Kapyong recalled
Shoot me he thought as he lay curled in a ball, I’ve had enough

Bob Parker, happy at home these days with his service medals and memories Photo by Cpl Cameron Jamieson, Army newspaper

Bob Parker in Korea with his trusty Harley.

Bob and Cpl Don Buck released from captivity.

The cable announcing Bob was alive and well.

Pte Bob Parker, Sig Pl 3RAR, served as the CO’s Despatch Rider and was captured during the Battle of Kapyong. In the fourth of A digger recalls history series Cpl Cameron Jamieson reports.

Robert “Bob” Parker just missed out on serving as an Army signaller in the Southwest Pacific during World War Two, but he did serve with the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF) in Japan immediately afterwards.

The “call to arms” for the Korean conflict found Bob in uniform again, although this time his passion became his trade. Bob was a keen motorbike rider, competing in numerous races in NSW, and so his passion for motorbikes was combined with his signals and military skills, when he became the despatch rider for the 3RAR CO.

He was deployed to Korea, fighting firstly against the North Koreans who had invaded South Korea and then later against the hordes of Chinese “volunteer” divisions, who poured across the border into Korea to help their communist friends.

During the Battle of Kapyong, Parker found himself alone as usual, urging his Harley Davidson to move swiftly along a muddy stretch of road, when a sudden burst of small arms fire brought his world undone.

Alone and wounded

Parker was struck in the hip, lost control of his bike and ended up in a ditch. He tried to crawl away but his hip was temporarily paralysed and he couldn’t move. While he lay there, the Australians and Americans withdrew from the battlefield, unknowingly leaving Bob alone to face the advancing Chinese.

Slowly he regained some movement and was able to move to a nearby peasant’s hut where he cleared his Owen gun, which had become jammed with mud during the crash. A group of Chinese soldiers closed in on his position, and although he was alone, he retained his wits and remembered a scene from the American movie Sgt York.

He recalled how York had picked off the soldiers to the rear, so that the lead soldiers didn’t recognise the severity of the threat their enemy posed. Parker brought down a number of the enemy without alarming the vanguard, but the writing was on the wall. He buried his weapon in the mud and surrendered.

Into captivity

“I was one frightened boy as I stood up and looked at them charging at me,” Parker recalls

“I put my hands out to the side and gave them a big grin.

“They came up to me and patted me on the shoulders and asked me why I fought so bravely, but I didn’t think I was very brave at all.

“They took me up to the mountains and there they decided to interrogate me.

“There was a Chinese boy, probably a batman, and he had a burp gun [Soviet-designed submachine gun].

“He kept his finger on the trigger and kept poking me in the stomach while an officer asked me questions.

“The officer asked me questions like ‘how many wounded did we have’, and how many troops we had.

“He asked questions he knew the answers to, but I told him I was a new recruit, and that I didn’t know much.”

The long marches

Parker endured a number of long marches before he ended up in PoW Camp No 5, located beside the Yalu River on the border with Manchuria.

One of these marches nearly killed him.

“I fell out on the march to go to the toilet and I just collapsed on the ground and curled up into a little ball.

“I thought ‘Ah bugger it’.

“A China-man fell out with me and he kept prodding me with his burp gun, but I wouldn’t get up.

“I just thought: ‘He can shoot me, I’ve had it’.

“And then I heard this voice saying ‘come on, bat-on chaps’.”

It was the voice of Lt MacKenzie, the signals platoon commander of 3RAR who used to urge his men on during forced marches with the cricketing cry of ‘bat-on chaps!’

“So I got up and rejoined the column and away we went.

“I thought that was the way to go, to just ‘bat-on’.”

“There were 33 of us in that march, and out of that group only 11 got home.

“All the rest died.”

Goodbye Slim

Time spent in PoW camps provided no respite for Parker because of his captor’s refusal to provide humane treatment.

Fortunately, there were a small number of Australian PoWs and they banded together, bolstering each other’s spirits, helping to resist the deprivation and indoctrination techniques of the communists.

One of Parker’s fellow prisoners was Pte William “Slim” Madden, who had served with Parker in BCOF.

