Leading Aircraftman Rupert McClelland lost his life as the result of the torpedoing of a Japanese transport ship Rakuyo Maru on September 12, 1944 by a US submarine Sealion off the coast of the Philippines.  The Acting Prime Minister of the time, Mr Forde announced the tragedy in the House of Representatives.  The ship was taking 1,317 Australian and British POWs to Japan from Singapore.  The Americans had no idea that the Allied prisoners were on board.

Rupert McClelland was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs R. L. McClelland of Glyndon Rd, Camberwell.  He was the brother of John, also an Old Grammarian.  Rupert attended Carey from 1929-1933 when he was in the Intermediate Certificate Form, the equivalent of Year 10 today.

He was a member of the First XVIII Football and the Athletic Team, and a Patrol Leader in the Scout Troop.  When he left school he worked on the land in northern Victoria and later in the motor trade near Camberwell Junction.  WWII was yet to begin.

He enlisted in the RAAF, the week after the declaration of war and received training at Laverton, Adelaide and Point Cook.  He left Australia in October, 1941 and served at Kota Baru, Singapore, Sumatra and Java where he was taken prisoner in 1942 and was sent to work on the hell that was the Burma Thailand railway. 

In 1943 Japan’s high command decided to build a railway linking Thailand and Burma, to supply its campaign against the Allies in Burma.  The railway was to run 420 kilometres through rugged jungle. It was to be built by a captive labour force of about 60,000 Allied prisoners of war and 200,000 romusha, or Asian labourers. They built the track with hand tools and muscle power, working through the monsoon of 1943. Relentless labour on inadequate rations in a deadly tropical environment caused huge losses. By the time the railway was completed in October 1943, at least 2,815 Australians, over 11,000 other allied prisoners and perhaps 75,000 romusha were dead.[1]  Rupert was being transferred from a prisoner of war camp in Burma when he met his death at 26 years.

Thanks to some of his family members with us here today, we have some of the letters and documents written by Rupert and his family.  Through these we are able to have greater insight into their lives and experiences.  A letter sent by Rupert from RAF station in Malaya where he talks of daily life a pay rise of 1 shilling and some silverware he is sending to mark his parents wedding anniversary.  The next year when he was captured by the Japanese Mr and Mrs McClelland received several censored postcards from the POW camp in Moulmein, Burma.  The cards sent in 1943 were brief and assured the family that he was well and in good spirits and longing to see them all again.  The postcards provided a sanitised version of the brutal conditions in the camp and on the railway.

Then the most dreaded communication.