For men who were prisoners of the Japanese, the trials and privations of captivity, particularly on the Burma-Thailand Railway, tested their faith in many things, including religion. As a result, chaplains had a difficult job ministering to many who found it difficult to sustain belief in a benevolent creator who loved them all. Readers who have already delved into the story of Newton’s wartime experience will be aware of the story of how Harry Thorpe came to be appointed by the 2/19th’s Captain Reg Newton as chaplain to ‘U’ Battalion when it was sent to the Railway in March 1943. As the story goes, as the day of departure from Changi drew near, Newton was lacking one component he considered vital: a padre.

The 2/19th’s own chaplain, the gallant Rev. Harold Wardale-Greenwood, had been sent to Borneo in July the previous year with later tragic results and the one padre out of the 33 in Changi who made himself available to move north with ‘U’ Battalion was Chaplain John Phillip ‘Pop’ Kennedy, but, at the age of 47, this kindly cleric did not fit ‘Roaring Reggie’s’ “rough and tough” criteria so his offer was rejected. In the meantime, the Changi rumour mill started grinding and within hours Harry Thorpe, an acting corporoal of the 2/29th Bn, approached Reg and said, “I hear that you cannot get a Padre to go away with you. I am not ordained but I completed 2 years in a theological college before I joined up; can I help?” Clearly Newton interpreted the powers vested in him as a holder of the King’s Commission broadly. Thorpe’s absence of officer rank and his lack of formal ordination were problems overcome by the simple expedient of laying hands on the forehead of the novitiate and intoning the holy words: “[T]urn your collar back to front and I will give you some pips to put on your shoulders as soon as we get out of here.” Job done. “That”, notes the 2/19th’s history, “was how we collected somebody to help the ‘upstairs’ department.”

In the event, Harry Thorpe proved very capable although he defined those in his ‘flock’ rather more broadly than Newton had anticipated and tended to go walkabout ministering to those in other camps. This resulted in frequent slappings and bashings of Newton when rolls came up short so that Thorpe was ultimately told to stay in Tarsau while the rest of the battalion moved on.

As for Padre ‘Pop’ Kennedy, this was not the end of his association with Reg Newton since he accompanied Newton Force to Japan on the hellship Rashin Maru, better known by the name the POWs gave it, the Byoki [or sick] Maru. Two great writers who also sailed to Japan on this 70-day nightmare voyage were L/Sgt Ken Harrison and PO Ray Parkin. They each left wonderful descriptions of Padre ‘Pop’. Harrison’s first encounter was when he dropped a tin cup from a ladder out of the hold onto the head of the priest below. Without even an ‘Amen’ or a ‘Nomine Patris’, the cleric shouted, “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, you stupid bloody young idiot!” But the wrong-doer was soon forgiven by this plain-speaking man of the cloth who was respected because: 

“He was of the earth, earthy, and he ate with us, marched where we marched, lived by our side, and spoke our own forceful language. But there was a strength and a spirit in this rough man with his practical faith, and he spoke not so much of the Kingdom to come, or of texts and dogmas, but of the need for kindness, courage, and cleanliness in our present life. Because he was one of us, seeking no privileges and clearly understanding our problems, his words carried conviction and a strange inspiration.”

Parkin remembered ‘Pop’ refusing to leave the ship’s hold and bunk with the officers because that would displace someone already enjoying the greater comfort of the officers’ area. So he sat.

“Under that ladder, [while] all the dust and foot-scrapings of the men going up and down fell on him. The wispy fuzz on the top of his head was peppered with it. ‘Pop’s Hale’ they called it. John [Parkin’s protagonist] had watched him talking and often laughing with the men. Here was a man with all the unworldly humility of a St Francis, he thought. His convictions were so much genuinely a part of him that he did not conceive of any others. His simple duty was to set people right. To him, God had given explicit and exact instruction for the fulfilment of His will. There was an implicit pact. Not one syllable could he question. There was none of the sophist in him to make him sinister—only wholesomeness and simplicity. They all respected him. Now, as he sat cross-legged in the China seas he was strikingly like some Eastern holy man … humble, appearing spiritually grateful for the foot-droppings that taught him the blessedness of humility … that showed him his place.”

On their arrival in Japan, Padre Kennedy was sent first to Fukuoka #2 near Nagasaki then to Korea and ultimately Manchuria. Sadly, after he returned to Australia, he suffered a nervous breakdown. From as early as 1947 he was unable to fulfill his role as a peacetime priest and had to retire from public gaze, living out a quiet and secluded life in a religious community in Galong NSW until his death on October 25th 1978.

But the puzzle of Padre ‘Pop’ is that the conversation Reg Newton remembered having with him in Changi in March 1943 could never have happened because at that time the priest was already on the Railway as a member of ‘Q’ Battalion, having departed Singapore with members of Timor’s Sparrow Force on January 22nd 1943. There is ample evidence confirming Fr Kennedy’s movements which includes records from the 2/40th Battalion, an engraved dixie showing the camps in which Kennedy was interned and a beating the priest received at Kinsayok which was witnessed by Ray Parkin. Although there was an English RC Padre Kennedy who served on the Railway, this was clearly not the man serving with ‘Q’ Battalion. So there is no way Reg Newton could have had a conversation in January concerning his dispatch to Thailand in March—of which he had no knowledge until nine days before. One is led to wonder how this very specific and detailed recollection of a conversation in Changi could have ended up so wrong. Perhaps it was a mis-located memory of something that happened in the preparations for the dispatch of Newton Force to Japan in mid-1944 but, if so, that in itself raises questions. 

None of this is intended in any way to disparage any of the remarkable men involved. The mistakes made were surely the subject of human memory’s notorious unreliability. As a result, I am going to conclude that the Changi conversation is a mystery which will now never be resolved but I have been wrong before and will be again; this may very well be one of those times. It would of course be grand to know what the specific source of the misplaced memory may have been and if anyone reading this article has thoughts, ideas or information, I’d be pleased to hear from them.

Chris Murphy
March 2022.

References:

Fr Max Barrett. ‘The Dixie: Information on Padre ‘Pop’ Kennedy’ (Website).
Peter Henning. ‘Doomed Battalion: Mateship and Leadership in War and Captivity. The Australian 2/40 Battalion 1940-45.’ (1995.) p.198.
John Morrisey Kennedy. ‘Priest and Prisoner: Fr John Kennedy CSsR.’ (2010.) pp.20-4, 37 & 54.
R.W. Newton (ed.) ‘The Grim Glory of the 2/19th Battalion’. (2006.) pp.478-9.