Bendigo gunner to be honoured decades on

A Bendigo soldier will be recognised for bravery almost 70 years after his death. LAUREN HENRY reports... ON March 2, 1943, a Bendigo soldier was killed in Burma after he was captured trying to walk to India.Gunner Keith Johnson Dickinson, 39, had enlisted to serve in World War II in 1941, leaving behind his wife Kate and son Douglas.Gunner Dickinson and two other citizen soldiers, Private Alexander Bell and Major Alan Mull, escaped from the Thetkaw railway work camp in February 1943 in an attempt to walk to India.But 80 kilometres into the walk Gunner Dickinson collapsed from exhaustion and the Japanese recaptured him. He was taken back to Thanbyuzayat and shot.One hundred and sixty kilometres away, Major Mull and Private Bell clashed with the Japanese, where Major Mull was killed. Private Bell, wounded, returned to Thanbyuzayat where he was shot six days later. Douglas Dickinson said his father Keith, a mine surveyor, spoke the Malay language, while Mull was a rubber planter and Bell an air force navigator.“They thought if those three couldn’t get out, then no one could because they had the ability and experience,’’ he said.Mr Dickinson said his father had joined the Army after working for the State River and Water Supply, surveying Lake Eildon and Laanecoorie Reservoir.Gunner Dickinson received a watch from his employer, which was sent on to him while he was away at war.“In the last letter we received from him, he said he had got the watch. When he died, we wondered what had happened to dad’s watch,’’ Mr Dickinson said.“Six months after the war the watch was sent to us. If only that watch could talk.’’The watch is now at the War Memorial Museum, Canberra. Before surveying waterways, Gunner Dickinson worked for Bendigo Mines, where he completed an underground survey of mines from Eaglehawk to Quarry Hill.That survey was mapped on glass and now sits, mounted in a cabinet, at Central Deborah Gold Mines. Sixty-eight years after Gunner Dickinson died as a prisoner of war, the Defence Department will posthumously award 20 servicemen who were killed escaping the Japanese with a Commendation of Gallantry.After years of work by war historian John Bradford, the independent Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal has recommended the federal government recognise the bravery and courage shown by the men.As next of kin, Mr Dickinson said he was very looking forward to receiving the award on behalf of his father, who died when he was just 12.“It’s wonderful that he is recognised,’’ he said.