Owen 'Doc' Matthews is remembered for his spectacular Grand Prix dressage exhibitions with his horse Aintree Boy, performed to music under spotlights at Melbourne Royal Show from 1965-1975. He also performed at smaller country shows. Doc Matthews was born in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in 1923, during the Great Depression. He and his brother Paddy were placed in a foster home and then in a Geelong orphanage before being put to work at a dairy farm. Doc was given an elderly piebald mare to ride, which ignited his passion for horses. When he was 16, he enlisted in World War 2 but captured by the Japanese and ended up working on the Burma Railway, spending years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Changi Prison. Doc joined Victoria Police in 1952 and by 1962 was chief horse master and riding instructor in the mounted branch. He drilled teams to perform musical rides and horses and riders were always turned out to perfection. Doc and Aintree Boy became a partnership after the horse had been used in the mounted branch for four years. Doc decided to try his hand at dressage and as there were few instructors, trained Aintree Boy with nothing to go by but a couple of books and film of a single dressage competition. Owen 'Doc' Matthews was truly a pioneer of Grand Prix dressage in Australia. ( ref. TOPHORSE )Agricultural shows are an important part of cultural life in small country towns and the Orbost Show is an integral part of Orbost 's agricultural history.A square shaped ticket for Orbost Show - Monday, March 10th 1975. It is on white card with blue print.Orbost Wonder Horse "Aintree Boy". Monday, March 10th 1975aintree-boy dressage equestrian matthews-owen

During World War II, following the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese military detained about 3,000 civilians in Changi Prison, which was built to house only 600 prisoners. The Japanese used the British Army's Selarang Barracks, near the prison, as a prisoner of war camp, holding some 50,000 Allied—predominantly British and Australian—soldiers.[1] Although POWs were rarely, if ever, held in the civilian prison, the name Changi became synonymous in the UK, Australia, and elsewhere with the POW camp. About 850 POWs died during their internment in Changi during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore,[2] a relatively low rate compared to the overall death rate of 27% for POWs in Japanese camps.[3] However, many more prisoners died after being transferred from Changi to various labour camps outside Singapore, including the Burma Railway and the Sandakan airfield.this item is of historical significance because it is supposedly one of the few surving keys to Changi Jail and donated by Mr.Robertson . Changi is significant as it was a major prison camp during WWII Changi Jail Key. Blackened metal key, Wooden tag attached with Japanese print on it. Kanji Characters read Middle Gatechangi, fall of singapore, key, p.o.w.

Copy of framed photograph of World War 2 Australian Army serviceman Lieutenant Edgar Burton Chapman, service number VX43645, who served in the 2/10th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers. The 2/10th FC was attached to the 8th Division. Chapman later transferred to the 2/12 FC which was in Singapore when the Japanese invaded. Chapman was captured and spent 3 1/2 years as a Prisoner of War in Changi Prison. Chapman was born in Dromana, Victoria, on 21st March, 1914 and lived in Frankston and attended Frankston High School. He trained as a Civil Engineer and commenced work with the British Phosphate Commission in Nauru.

These photographs were sent by Mr Frank Heys to his family while he was a German prisoner of war during the Second World War.Framed collection of German prisoner of war photorgraphs. Seven black and white photographs and one colour photograph. Five show the reverse side with addresses and post marks.'Mr Frank Heys. Life Member, Past President,(1984-1986), Committee Man. Franked served with the British forces in the Loyals Regiment, in France in 1939. Was captured at Dunkirk and spent the remaining war years a prisoner of war. These photos were sent by Frank to his family during those years. Donated by Alan and Sylvia Frank.' 'Stalag 23'photographs, 23, stalag, germany, second world war, german, camps, p o w s, prison

Aub's Diary covering his joining the AIF in Bendigo 1st July 1940 through to becoming a prisoner of war in Changi prison Singapore and to his release and final coming home to Bendigo 22nd August 1945Foolscap size folderworld war two, singapore, aif, changi, bendigo, wwii, diary

