Unusual find brings back memories

GUN CONTROL: Oriel Thomas hands the pistol to CMDR Bob Plath. Photo: Graham Davis

By Graham Davis

Oriel Thomas of Tarragindi in Brisbane knew “something” was lying on the top shelf of her bedroom wardrobe, but had forgotten what it was.
When painters began working in her home recently she asked one of them to scale his ladder and check out the top shelf.
“There is something up here,” he called down to Mrs Thomas.

It was a gun – a Japanese military officer’s pistol, still in its holster along with its lanyard.

Memories of yesteryear came flooding back to Mrs Thomas.

Her late husband Ken had collected it while serving as an able seaman in the RAN corvette HMAS Lismore.
“He brought it home from the war and before he met and married me, he kept it at his parent’s home,” Mrs Thomas told Navy News.
“When we married in 1950 and moved into our own home, he brought it with him.

“It had been in the cupboard for years. I knew there was something up there but had forgotten what,” she explained.
(Ken died in January 2004. He had served three and a half years in Lismore.)

Mrs Thomas was concerned about what to do with the weapon.
She rang the Corvette’s Association for advice and to find out whether it was suitable for a museum.

The inquiry ended up in the hands of CMDR Shane Moore, the director of the RAN’s new Heritage Centre at Garden Island in Sydney.

Mrs Thomas formally handed the pistol to CMDR Plath during a recent morning tea at Naval Headquarters South Queensland.

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