I
was privileged to visit the Shrine of Remembrance on 20 October 2016 to
consult the James Catanach Collection as part of my PhD research on the
responses to captivity of the Australian airmen of Stalag Luft III and their next
of kin. The below is a reflection on one particular item in the collection. It does
not include specific details of Jimmy Catanach’s background, military service,
life in Stalag Luft III, participation in the Great Escape or death. Some of
those details appear briefly in http://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/70th-anniversary-of-great-escape.html
Jimmy Catanach. Lifted from http://alchetron.com/James-Catanach-777142-W
It seems that in this
modern world, penning a condolence note to someone who has experienced a
bereavement is something we cannot do from our own heart. We have to turn to
websites such as http://www.quickcondolence.com/200-condolence-examples
to provide a sample of ‘heartfelt’ messages. There was no need for any
‘pick-your-condolence’ aids back in the first half of the twentieth century.
With the number of Great War deaths and seemingly never ending casualty lists
in the Second World War, men and women were much practised in writing sensitive
and comforting words to their grief stricken friends and acquaintances.
William Catanach was no
stranger to grief. His son Peter had died in 1923. But, once he had accepted
that Jimmy had been taken prisoner by the Germans in September 1942, he would
have felt relief and comfort that his son was out of action. Certainly, it
seems as if Jimmy’s brother Bill felt this way. One clipping in the scrapbook
recorded how Bill showed the journalist a copy of Air Board’s letter advising
that Jimmy had been confirmed as a prisoner of war. Apparently declaring that
the letter was ‘the finest he had ever received’, the reporter passed on Bill’s
hopes that other parents might ‘have their days of anxiety cut short with
similar messages’. Looking back over the past months, one of William’s friends indicated
that such knowledge was a comfort: ‘at least he was safe and you could only
pray for the quick ending of this awful war, knowing that as soon as it was
over Jimmy would come back to you and to all those he loved and loved him’.
But Jimmy did not return
and Scrapbook Two in the Shrine of Remembrance’s James Catanach Collection contains
a number of documents expressing condolence. These include ones from Jimmy’s
former headmaster and his wife (who always wrote to Jimmy on his birthday), Margaret
Culley of Narrandera one of Jimmy’s friends (‘almost a stranger’ to William who
Jimmy perhaps met while he was training at No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School,
Narrandera, NSW) and Flying Officer Don Rutter, who asked that William accept
his ‘sincere sympathy for your very very sad news about Jimmy. I think of you
and friends of Jim’s every day’.
Don Rutter. Taken from NAA service file A9300, Rutter D H
(Donald Hemphill Rutter,
one of Jimmy’s fellow Geelong Grammarians, wrote to William while convalescing
from serious injury in a motor accident. Well known to the Catanach family, he
asked Mr Catanach to ‘please give my love to Mrs Catanach’ and ‘all of the very
best to you’. After a number of months, he was declared fit to return to
operational service and rejoined 247 Squadron RAF. He was killed in operations
over Germany on 5 April 1945.)
Scrapbook Two reveals
that William Catanach’s first condolence was from the Minister for Air and Air
Board on 17 May 1944. I doubt, however, if the expression of ‘profound sympathy’
sank in because it followed the terrible news that Jimmy had ‘lost his life …
while attempting to escape from confinement as a prisoner of war’.
The telegram—sent to William’s
home—is neatly pasted into one of two scrapbooks held in the James Catanach
Collection. Although the Collection does not record the name of the compiler
(it is noted as ‘creator unknown’) I speculated elsewhere that this
album—Scrapbook Two—was created by William Catanach because the condolence
messages mounted in it are addressed to him alone (though his wife is mentioned
in passing in one of them). http://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/the-james-catanach-collection-musings.html
Rather than look at all
of these messages of sympathy, I will focus on only a small handful.
The first, addressed to
William’s workplace—Catanach Jeweller’s in the Royal Arcade—is a telegram from
Malcolm McEachern, who winged it off almost as soon as he heard the tragic news
of Jimmy’s death: ‘Deeply shocked terrible catastrophe extend sincere sympathy
will await your instructions’. This was no hollow, social,
‘let-me-know-if-I-can-do-anything-for-you’. McEachern had known Jimmy well and had
been acting in loco parentis as
Jimmy’s British next of kin for parcels and immediate contact for some time.
Malcolm McEachern.
Lifted from https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lYSTP3il7Co/maxresdefault.jpg
Albury-born McEachern had enjoyed a
successful musical career in both Australia and the United Kingdom as a bass
singer and concert soloist. (For a sample of his vocal talent, check out Devonshire Cream and Cider,
recorded in 1934 on you tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zToWL1m8yO0) He
was also well known as Jetsam, from the popular musical comedy duo, Flotsam and
Jetsam. Jimmy first met McEachern and his wife, Hazel, when he visited their
home with his friend Maurice Martel, with whom he had trained in Australia.