Ill, p.320.non-fictionA first hand account by an Australian airman of his escape from a Turkish prison camp during the first world war - only to land in the middle of the violence of the Russian revolutionworld war 1914-1918 - prisoners of war - turkey, escapes - turkey

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.262.non-fictionThe story of POW's captured at Hong Kong is told for the first time in this book. A gripping tale of courage and enduranceworld war 1939 – 1945 – campaigns – hong kong, world war 1939-1945 - prisoners and prisons - japan

Ill, p.266.non-fictionStory of the Malayan Campaign of 1942 and subsequent captivity in the hands of the Japanese from a private soldier's point of view. world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners - japanese, prisoners of war - australia

Ill, p.115.non-fictionThis book is based on documents, photographs and maps preserved in the records of the Australian war memorial, and on the experiences of the author.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, burma thailand railway

Index, ill, p.141.non-fictionGeorge Aspinalls photography hobby during captivity has resulted in a unique visual diary.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, changi prison

p.250.non-fictionThe authors escape from Changi jail and their subsequent recaapture and ill treatment. world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, changi jail

Index, bibliography, ill, maps, p.156.non-fictionAn account of British civilians interned in Malaya and Singapore 1942-1945.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, civilian internment - malaya and singapore

Index, ill, p.263.non-fictionAlleges an extensive cover-up of Japanese war crimes.world war 1939-1945 - war crime - japan, world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese

Ill, maps, p.223.non-fictionWith sixteen other POWs, author Charles McCormac broke out from his POW camp in Japanese-occupied Singapore and began a two-thousand-mile escape from Singapore, through the jungles of Indonesia to Australia. The POWs' escape took a staggering five months and only two out of the original seventeen men survived. This is McCormac's compelling true account of one of the most horrifying and amazing escapes in World War Two. It is a story of courage, endurance and compassion, and makes for a very gripping read.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, prisoner of war escapes - singapore

Index, notes, ill, tales, p.175.non-fictionThe reminiscences of Australian POW's and Japanese historians at a meeting 50 years after the war ended on the Burma Thailand railway.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, burma - thailand railway

Maps, p.520.non-fictionFour and a half days after being transported out of Singapore in a steel goods train in October 1942, prisoner of war Denys Peek found himself in Siam, and a part of the labor force destined for the project that was later to be known as the Thai-Burma Death Railway.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, burma - thailand railway

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, maps, p.376.non-fictionAfter Singapore fell to the Japanese in early 1942, 70000 prisoners, including 15000 Australians, were held as POWs at the notorious Changi prison. To amuse themselves, a group of sportsmen created an Aussie Football League, complete with tribunal, selection panel, umpires and coaches, a final game, and a Brownlow Medal.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, changi prison - singapore

Ill, p.400.non-fiction The bestselling memoir of life as an Australian POW on the notorious Thai-Burma railway. Rohan Rivett was a journalist in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese in 1942. He escaped south - across the treacherous Bangka Strait - to Indonesia, but was soon captured and became just one of thousands of POWs struggling for existence in a Japanese camp. The struggle was to last for more than three years. Behind Bamboo is unflinching in its honesty and haunting in its realism. It is a vivid, compelling testament to the Australians' will to survive and their unassailable spirit in the face of the most callous inhumanity.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – japanese, burma - thailand railway

Ill, p.157.non-fictionCreated by the Australian War Memorial, this book is an online companion to a travelling exhibition that explores the lives of those who were held captive by the Japanese. It describes what happened during the time these individuals spend months and years behind barbed wire, hungry, bored, cold, and sick. The book tells the story of how many survived and why they deserve our respect and understanding. world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – australia, prisoners of war - australia - pictorial works

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, p.179.non-fictionOver 60,000 Australians and Americans captured by the Japanese during World War II toiled and died to build the Bridge over the River Kwai. Respected military historian Linda Goetz Holmes tells the story of one man's survival in Japanese labor camps during WWII. Amazing photographs, taken secretly by other prisoners, chronicle this dark history of Allied troops in the Pacific theatre of war.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – australia, burma thailand railway

