PIECE OF HISTORY: Alf Maskell holds the Tavoy Prisoner of War Camp Melbourne Cup.

Cup carries rare tale of joy from time of horror

POW survivor rode to victory with 'Weary'ALF Maskell knows the hell that was World War II – he lived it for almost five years.A gunner with the 4 Anti Tank Regiment, Alf was taken as a prisoner of war while defending Singapore in 1941.It was there he was fighting with left over weaponry from World War I, complete with stickers marking the guns “for display purposes only’’.As a prisoner, Alf was taken to Changi, then Thailand before being shipped to Japan and working on the Burma railway.During those years, he saw the completion of the Burma railway, spent 70 days in the putrid and deadly hull of a trampsteamer en route to Japan and walked through the remains of Nagasaki following the atomic bomb.Fortunately, he chose not to join eight members of his regiment when they tried to escape – but he will never forget their fate: execution.Race day in 1943, however, gave Alf and his fellow POWs a “few hours off’’ from the horror of war.The 90-year-old recalls with a smile the day he rode famous surgeon and POW Edward “Weary” Dunlop in the “Melbourne Cup’’.Alf was “Pike’’ and Weary was “Phar Lap’’.“Of course we won,’’ he says. “Weary never lost an event.’’“I picked a good horse.’’Actually, Alf concedes, Weary picked him. Alf weighed no more than five stone.“We were in a sick camp, everyone had something wrong with them so it was pretty hard to run,’’ he says.“I had just started to walk again.“But it wouldn’t have been hard for Weary – he was a champion athlete.“He won every prisoner of war picnic race.’’

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POW survivor rode to victory with ‘Weary’

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