoners were employed on building an airstrip. At first conditions and food supplies were reasonable. But from September control began to tighten. Prisoners were made to sign a promise not to escape, and senior officers were moved to Kuching in western Borneo.

From mid-1943 conditions worsened further. A small cage was built within the camp to punish prisoners for trivial offences. Some men were confined, without being able to stand up, for as long as a month.

When the underground movement which had grown among the civilians of Sandakan was betrayed in July 1943, reprisals were swift and brutal. Twenty-two Australians, five Europeans, and around 50 locals were interrogated and tortured.

The treatment of remaining prisoners deteriorated further in 1944, with brutal beatings, torture, and diminishing food supplies.

In January 1945 the Japanese began to fear an Allied invasion of Borneo and started to move prisoners away from the coast to Ranau, a small village some 255 kilometres inland in the mountains.

The first group left in batches of 50, weak with beriberi and malnutrition, and most lacking boots. A second forced march was ordered in May when the Allies landed at Tarakan Island. The camp at Sandakan was then destroyed and the weakest of the prisoners were left behind without accommodation or medical care. According to the accounts of Japanese guards, they slowly died or were shot in the weeks that followed.

Although Hancock was recorded as dying from Malaria at Sandakan No. 2 Camp, and being buried in Sandakan No. 3 Cemetery, the exact date of death of the 42-year-old prisoner will perhaps never be known. Following orders from Japanese Command that no prisoners were to be left alive, many were shot or murdered and their deaths recorded as being due to illness.

Hancock’s remains were found in a slit trench after the war, and today he is remembered on the Labuan Memorial in Malaysia.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among more than 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sergeant Walter John Hancock, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Duncan Beard
Editor, Military History Section