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, p.523.non-fictionAustralians from every field of conflict in World War II found themselves as prisoners in Hitler's notorious Stalags, or prisoner of war camps. Most were forced to labour in factories, down mines or on the land - often in conditions of enormous privation and hardship. All suffered from shortages, overcrowding and the mental strain of imprisonment. Peter Monteath's fascinating narrative history is exhaustively researched, and compelling in its detailed evocation.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – germany, prisoners of war - australia

Index, ill, maps, p.301.non-fictionA personal recollection of the experiences of Weary Dunlop during the war and as a prisoner of war.world war 1939-1945 - prisoners and prisons, prisoners of war - australia

Index, bibliography, notes, ill, p.688.non-fictionThe untold story of the Sandakan death marches of World War II. After the fall of Singapore, in February 1942, the Japanese conquerors rounded up tens of thousands of British and Australian soldiers and shipped them to prison camps scattered throughout Hirohito's newly won Empire. The fall of Britain's 'impregnable fortress' was the greatest humiliation in British military history, for which Churchill never forgave the Japanese. But nothing would surpass the wretched fate of some 2,700 British and Australian prisoners who were shipped to British North Borneo later that year. They landed in Sandakan, on the east coast of the island, after a 10-day voyage on a Japanese 'hell' ship, and were herded into a jungle camp some eight miles inland. Thus began the three-year ordeal of the Sandakan prisoners of war - a barely known story of unimaginable horror.world war 1939-1945 - prisoners of war - sandakan, japan - prisons and prisoners of war

p.351.fictionThe heartrending story of British boy Jim's four year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the second world war. Based on J. G. Ballard's own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai--a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint. Rooted as it is in the author's own disturbing experience of war in our time, it is one of a handful of novels by which the twentieth century will be not only remembered but judged. world war 1939-1945 - fiction, world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners - japanese

maps, p.157.non-fictionDavid James was serving in Motor Gun Boats when he was captured in February 1943. Imprisoned initially in Dulag Marlag, he immediately decided to escape. In December 1943 he succeeded in escaping disguised as an officer of the Royal Bulgarian Navy. He was captured while attempting to board a ship at Lubeck.Undeterred, in February 1944 he broke out again, this time dressed as a Swedish sailor. He eventually succeeded in reaching Stockholm after two and a half days in a ship's engine room. prisoners of war - germany - escapes, world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – germany

Index, ill, maps, p.320.non-fiction2000 survivors of the Burma railway were sent to Japan but their ship was sunk by an american submarine.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners - japanese, burma - thailand railway

Index, ill, maps, p.224.non-fictionOn June 23 1943 Lieutenant Jack Champ of the 2nd/6th Australian Infantry Battalion was marched into one of the most famous prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. Known then as Oflag IVC, it is now better know as Colditz. By the end of the war there were nineteen Australians in Colditz, and this is the first book to look at life there specifically from their point of view. It was a very special camp. It was designed to retain under escape-proof conditions, a select group of Allied prisoners who had already escaped from other camps and who had been recaptured whilst still in occupied territory. Having seen action in the Western Desert and in Greece, Jack Champ had been captured by the Germans in 1941. He was, however, a reluctant prisoner and took part in two escapes from different POW camps, one of which was a mass break-out of sixty officers through a tunnel that had taken weeks to make. Although the guards frequently outnumbered prisoners, there were more escapes from Colditz than from any other prison of comparable size during both World Wars. In this vivid book Jack Champ and Colin Burgess explain what it was like to be a prisoner in Nazi Germany. It is a curious blend of brutality and humanity, of routines and dreams, and occasional and dramatic excitement as men tried to turn those dreams into the reality of freedom.world war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners – germany, world war 1939-1945 - personal narratives - australia

Index, ill, map, p.242.non-fictionThe story of the infamous Bataan death marchworld war 1939 – 1945 - prisons and prisoners - japanese, atrocities - japan