Private John Edward Harris, 2/21st Battalion, Second AIF
Australian War MemorialJohn “Jack” Edward Harris was born on 1 July 1918 in Dulwich Hill, New South Wales, the eldest of four boys and three girls to William and Margaret Harris.
The Harris family grew up at the family’s grocer shop, and Jack Harris attended the local school in Lewisham, where he was dux of his intermediate year.
Following school, and in the midst of the Great Depression, the family were greatly excited when Jack was offered a position as honey grader at the Producers Distributing Society in Sydney. He was then promoted and moved to Melbourne.
On 24 February 1941, Jack Harris enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force at Royal Park in Melbourne. He was posted to the 2/21st Battalion, part of the 23rd Brigade of the 8th Division. They trained at Trawool, in central Victoria, before marching 235km to Bonegilla, near Wodonga. In March 1941, they travelled to Darwin.
The battalion was slated to reinforce Dutch units on the island of Ambon in the Netherlands East Indies. They were finally sent in December, following Japan’s entry into the war. They joined supporting Australian units to become “Gull Force”.
The Japanese invaded Ambon on 30 January 1942 and quickly overwhelmed the Dutch forces. Despite brave and determined resistance, the 2/21st Battalion could not hold back the Japanese. Two companies of the battalion surrendered at Laha Airfield on 2 February and were massacred. The remaining men, including Private Harris, surrendered a day later and were imprisoned in Tan Tui.
Life for prisoners of war on Ambon were harsh, including starvation and working to death. By 1945, conditions were desperate with tropical diseases rife.
On 2 April 1945, Harris died from beriberi, an illness caused by vitamin deficiencies brought on by the captives’ meagre diet.
He was 26 years old.
Over 70 per cent of the Australian POWs on Ambon did not survive the war.
Jack Harris’s brothers, Kevin, Bill, and Patrick, also served. Kevin and Bill joined the Royal Australian Air Force. Kevin served as a mechanic with No. 3 Squadron in Africa, Sicily, and Italy. Bill served as a radar technician in New Guinea and on Manus Island. Patrick served with the 2/26th Battalion and was a Japanese POW in Changi, Singapore.
When the war ended on 15 August 1945, the Harris family had not received much news about the fates of Jack and Patrick. Both had been reported as missing, and little more had been discovered over the past three and a half years. Relief and jubilation came in September when Patrick’s name appeared on a list of recovered prisoners of war published in the newspaper.
But that afternoon, a telegram was delivered to Mrs Harris at the grocery shop, announcing that Jack had died several months earlier.
Jack Harris is buried in the Ambon War Cemetery. His epitaph, chosen by his family, reads:
HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR US
WE SHALL NOT FORGET “JACK” … R.I.P.
Lachlan Grant, Historian, Military History Section
- Australian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2278406
