How tall was weary dunlop

Dunlop was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel substantive, and placed in command. Staff and patients entered captivity when the Allied forces capitulated to the Japanese on 12 March. As the commander of Commonwealth troops, Dunlop fostered education, sports, and entertainments under difficult conditions.

In January the Japanese dispatched a column of some nine hundred men under his command, via Singapore, to south-west Thailand. The men of Dunlop Force were put to work constructing the Burma-Thailand railway.

Despite suffering intermittently from amoebic dysentery, beriberi, tropical ulcers, and malaria, Dunlop used his generalist surgical knowledge to save countless lives. He received supplies of food, money, and medicines from the heroic Thai merchant and resistance worker Boon Pong Boonpong Sirivejjabhandu , though these were never enough to alleviate the hardships and brutality that led to the deaths of many prisoners.

On a number of occasions, the Japanese subjected Dunlop to severe beatings and threatened him with execution. His physical control under extreme provocation from his captors earned him respect from his troops and helped to keep the survivors going through the difficult months of increasing pressure to complete their section of the railway.

He spent the last fourteen months of the war at the large Nakom Patom Nakhon Pathom hospital camp under Sir Albert Coates, who appointed him as the medical economics officer responsible for raising money for the sick. Coates also put him in charge of surgery and physiotherapy. Repatriated in October , Dunlop transferred to the Reserve of Officers as an honorary colonel on 2 February He was appointed OBE and mentioned in despatches both for his service.

Resuming civilian life, Dunlop entered private practice and was appointed honorary surgeon to out-patients, later in-patients, at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Many of his patients were prisoners of war POWs or their wives; none were charged for their treatment. Demonstrating his ongoing commitment to their welfare, he served as president —89 of the Victorian branch of the Ex-Prisoners of War Relatives Association for the next twenty-three years.

In August he opened an exhibition of watercolours and pencil sketches by the former POW Ray Parkin, who had created the artworks in captivity; Dunlop had concealed them beneath a table top, and brought them to Australia. He quickly gained a reputation for taking on difficult surgeries and for performing long, complex procedures.

While his status as a surgeon was unquestioned, some of his surgical colleagues chafed at his tendency to run over time in theatre, charging him with being unprofessional. The theatre was a small area of about twelve square feet within a bamboo and attap hut lined with old green mosquito netting.

Dunlop is facing, and Markowitz with back to the viewer. Earlier leg amputations had taken place on bed-space bamboo racking at the end of one of the surgical huts. In the nine months between April and January , the Canadian surgeon Markowitz performed more than leg amputations at Chungkai. On 19 January , two days after the arrival of Dunlop at Chungkai, Markowitz was removed by the Japanese to another camp.

While the two doctors did not actually operate together at Chungkai, Chalker has depicted them doing so as a tribute to the great and tireless efforts both men made in their attempt to save as many of their comrades as possible Recommendation for OBE that became a Mentioned in Despatch MID Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop was a surgeon in the Australian Army during World War Two. He served in the Middle East and he is legendary for his care of soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese.

His nickname might have been 'Weary' but his nature certainly wasn't. Even in the most horrific conditions Weary found energy to fight for the well being and often, the lives of these men. Weary grew up on farms in country Victoria. He loved adventures and he liked to prove he was tougher than the rest. When he left school Weary took a job in a pharmacy. But he grew bored with small town life and headed for Melbourne in Here Weary took a new career path, and began studying medicine at Melbourne University.

He also played with Australia's national rugby team, The Wallabies, and was a champion boxer. Soon after graduating Weary took a job as a ship's surgeon and sailed to London. The next year World War Two broke out.

Weary knew his skills were needed closer to the action. He excelled at university and graduated in with first class honours. He excelled too on the sports field, especially in rugby union at which he represented Australia in He joined the Royal Melbourne Hospital as a junior resident in and was appointed Senior Surgical Resident in ; in he joined the Children's Hospital as Resident.

In he graduated as Master of Surgery from Melbourne University. Dunlop had been a school cadet, and he continued his part-time army service until , when his service ceased under pressure from his pharmacy studies. He re-enlisted in and was commissioned into the Australian Army Medical Corps on 1 July with the rank of Captain. The distinguished medical mentors Dunlop met in London for example Professor Grey-Turner and Sir Thomas Dunhill impressed him with their total dedication to their profession, and he resolved to emulate their example.

While in Britain Dunlop also developed a wide network of socially elevated and influential people. He remained with this unit as senior surgeon and second in charge and subsequently served with them in Tobruk. Here he was promoted to temporary Lt Colonel on 26 February He was in command of No. Australian prisoners of war on Java under Dunlop's command were transferred later that year to Singapore.

Here Dunlop clashed with Lt Colonel Galleghan commander of the 8th Australian Division troops in Changi over Dunlop's authority as a non-combatant commander. He remained there until the war ended, labouring tirelessly to save wounded, sick and malnourished men. Many times he put his own life at risk as he stood up to the brutality of his Japanese captors.

Though not the only medical officer to act in this selfless way, his name was to become a legend among Australian prisoners of war and an inspiration for their own survival. Throughout his captivity and at great personal risk Dunlop recorded his experiences in his diaries.

On 27 September Dunlop was appointed Lt Colonel. Returning to Australia in October he was demobilised on 1 February , transferring to the Reserve List of Officers with the rank of Honorary Colonel.