A DISTURBING DIPLOMATIC VISIT
by Patrick Hyland
In the late 1960s, I was appointed ADC to His Excellency the Governor of South Australia – a cushy number if ever there was one! The Governor was a tough old Australian General and his Private Secretary (PS) an equally tough old Australian Brigadier who had endured the siege of Tobruk in North Africa. No sooner had this siege been lifted than the Australian Division had been shipped to Singapore to stem the Japanese advance. Sadly, they arrived just in time to go into the bag as the city fell.
Some months after taking up my post, we were warned of a visit by the Japanese Ambassador to Australia. The protocol was for the PS and I to receive the party, escort them to the Governor’s study and then wait until they departed.
I was standing behind the Brigadier on the steps of Government House as they arrived. The Ambassador and his entourage got out of their cars and bowed – making a funny little hissing noise. I immediately noticed the Brigadier clenching his fists – and then he disappeared! When the Japanese became erect, they must have been mildly surprised to see that the reception team had halved.
Having deposited the party with the Governor, I set out to find the Brigadier
– without success. Finally, I ‘phoned his wife, who lived nearby. On answering the call, she merely said: “I knew this would happen”, and arrived within minutes. We found the Brigadier in his office, behind a half-open door, squatting down and facing a corner. She took him by the hand and led him away without a word. He was not seen for three days, but in the meantime the Governor told me that he had been very badly treated by the Japanese when a prisoner in Changi Prison, and I suspect that it was the little hissing sound that had brought back dreadful memories of this ill-treatment. Many years later in China, I met survivors of the Rape of Nanking who were also haunted by harrowing memories of their terrible experience.