Slim was captured during the Battle of Kapyong after he was concussed by enemy shelling. He shared what little food he had with fellow prisoners and refused to cooperate with his captors. He became very sick from the ill-treatment he suffered because of his resistance, and eventually was too weak to continue marching from camp to camp with his fellow Australians. He died of malnutrition, but his contempt for the communists remained intact until the end.

Meanwhile Parker had moved to another PoW camp and so wasn’t aware of Slim’s death. He learnt of it in a way that almost defied description.

“It was a cold day, and I was in my room, lying flat on my back, wide-awake because of the freezing cold,” he says

“I was staring up at the ceiling, when in through the place where the wall joined the ceiling floated this figure.

“It was moving from right to left, and some sort of glow surrounded it.

“As I looked at the object I could see it was in the shape of a man.

“He turned his head and looked down at me and said ‘You’ll be okay, mate’.

“It was Slim Madden, and I can still see him to this day.

“It was a most spiritually moving experience, because I didn’t know at the time that Slim had passed on.”

Escape, punishment and dignity

Parker was involved in a number of escape attempts with his fellow Australians. Although they were harshly treated on recapture, the escapes gave them hope. In June 1952 more than 20 prisoners escaped in small groups from Camp No 5.

They were betrayed by a fellow prisoner, who withdrew from the escape attempt just a few hours beforehand, and all the prisoners were soon recaptured and placed into the sweatbox – a small cell in which they had to stand or sit to attention from 4.30am to 11pm each day without making a sound.

“After the last escape I was put in the sweatbox for a month. I was briefly taken out to be questioned by a Chinese soldier we knick-named ‘Charlie Chan’.

“He pulled out his automatic pistol and pushed the muzzle against my forehead.

“‘Who was the leader of the escape?’ he asked.

“I said nothing, so he said, ‘Cpl Buck [one of Bob’s fellow Australian prisoners] is the leader.’

“‘Bullshit’ I said, ‘we have no leader, go ahead and shoot. I don’t care’.”

He was quizzed again on who the leader of the escape was. Parker told him no one was in charge, it was a group effort.

“‘I won’t shoot you,’ said Chan, ‘Winter is coming and you will freeze to death in those clothes anyway’.”

Parker spent six months earlier in his captivity in PoW Camp No 12, where the Chinese attempted to convert UN prisoners to communism in the hope that they could create post-war communist sympathisers

Despite losing his freedom, seeing his friends die and even losing his girlfriend, Parker retained his dignity throughout his captivity.

“The main thing that kept me going was thinking about my family and friends back home – our country and our lifestyle.

“I especially didn’t want to hurt my mother any more, I just had to get home.

“There was also the odd occasion I thought of my former platoon commander – I’d hear his voice crying ‘bat-on’ and that’s what I would do.”

Homeward bound

Bob Parker was originally listed as Missing In Action following the Battle of Kapyong.

Nearly seven months passed before his mother received a telegram that said her son was believed to be a PoW.

Finally, in August 1953, Bob Parker was released and returned to Australia.

Parker and his three Australian colleagues were each awarded a Mentioned In Dispatches for their uncompromising conduct during their captivity, but perhaps the highest accolade for their conduct was given by the OC of the British Repatriated Prisoner of War Interrogation Unit, who said:

“As long as men such as these are to be found, the British Commonwealth has nothing to fear from any foe.

“Their indomitable courage in the face of terrible hardships, and their steadfast refusal to give in to their captors, even when threatened with death, is an inspiring example of loyalty and devotion to duty.”

In retrospect

Bob Parker is now retired and enjoys a busy and happy life with his wife, children and grandchildren.

“I don’t think too much about my captors these days,” he says.

“I don’t mind the older ones, the majority of whom were forced into the army, but the real commissar and communist types, including the North Koreans, I don’t care for at all, especially the ones that gave us the beatings.

“I find now, after a heart bypass operation in 1998, that when I go walking in the morning it’s the opposite of when I was a prisoner – I remember what we did up there.

“It keeps me going down here.”

Slim Madden was posthumously awarded the George Cross for his defiance of his captors, which he maintained regardless of the beatings and mistreatment he received. His citation described his outstanding heroism as “an inspiration to all his fellow prisoners”.