Australian War Veterans

Daphne Austin pointed me towards another source of information: the service records of Australians who served in World War II are now available on the Internet. There were 35 Blencowes and 26 Blincos listed; there are a couple of duplications — Robert Oliver Blencowe moved to a different unit and Trevor Crawford Blencowe switched from the Royal Australian Air Force to the Army. The records provide dates and places of birth, recruitment and discharge, as well as rank, unit and next-of-kin. The latter is not very explicit, there is no indication if the relation is parent or spouse.

There were only two deaths in service: Maurice George Blencowe died 2 October 1943 whilst serving with the 2/23 Australian Infantry Division and Geoffrey Frederick Blinco was lost on 1 March 1942 with HMAS Perth. Several men were discharged early in the war, presumably as a result of wounds or sickness.

Clyde Robert Blencowe, who was born in Wagga Wagga NSW in 1918, was the only prisoner-of-war; he survived working on the infamous Siam Rail­way. Clyde descends from Benjamin Rob­ert Blencowe (and through him from the 14thC Adam de Blencow) who emigrated to Australia from Buckingham in the 1850s — the same family as the Blen­cowes of Armidale. I believe Clyde is liv­ing in Tumbarumba in S.W. New South Wales, his son Christopher, one of our members, lives not too far away in Cooma.

The Blincos of Toowoomba and Crows Nest in Queensland were well-represented, as were the Blencowes of Leeton NSW. Not surprisingly, a number received their discharge in Papua New Guinea but John Percival Blencowe en­listed in Rabaul and John Clarence How­ard Blencowe was born in Papua. The latter served on HMAS Lonsdale, his wife Valda Ruby was the only lady in the list, she served in the RAAF.

A Malayan connection

There was an unexpected personal surprise: we found the record of my wife Kee’s uncle Yaik-Foo Loke. Who had enlisted in the RAAF in Melbourne in 1942. I printed copies of his service certificate and mailed them to sons, back came quite a story!

A widower, he had sent his three children to spend their school holidays with their grandmother in Kuala Lumpur. When the Japanese invaded he made his way from Penang to Singapore and escaped to Australia via the Dutch East Indies. An amateur flyer in the 1930s, he signed on as a pilot with the RAAF. They flew him to Ceylon in a PBY (’Catalina’) flyingboat — about as a long a flight as was possible in those days — where he volunteered to join Force 136 a unit being formed to be dropped behind the Japanese lines. At the age of 46 he was turned down but took part in the training programmes of air-drops and jungle survival. Force 136 went on to do in Malaya what Errol Flynn allegedly did for Burma and an acquaintance of mine actually accepted the surrender of the general commanding Japanese forces in northern Malaya, but that’s another tale!