Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

2/7th Field Company - Ninth Division
SX5213 L/Cpl Harry Andrews - entered 26.09.43, left 09.09.44
QX798 Leslie Allan Dornan - entered 28.09.43, left 30.09.44
QX3989 James Alexander Graham - entered 18.10.43, left 22.09.44
QX21217 Ian "Tim" Jobson - entered 02.10.43, left 22.09.44
QX3237 Frank Arthur Jobson - entered 02.10.43, left 22.09.44
QX759 Frank "Butch" Jocumsen - entered 08.12.44?, left 12.12.44
QX3232 Charles David Payne - entered 17.11.43, left 23.09.44
VX39694 William Antony Cole Rudd - entered 22.09.43, left 08.02.45
QX759 Sapper Jens Francis Jocumsen:
Born 29.6.1912 at Gympie, Queensland.
Died 9.10.1991 at Cairns Base Hospital, Queensland.
Enlisted AIF 13.5.40 at Kelvin Grove, Brisbane.
Butcher by trade, hence nickname "Butch". Married, wife's name Merle.
Joined 2/7th Field Engineers, R.A.E 20.5.40.
Embarked on the "Orion" 14.11.40.
Reported "Missing in Action" 3.5.41 at El Agheila with fellow Sapper Roy Penhaligen.
Officially reported POW 19.7.41.
Reported in Camp 106 PM 3100 18.1.44. 23.8.44 reported entered Switzerland from Italy.
13.4.45 Returned by EMF to Italy for special duties.
18.5.45 Disembarked UK as recovered POW ex Italy.
24.7.45 Embarked Liverpool for return to Australia.
26.9.45 Discharged from A.I.F. Redbank Queensland.
This rather bald extract from the official AIF record of Sapper "Butch" Jocumsen completely ignores his exploits whilst "on the run" in North Italy (and Switzerland) 1943/44.
In Roger Absalom's book, "A Strange Alliance - aspects of escape and survival in Italy, I943-44", (F2 Leo S. Olski, Editore Firenze, MCMXCI), he outlines the story Jocumsen and of another Australian POW Partisan commander, VX9534 John Peck, 2/7th Battalion, 6 Division AIF, whose exploits were intertwined with those of "Butch" Jocumsen.

"Sapper "Butch" Jocumsen, like a number of other Australians from the Vercelli work camps received very welcome help from an Italian civilian after he got out of his camp. He and a companion were given suits and told how to get by train to the Swiss border, which they crossed the same night. This display of initiative perhaps brought him to the attention of British Agencies working there. Jocumsen was recruited as a courier to Resistance groups to which arms and ammunition were being supplied in the Val Sesia area, and before long he was a valued and trusted member of the "Garibaldi" Division led by Cino Moscatelli, one of the best known of the communist partisan leaders. He was soon well-known to the inhabitants of the area as "Frank l'Australiano", redoubtable possession of a Thompson sub-machine gun previously only seen in films.
"In July 1944, after a clandestine visit to John McCaffery, Military Attache and SOE Station Officer in Berne, Jocumsen was made the British Liasion Officer with the partisans north of Novara. He was outfitted, provided with sidearms and identity papers and given the temporary rank of Captain.
"In September, all the partisan formations in the province formed a common front with the intention of occupying a large area bordering on Switzerland which could become a "Partisan Republic", and perhaps a bridgehead for an Allied airborne operation, during what was confidently assumed to be the last drive northwards of the Allied armies in Italy. There was evidently some low-level support from SOE in Switzerland for this project, for both Jocumsen and Peck (who was sent back on a similar mission to a non-communist band in August, 1944) were instructed to co-operate fully with the partisans and to wear British uniforms.
In February 1944, after some fierce, but badly co-ordinated fighting, the large area previously liberated between Val Sesia and the Swiss border was retaken by German and Fascist troops equipped with tanks and artillery. Jocumsen survived the battle and was evacuated to Switzerland. His record must have impressed SOE for after his recovery he was sent to be trained as an intelligence agent for further work behind enemy lines, although the war ended before his next mission was launched. Some years later he was awarded the Medaglia d'Oro, Italy's highest decoration for valour.
Jocumsen achieved the status of a popular, if problematically depicted, protagonist in the Italian Resistance historiography, perhaps because of his association with a major Communist band whose leader became a national hero and a significant political figure after the war.
"The Borgosesia Institute of Resistance History even produced coloured postcards commemorating "Frank l'Australiano" on the occasion, in I979, when the honorary citizenship of the town was conferred on him. Unlike Peck, however, he was not honoured in his own country. While Peck, working with the Action Party's Bacciagaluppi and the non-communist group lead by Alfredo Di Dio, was awarded the DCM for his gallantry and initiative, the equally deserving Jocumsen who, although himself no communist, had been mainly associated with Moscatelli's Communist forces, received no written award.
Mal Webster's privately printed book "An Italian Experience" F4 confirms this account by Roger Absalom, and adds... "During a short stay at the SOE headquarters near Florence in Italy, I met up with a British Officer who had had an altercation with Jocumsen some months earlier. He showed me a great scar on the side of his chin and mouth where a well-aimed Jocumsen punch had landed. It was food for thought and made me wonder, perhaps Frank was an Australian Boxing Champion.
Ken Ward-Harvey in his book "The Sappers War - with 9th Australian Division Engineers 1939-1945", B44 Sakoga Pty. Ltd. in conjunction with 9th Division RAE Association NSW, 1992, says "Butch" sold the rights to (his) full story to a film company and was therefore unable to give the details himself.
In the records of Army personnel held in Victoria Barracks, Melbourne, there is a copy of a dispatch to War Office by Berne to Foreign. It reads:
Mr. Norton, No. 2964. Dispatched 1.40 pm 22 June I944.
Received 7.45 pm. TOP SECRET M/Attache No 985 of June 26 MI 9.
My No. 942 June 15.
1. "Frank" is QX759 Sapper Frank Jocumsen of Cleveland, Queensland.
2. Now in Switzerland where he is doing excellent work with a partisan band.
3. He has not reported to Swiss nor officially to me and is being looked after by SOE.
4. He is very fit and send messages to his wife and Mother.
Jocumsen returned to Italy on June 26, 1944 where he re-joined the Communist Group of Cino Moscatelli. Jocumsen returned to Switzerland several times between July and December I943, and certainly brought back a letter to Italy from McCaffery to Moscatelli dated September 29, 1943. On his return to Switzerland from Italy on December 7, 1944 he was apparently interned by the Swiss, but was repatriated to England at the end of December. This date is confirmed in his Army Record as "Previously reported POW now arrived U.K ex West Europe."

