NEW SERIES
This is the first of a new series of articles about men and women connected to my family who served in – and survived – the First and Second World Wars.
William Albert Ernest Brackley (1923-2003)
William was held as a Japanese prisoner of war in Thailand in the Second World War. A private in the 2/2nd Australian Pioneer Battalion, he was reported missing in action in Java in the spring of 1942. He was confirmed as a prisoner of war many months later.
William was among more than 800 soldiers from his battalion captured as they fought in defence of Java against Japanese forces in February 1942. They took part in a brief but bitter engagement before their garrison was ordered to surrender. More than 250 of those taken prisoner died in captivity.
William and other prisoners of war were forced to work on the infamous Burma-Thailand ‘Death Railway’ and in camps in Java and Borneo. Twelve thousand Allied prisoners of war died in the construction of the railway between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon in Burma.
William was just 17 and a farm labourer when he enlisted in the Australian Army on June 6, 1940. He claimed he was 19.
William was twice wounded in action in 1941 – suffering a shrapnel wound to his right knee in June that year and an injury to his eye the following month. Freed from the prisoner of war camp a week before he was due to be executed, he sailed back to Australia in October 1945, and was discharged on June 1, 1946.
Born on April 19, 1923 in Manangatan, Victoria, William married Rosemary Houghton Blore (1925-2013) on November 29, 1947 in Melbourne. He died on December 3, 2003 in Queensland, aged 80.
Family connection
William was the son of Albert Henry Victor Brackley (1890-1924) and his second wife, Alma Beck (1895-1959). Albert was the son of Henry George Brackley (1850-1924) and Mary Elizabeth Hurford (1872-1899). Mary was the daughter of William Hurford (1840-1915), of Stockleigh English and Mary Ann Roberts (1842-1926), who emigrated to Australia after their marriage in Cornwall in 1863. William Hurford was the son of William Hurford (1802-1881) and Charlotte Roberts (1815-1884). Charlotte was the daughter of Thomas Roberts (1770-1852) and Elizabeth Sharland (1776-1841). Thomas was my great-great-great-great grandfather.
Paul Roberts
- William was one of more than 500 men and women connected to my family who served in the two world wars. Their story is told in a unique eight-volume A-Z that I have researched and produced.
Picture below
William when he enlisted. Picture from his service records, preserved on the National Archives of Australia.
