Ray Wheeler (1)

Today we remember Ray Wheeler, a prisoner of war (POW) of the Japanese. With POWs often listed as ‘missing in action’, many families thought their loved ones didn’t survive.

Ray Wheeler audio file (MP4 23.88 MB)

Ray Wheeler audio script

75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War

Audio actuality

“Fellow Citizens, the War is over” — (The Hon J B Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia)

Australia remembers Ray Wheeler, a prisoner of war of the Japanese for three-and-a-half years.

With POWs often listed as ‘missing in action’, many families thought their loved ones didn’t survive. Ray’s family was no different.

Ray Wheeler

See, I’d been reported missing presumed dead before Singapore fell. That was my status for nearly three years. The records came home from Changi and Singapore; our names weren't in those that had survived. So I stayed on that as missing presumed dead. The first inkling I had that they thought I might have been still alive, was I got a letter that was 18 months old from Mum, and she’d stated she had written in the hope that I was still alive. And that had me puzzled why she’d think that I shouldn’t be alive. And when I came home, I found out that she didn’t know — to them I was dead for those three years.

Then she got a card that I’d written in Burma, which was perhaps the same length of time old, and thought: “Oh he is alive”, but it was dated that long ago they were worried. And the next thing — she said it was only about two weeks later — a telegram boy arrived, and this news was to say that I was with the Americans in Saipan and on the way home.

Saturday, August 15 marks the 75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War. Let’s pay our respects to that amazing generation of Australians.