Adlib Internet Server 5

Select

1331536

Title
Item 03: Jack Egan diary and notebook, 1942
Creator
Jack Edgar George Egan
Call number
MLMSS 9681/Box 3X/Item 3
Level of description
item
Date

1942
Type of material
Textual Records
Reference code
1331536
Issue Copy
Digitised
Physical Description
1 box
ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY

Lance-Corporal Jack Egan enlisted in the AIF in 1940 and served in the 2/30th Battalion, 8th Division. He was captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942 and imprisoned in Changi Prisoner of War Camp. He was killed on 27 November 1942 in a tree-felling accident, buried in Changi with full military honours, and reburied in Kranji War Cemetary, Singapore, in April 1946.
In an act of great bravery and dedication, Private Carl Milton Rope buried Jack Egan's diary, wallet, watch and family photographs wrapped in oil skin, leaving them when he left Changi to work on the Burma Railway. Having survived the war, he recovered Jack's belongings and returned them to his parents in Australia.
Scope and Content
Diary written by Lance-Corporal Jack Edgar George Egan 2/30 Battalion A.I.F., 29 March-16 October 1942, while a prisoner of war in Changi, Singapore. It covers the fall of Singapore and his period of imprisonment by the Japanese. The diary entries are written as letters to his parents and dated. The pages have been numbered sequentially. Pages 1-95 are written in ink on Australian Comforts Fund note paper between 29 March 1942 and 6 June 1942. Pages 96-127 are written in ink within a hand sown insert of plain lined notepaper between 17 June 1942 and 8 September 1942. The remaining pages numbered 128-148 were written in ink on Salvation Army notepaper between 8 September 1942-26 October 1942. The entire contents has been crudely bound between plain cardboard covers joined by a glued linen spine measuring 20 x 12.5 cm.

Notebook containing reflections, observations and poems written by Jack Egan in Changi Prisoner of War Camp, 1942. The notebook consists of pencil jottings in a Naval Stores accounting voucher book that has been trimmed down in size and fitted in a brown leather cover measuring 21.5 x 14.5 cm. Each page is numbered sequentially and written on front and verso.
Conservation note

Diary and notebook are fragile with pages loose from binding
Name
Australia. Army. Division, 8th
Australia. Army. Battalion, 30th
Rope, Carl Milton (Private)
Subject
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Singapore.
World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Japanese.
Prisoners of war--Singapore--Changi.
Soldiers--Australia--Diaries.
Place
Changi (Singapore : Concentration Camp)
Open Rosetta viewer
IE8860160