FULL CIRCLE To hell, and then home by submarine

Author

A.N. Other

Subjects

Biographies and personal histories, History - WW2, Submarines

Tags

Changi, submarine

RAN Ships

None noted.

Publication

June 2025 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)

The story of Able Seaman Hilton (Harry) George Weigand, RAN

 by Tony Vine

When Harry Weigand walked off the submarine HMAS Oxley in Malta in 1928 to return home to Australia medically unfit, little did he realise that one of the last chapters in his military career would come 16-years later when he walked off  the American submarine USS Pampanito at Saipan in the Pacific Ocean

The Beginning

Although christened Hilton, he was known as Harry, and was born in Nowra, New South Wales on 7 July 1905. His 20-year-old father Horace was an apprentice blacksmith, and he only married Harry’s mother, 18-year-old Margaret Thicknesse four days after Harry was born. It was clearly a marriage of necessity and not love, as Horace was arrested later that year for deserting his family.

Following their forced reunion, the couple would have another five daughters and a son, of whom only two would survive to reach adulthood. The family surname is spelt variously as “Wingand,” “Wiegand,” and “Weigand.” Harry enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy as Wiegand, and in the AIF as Weigand, but for consistency the surname “Weigand” will be used.

Homelife

The Weigand household was clearly not an affluent or a  happy one. Horace was regularly before the courts, and this may have influenced a 17-year-old Harry to enlist in the RAN on 20 March 1923. On his 18^th birthday he would elect to serve for a term of twelve years. In 1923 Australia was in a recession, the Government had slashed spending, and the opportunity to lock in employment for twelve years was clearly to Harry’s advantage.

On completion of his training at HMAS Cerberus he was rated as an ordinary seaman before posting to the light cruiser HMAS Brisbane in October 1923, where he served in Australian waters for nine months. Harry was rated able seaman in March 1924, serving briefly in the survey sloop HMAS Marguerite, then in the famous light cruiser HMAS Sydney from September 1924. With ships rotating in and out of commission for economic reasons, he would transfer to Brisbane in October 1925, staying for twelve months.

Submarines

In early 1926 the opportunity arose for Harry to break the cycle of postings to light cruisers. In March 1925, the RAN had ordered two submarines to be constructed at Barrow-in-Furness in the United Kingdom and had recently called for volunteers to man them. Harry volunteered but initially it appeared he had been unsuccessful. In September of that year, he married Hilda Ada Spinks, however the union was not a happy one and Hilda returned home to Hobart as   Harry had refused to provide a home for her and for their son Gordon. This was coincidental with Harry posting to HMAS Cerberus to undertake gunnery courses followed by a posting to the aging torpedo boat destroyer HMAS Huon.

In October 1927, Huon visited Hobart and Harry went to his mother-in-law’s house where his wife Hilda was living. After a brief discussion with Hilda, he placed a revolver against her chest and threatened her. Fortunately, his mother-in-law intervened taking the gun off him and telling him to leave. On 23 November he was arrested by the Tasmanian Police and after a court appearance, was released into the custody of the Commonwealth. This was done on the understanding that the navy would immediately remove him to another jurisdiction. The navy had already held him in cells for 13-days, most probably on the catch all charge of “Conduct Prejudicial” and that may have influenced the court’s decision. He was immediately posted to the UK to standby HMAS Oxley, travelling in style on the Orient Steam Navigation Company’s liner SS Osterley. He would have been one of the last of Oxley’s crew to arrive in the United Kingdom, so it is possible that the navy was deliberately moving him as far from Hilda as possible.

In February 1928, Harry was serving on Oxley when the boat, in company with Otway, departed Portsmouth for Australia. The journey home would be a long and arduous one. Within days of sailing, cracks began to appear in the main engines and both submarines stopped in Malta for repairs which took nine months.

When Oxley sailed from Malta Harry was no longer onboard, as in August 1928 he had been classified as “unfit for further submarine service” and returned to the UK to join the newly commissioned heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra, for passage to Australia.