The circumstances under which Jocumsen was sent from Switzerland to liberated Italy do not appear to have been fully recorded, although in general terms it was fairly clear that he had to report:
1. on the partisan formations of Moscatelli with which he had been operating and
2. with the idea that he might be trained and briefed to be parachuted back as a Liaison Officer to co-ordinate their activities in the final stages of the Italian campaign.
He was sent down from Switzerland to Italy via France and was certainly in Rome by early February, 1944, being interrogated by the SOE there on his experiences. From Rome he was sent to the Allied POW repatriation in Naples, and by March 10 it was reported that the Australian Liaison Officer there (Colonel Chapman), had agreed to him not being repatriated in the normal way to Australia, so that he could be made available to No. 1 Special Force (SOE) for operations in Italy. No 1 Special Force (SOE) had its Headquarters in Siena, and there are indications that they then started to train him for a mission, probably including a parachute course. There is also evidence that he was accommodated in an Officer's Mess with other British Liaison Officers waiting to be dropped into North Italy on similar missions.
Then things went wrong. On March 16, Siena reported than in the last few days he had been most troublesome and indiscreet. On April I5, No. 1 Special Force (SOE) wrote to Colonel Chapman to say that they were returning Jocumsen to him as the project had been abandoned owing to the changed situation in those parts. No mention of any misdemeanours, indeed they described him as having been while with them as "helpful and well disciplined" and a point was made of stating that the decision not to send him back into the field was in no way at all a "reflection on his character or capacity".
This may seem odd in view of what actually happened, but it can only be supposed that No. 1 Special Force (SOE) was motivated by their desire to do their best for one who at the same time they praised for "the magnificent work he did for the Italian Resistance Movement". Absolem's suggestion that his non-recognition may have had something to do with his association with the Communist Moscatelli is, surely, unfounded. It is good at least to know that the Italian recognised him with the award of their prestigious Medaglia d'Oro when he and his wife Merle received an official invitation by Moscatelli, then a revered Italian Senator, to re-visit Borgesesia, to which city he was given the Freedom. whilst the medal was presented to him by the President of Italy himself.
Jock McCaffery recorded that: "Long before we met him, his name had travelled not only across North Italy, but into Switzerland. He had become a legend."
Although the head of SOE in Switzerland gives a glowing testimonial to his achievements with a recommendation the he "be given the highest recommendation that can be awarded to him" what precisely Jocumsen did to spoil his partisan reputation has never been recorded in detail.
Long after the war, Jock McCaffery privately recorded the events in Rome as reported to him later (as he was not there himself) which landed Jocumsen in trouble with the Military Police, with five fairly serious charges against him.
In Rome at that time it was calculated that there were 30,000 deserters of various origins. When, one evening, two American MPs saw this character sporting an Aussie hat, a nondescript uniform, and a pistol in a side holster, they grabbed him from behind. Some minutes later, this outraged and affronted tourist had stretched them both out on the pavement and proceeded quietly on his way. It would appear that SIMA, the Italian Section of SOE, managed to get these charges dropped, and an effort by this Recorder to obtain information from American MP records in St Louis, Missouri was never acknowledged. On May I8, 1945, Jocumsen bobbed up at the AIF Reception Centre at Eastbourne, Sussex England. He was quickly processed ,given leave and on July 24, embarked at Liverpool for return to Australia.
He was discharged from the AIF on September 26, 1945.
There is no mention nor recognition of his army exploits in Italy in his Army Record. Nor is there any mention of an award "of the highest possible status" that had been recommended for him ever being granted.
For some time after his discharge he suffered from emphysema, which he claimed was the result of the high altitudes among the snow and ice of the Italian Alps.

He and his wife operated hotels and motels in Central Australia after his discharge and sale of his butchery family business.
He finally developed a cancerous tumour on his head, which proved terminal after a few weeks.
His obituary was published in the "Cairns Post" on October 23, 1991.

Acknowledgements and Thanks to:
Roger Absalom
Ken Ward-Harvey
Duncan Stuart
Malcolm Webster