Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Albert Whackett was a gold miner/grader driver from Tingha, New South Wales, when he met and married his wife Sylvia in 1932. This was the Great Depression, Albert worked away from home on the construction of the New England Highway during the week, returning home to his family on the weekend. He enlisted in the army 3 July 1940, and was assigned to 7 RR Battalion at Liverpool & later Dubbo where he was appointed acting corporal. He embarked on HM Queen Mary for Singapore on 18 February 1941: his young family farwelled their father never to see him again. Back in the little New South Wales country town of Uralla he left behind his wife and four young children aged ten, eight, four and two. 

Albert was posted to 9 Division Provost Depot on 14 August 1941. With the fall of Singapore to the Japanese he was officially listed as missing 16 February 1942. Little is known within the family about what happened to Albert following the  Japanese take-over until his death on the 'Death Railway'. Late May 1943 his wife Sylvia received news from the the Military that Albert was a POW: the first news she had received about her husband for sixteen months: she was informed he was missing. Not long after she received the dreaded news that Albert had died from cholera on 5 June 1943, aged forty. What wasn't said by listing his death as cholera was the cruel and inhumane conditions, the malnutrition, exhaustion, and torture suffered by him at the hands of the Japanese. In many ways his release from this life was a blessing, no more suffering there or in the years after the war as experienced by many of the POWs. Albert died somewhere between Moulmein and Nieke, perhaps between the Thailand (Siam) boarder and Nieke and was buried there before being relocated to Mayanmar (Burma) at the Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery. 

War tore this young family apart. After Albert's death his wife Sylvia and young family continued to cope without the love and support of their father and husband: albeit surrounded by a caring extended family. His children, left fatherless, have few memories of Albert,  his death for the younger ones seemed no different to any other day as he had been absent for most of their young lives: nothing more than a photo and name. As a war widow Sylvia, who through circumstance had been forced to become both mother and father to her children, was supported by the wonderful work of the local Uralla branch of the RSS&AILA and Legacy. Both financially and socially: this support continued for the younger children until they completed their education. They are very grateful for this support without which their lives would have been very different .