Medical issues

Harry’s health was such that within weeks of Canberra arriving in Australia he was invalided out of the navy. He was awarded a payout of 43-pounds, nine-shillings and five-pence, in lieu of his extended leave. A tidy sum at a time when Australia was sliding into the Great Depression.

Despite this relative wealth, within 18-months he would be convicted of illegally travelling on a goods train in rural NSW.

Meanwhile in Hobart, Hilda had petitioned for a divorce. Harry had not paid maintenance for her or Gordon since he had been discharged from the RAN. At a time when divorces were difficult for women to obtain, her case was strengthened by the incident in 1927, and the divorce was granted in May 1931. Gordon would later become a talented middle-distance runner in Tasmania.

Within a year Harry had married again, this time to another Hilda; Hilda Leonore Richards in Canterbury, NSW. They would have a son William in 1934, and the family lived    with Harry’s parents in Sydney. Harry worked as a motor    mechanic, seaman or as a laborer. They would later move to Katoomba to live with Hilda’s parents.

Army days

In June 1940 Harry enlisted in the army, correctly stating his date of birth, giving his occupation as miner, but not declaring his naval service. This may have been a deliberate act, so he did not have to enlist in the navy or serve in the merchant marine. On his enlistment Harry was allocated to the 2/12^th Field Company of the Eighth Division Engineers which was under the command of Major John Shaw, a civil engineer from Sydney. The company formed at Liverpool in Sydney and consisted of approximately 250 officers and men, a mix of tradesmen and labourers, of whom over half were considered too old to serve in the infantry. The Eighth Division was the third raised for service in the war and many of the men had hopes of joining the action in the Middle East. It was under the command of Major General Gordon Bennett, a pre-war Army Chief of General Staff.

Harry trained at Liverpool, Ingleburn, Bathurst and North Head; however, his health was clearly suspect as he had several periods absent with illness. In April 1941 he was promoted to acting Corporal, but it was short lived, and he had reverted to Sapper by the time the company embarked for overseas.

The company was a mix of men. Of the 253 men who embarked in late July 1941, 129 were over 30, of whom eleven were over 40. Sprinkled amongst them were a group of 20 to 23-year-olds. The oldest by far was Sapper George Wilkins who claimed he had been born in 1900. In fact, George was born in 1887 and had served during the Great War. In 1918 he was a Lieutenant with a Military Cross. The youngest was 20-year-old Bob Davis who embarked with his brothers Lawrence and Roy. While Bob Davis would return, his brothers would not. George Wilkins would perish at Sandakan in Borneo. In total, 97 men (38%) from the original company would not survive the war.

Troop transports

The Eighth Division departed Sydney on 29 July 1941, with the 2/12^th Field Company on the Dutch liner Johan Van  Oldenbarnevelt. The ship’s destination was Singapore, then part of Malaya, and not the Middle East. Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt and the TSS Katoomba headed south towards Melbourne, escorted by HMAS Sydney. The convoy was joined by a second Dutch liner, Marnix Van St Aldegonde off Melbourne, and HMAS Canberra took over as the convoy escort, with Sydney heading back to Port Jackson.

The convoy continued on to Fremantle, where it dropped off Katoomba and picked up Sibajak, before setting out for division’s final destination of Singapore, then part of Malaya, instead of the hoped for Middle East.

The men were kept occupied on the ship with lectures and menial duties. Harry fell afoul of the regimental police, and he was charged and convicted of “failing to appear at a place of parade after being named for Gd (Guard) duty.” He was fined five shillings for his misdemeanour. The convoy arrived in Singapore on 15 August and commenced disembarking the following day, moving their stores and equipment to a camp at Johore Bahru which had been prepared for them by their sister Field Company, the 2/10^th.

