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NX77799 - BUSINE, Sydney Herbert Thomas, Pte.
The Miracle of the
Death Certificate - by Jim Busine When
men died on the Burma Thai railway a death certificate was
usually placed in the grave for further identification. It was
normally placed in an empty tin or hollow bamboo and tied to the
body. At the end of the war, the graves were exhumed and taken
to two cemeteries. Those on the Thai side were taken to
Kanchanaburi while those on the Burma side were taken to
Thambuzayat. The exhumed death certificates were recorded and
then destroyed. My father's brother,
Jack was a merchant seaman. By chance, he was in Rangoon, Burma
around the end of the war and had met an officer whose job it
was to transfer the information from the original death
certificates to army records before destroying them. With
nothing to lose my uncle asked if he could look at the remaining
death certificates on the off chance that my father's had not
yet been destroyed. It was there. This was an incredible
coincidence. My uncle, determined to bring the certificate home
obtained it from the officer. As shown
in the photo it was written on some form of brown paper as
normal writing paper was scarce in the camps and any available
was used to roll cigarettes. It is not known where it came from
as neither the surgeon Lt Col A.I.S. Coates or the chaplain
Padre Fleming who signed it, would have supplied it.
Jack brought the death certificate back to
Australia and gave it to his parents Frank and Charlotte Busine.
Several years later, my Uncle Jack told me of how
he had obtained the certificate, but he did not know of its
whereabouts since passing it onto his parents. His mother (my
Grandmother) Charlotte had died several years previously and his
father (my Grandfather) Frank, blind as a result of a war injury
and living on his own, could not locate it either.
Not long after I met Les Hall, and the story was
written, my Grandfather (Frank) had to be placed in a nursing
home. He died soon after. I, together with my wife Judy was
given the task of settling my Grandfather's affairs. While in
the process I came across a box in the bottom of an old sea
trunk. I recognised it to be a trick box with a hidden bottom
sliding draw similar to one I had seen many years before. Before
dispensing with the box I tried to see if it opened the same as
the one I had seen before. It did and out fell an old piece of
paper folded several times so as to make it small enough to be
concealed. As I stood and looked at the paper an excited shiver
came over me. It was my father's original death certificate.
This death certificate should have been destroyed
once, and lost forever, but clearly it was destined to be in my
hands and the hands of my family. It was delivered to me at a
time when I was seeking answers to many burning questions about
my father. It was in many ways a miracle.
I contacted the Australian War memorial, who
requested the document be filed as part of a collection. After
due consideration they too decided that it was always meant to
be within my family.
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Last updated
31/08/2021 |
