Wallace McMillan, 2/10th Field Regiment
By Marg Powell, Specialist Library Technician, Metadata | 31 March 2026
At left: studio portrait of Bombardier Wallace McMillan, QX14588 who served with the 2/10th Field Regiment during the Second World War. 35210, Wallace Macmillan Collection, State Library of Queensland
At right: letter of condolence from the Australian Army, Queensland Echelon & Records, Brisbane, to Ellen Kate McMillan. Page 22 of Wallace McMillan's service record. National Archives of Australia. Series B883, Item ID 485195
The Death Railway
When Wallace McMillan left to serve overseas during the Second World War, he left behind not only his immediate family and friends, he left behind a life unfulfilled.
Almost 50 years later a woman born in 1938 wrote to the military authorities asking for information and a photograph of the man she believed was her and her twin brother's father - Wallace McMillan.
Wallace 'Wally' McMillan (1919-1943) of Nundah, Brisbane was one of four brothers to enlist for military service during the Second World War, and one of the two who died on the infamous Burma - Thailand Railway as prisoners of war.
Just 21 years old, Wallace trained at Redbank Camp with the 2/10th Field Regiment and left Australia bound for Singapore in early 1941. The Regiment spent much of the year on manoeuvres in Malaya until the threat of Japanese Imperial Forces invasion became more than rumours, and they were deployed in operations to defend the Malay Peninsula. That is until the surrender of the Commonwealth Forces in Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942.
The march from Ban Pong, 1943, by Murray Griffin, 1944. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.
Wallace spent most that year as a prisoner of the Japanese in the Changi POW camp, then was allotted to a working party designated 'F Force', and left Singapore 18 April 1943. This party consisted of 3,662 Australians and some 3,400 British prisoners of war.
The men travelled on 13 separate trains to Ban Pong from 16 to 26 April 1943, arriving several days later, only to find that they were required to march a further 300 km north to reach their working camps. The march took over 5 days, overnight, during which many men fell ill with dysentery, malaria, and injured feet.
They were then dispersed across 6 camps progressing towards the Burma border: Konkoita, Shimo Ni Thea, Shimo Songkurai, Songkurai, Kami Songkurai, and Changaraya - to build the railway during the monsoon.
"For most men of F Force, the months from May to October in 1943 were the worst of their entire wartime experience. Spread across several Japanese prison camps near the Burmese border in Thailand, the group, worked under brutal conditions to finish the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway.
An early monsoon had settled in, and without adequate food or medical supplies, a cholera epidemic was taking a heavy toll on the men. A staggering 44 per cent of the men would not survive the ordeal." ... Jonathan Dallimore
Wallace McMillan was among these casualties and his death is recorded as 31 December 1943. Initially buried at the Kan Buri Hospital Camp cemetery, he was reinterred at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery in January 1946. The inscription on his headstone reads: UNTIL WE MEET BEYOND THE SUNSET
Hector Roy [aka Ray] McMillan (1912-1943) QX22969 enlisted in August 1941 and served with the 2/3rd Australian Ordnance Stores Company. Hector's stay in Changi POW camp was much shorter than his brother's. Allotted to 'A Force' he left Changi 14 April 1942. He was reported as having died of dysentery in a POW camp 26 June 1943. Initially buried at Apalon/Apalaine/Takalin (Tha Kilen) 80km camp on the Burma-Thailand railway, he was reinterred at Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery. The inscription on his headstone reads: WE THINK OF YOU IN SILENCE
Over 22,000 Australians were taken prisoner by the Japanese, and more than one-third died in captivity, with over 2,800 dying specifically on the 'Death Railway'.
View the collection ...
35210, Wallace Macmillan Collection, State Library of Queensland
Read more ...
- Mates and memories : recollections of the 2/10th Field Regiment R.A.A. / compiled by Robert Goodwin
- Medicos and memories : further recollection of the 2/10th Field Regiment R.A.A. / Bob Goodwin and Jim Dixon
- Prisoners of war : Australians under Nippon, by Hank Nelson, c1985
'F Force on the Burma-Thailand Railway', by Jonathan Dallimore, first published in 'Wartime' no. 103 Winter 2023: 1943 A Crucial Year.
Blog: 'Han Samethini Remembered'. 9. The Death Railway (January - December 1943)
Blog: The endurance of 7,000 POWs in Thailand, by Carol Cooper
Sources ...
Unit Officer's War Diaries - AWM54 554/7/4 - [8th Division in Captivity - "F" Force (Thailand)] Report on the activities of the AIF 'F' Force which left Changi for Thailand in April 1943 …]
Service record: Wallace McMillan, National Archives of Australia
Service record: Hector McMillan, National Archives of Australia
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