For the next three months Harry and his mates were  engaged in a variety of engineering tasks, ranging from building pontoon bridges, installing tank traps and even  constructing a slipway. The men, many of whom had never previously worked in the tropics, began to fall ill, mainly with fever and diarrhea. In early October they would lose their first man, Sapper Harry Hannington a 36-year-old who died of meningitis. Harry was afforded a full military funeral, something few of the men would receive over the next four-years.

“RAFFLES”

All would change on 6 December 1941, when the Duty Officer received an urgent message with the word “RAFFLES”, the allied code that hostilities had begun against Japan. The progress of the enemy forces down the Malayan Peninsula was spectacular, and the British Commonwealth (including Australian) forces rapidly fell back. By the middle of January, the engineers were at Segamat setting demolition charges on key points. By the end of the month they were on Singapore Island building defences near the causeway.

On the night of 8 February, the Japanese crossed Johore Strait and landed on the north-west corner of the island. The next day the engineers were tasked with blowing up fuel tanks near the causeway. However, the truck carrying the charges was destroyed by a shell, killing sappers Gordon Hall, Lance Hamblin and Don Saunders. The OIC of the detachment, Lieutenant Arthur Watchorn, and Sergeant Reg Wilstencroft, walked four miles with replacement charges to complete the task. Watchorn received the Military Cross and Wilstencroft the Military Medal for their actions. Soon after the engineers were absorbed into the 27^th Infantry Brigade Group falling back initially to the MacRitchie Reservoir before being forced back into the final AIF perimeter.

Just after 2000 on Sunday, 15 February, the men received the news that the British Commonwealth Forces had unconditionally surrendered. The next morning, they had a big feed of ‘bully-beef’ before linking up with the rest of the company in houses to the west of Singapore city. Three days later, they marched 24-miles to Changi Barracks.

 Changi

In Changi, the Japanese issued cards for the men to fill out so their next of kin could be advised that they were safe. Few of the cards ever reached Australia. Not long after, the engineers were sought out by their captors to build roads and repair the infrastructure that their own troops had destroyed. This gave the men an opportunity to scrounge food and items from abandoned houses and buildings. As the weeks went on, the security became stricter and the opportunities to scrounge waned.

In May, Major General Callaghan, who had assumed command of the Eight Division when Bennett had deserted it, was advised that a party of 3000 men were required to travel to Burma and Thailand where allegedly, much better accommodation, food and conditions would be provided. There would be three battalions of 1000 men each. The second battalion was known as ‘A’ Force after its CO, Lt Colonel Charles Anderson VC MC. The battalion would be made up of engineers, signallers and other specialist units. This would become Harry Weigand’s ticket out of Changi and into hell.

Whilst many of Harry’s field company were selected to go to Burma and Thailand, 34 men would go to Borneo, of whom only two would survive the war. The men who went to Thailand would also suffer grievously building the infamous Burma Railway with 33 men perishing over a 16-month period through disease, malnutrition and brutal treatment from their captors.

 On the railway, ‘A’ Force would be joined by some of the sailors who had survived the sinking of the light cruiser HMAS Perth. A number, including Chief Cook Bob Bland, Petty Officer Telegraphist Don Fowler and Gunner Len Smith, were contemporaries of Harry from his time in the RAN.

Part II will appear in the September 2025 edition of NHR.

About the author:

Anthony (Tony) Vine joined the RAN in January 1971 and submarines in 1977, after serving at sea on HMAS Supply and HMAS Melbourne. He was awarded his Dolphins on HMAS Orion in February 1978 before becoming a commissioning crew member of HMAS Otama. Over the next 30-years he served on HMA Submarines Orion, Otama, Ovens and Otway and in numerous submarine shore positions including in the UK and Canada. He also served on Major War Vessel Sea Training Group and on HMAS Manoora. Tony has been the National Vice President  of the SAA since October 2022. He has been married to Cathie for 48-years. They reside in Warrell Creek on the NSW  mid-north Coast.