Various hospitality schemes had been established to ensure allied servicemen
without the benefit of UK-based family and friends could enjoy home comforts
during leave. In this case, however, Jimmy’s connection with the McEacherns
began not under the auspices of one of those schemes but because they had known
Maurice for many years. After Maurice lost his life in March 1942, Jimmy
continued to visit. ‘We loved Jimmie’, Hazel later wrote to William. We
‘thought him one of the grandest boys we had ever met—there were many happy
times when he & his friends came to the house’.
McEachern was photographed standing next
to Jimmy during a recording for the BBC’s ‘Anzac Hour’ on 24 July 1942; a
photographer was present and The
Sun’s 7 October 1942 captioned photo has been pasted into Scrapbook Two.
The Collection indicates that McEachern played an important role in alleviating
some of the rigours of Jimmy’s captivity: shortly after arriving at Dulag Luft
Jimmy told his father: ‘Dad you are my Next of Kin but I will ask Malcolm to
send the little allowed clothing etc. as it is easier for him. You had best
work through him if you will’. (A copy of this letter is held in the James
Catanach Collection.)
Jimmy is left of the microphone and Malcolm is to the right. Lifted from the Australian War Memorial picture collection: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/SUK10345/
Acknowledging the
distance between Australia and England, many prisoners of war appointed family
or friends to be their designated British next of kin for clothing parcels.
These caring supporters in no way supplanted Australian family. They simply
facilitated the flow of essential comforts to the prisoner, even as they
provided another important source of outside contact and stimulation to help
ameliorate stultifying confinement. In all, the McEacherns sent three comfort
parcels to Jimmy via official Red Cross channels.
Thoughtful recipients of UK
next-of-kin assistance appreciated the strictures of rationing and the cost of assembling
a well-stocked parcel. Jimmy was not the only one who entreated his family to
send chocolate and other items so McEachern ‘can send it on as allowed’.
Assuming they had the coupons, the McEacherns could well afford any treats that
would make Jimmy’s life in captivity easier but in asking his family to send
items to the McEacherns, Jimmy was offering a courtesy that no doubt the
McEacherns would appreciate. It also reinforced that his own family had not
been asked to surrender their role of his chief supports.
McEachern not only took
his next-of-kin role seriously, he embraced it further. The next item in this
section of Scrapbook Two is not another condolence but a note from McEachern
who represented William at the 20 June 1944 memorial
service for the fifty shot airmen at St-Martin-in-the-Fields. ‘It was all
beautifully done and I felt honoured to be your representative’. McEachern’s
shock at the circumstances of Jimmy’s tragic death had not abated: ‘Everyone is
distressed at this dreadful act’.
As indicated by an
airgraph letter from Hazel McEachern which has also been pasted into the album,
the McEacherns also fulfilled another next-of-kin role. (Postmarked 21 May, the
position of this in the scrapbook indicates that it was received after
McEachern’s 21 June note.) ‘With sad hearts’, wrote Hazel, ‘we are today gathering
together Jimmie’s valuables & sending them to you by registered mail’. Those
items included a wrist watch and travel clock, which are both held by the
Shrine. The former, inscribed to ‘J Catanach 400364 with love from Dad’ was a
19th birthday present (dated 28 November 1940 while Jimmy was at 8 EFTS,
Narrandera). It seems Jimmy considered it too precious to take when 455
Squadron transferred to Russia. Or perhaps, knowing that the Russian
destination was just beyond their maximum fuel range, it was one of the
nonessential items that had to be left behind to minimise weight on an already
overloaded aircraft. The clock, engraved to ‘JIM from Dad, 28.11.42 “Cheerio”’,
was clearly a 21st birthday present but it is highly likely that, by the time
it arrived in England, Jimmy had been in captivity for some weeks, so probably
never saw it.
Jimmy’s 19th birthday watch on display in the Shrine’s James Catanach exhibit, along with his Distinguished Flying Cross and epaulette rank slide. Photos courtesy of Drew Gordon.
(A brief aside. Jimmy was
not without a watch in Stalag Luft III. Before the Great Escape, he wore a
Catanach’s branded Cyma Watersport. Like the 19th birthday gift, Jimmy’s name
is engraved on the reverse, but this watch bears no date. None of those
embarking on the Great Escape could afford to carry items that would contradict
their forged identities and so, Jimmy passed his watch to Roy Nielsen, a
Norwegian Spitfire pilot, for safe keeping. Seventy years later, Nielsen’s
family visited the Stalag Luft III museum, indicating that they wanted to
return to watch to Jimmy’s family. They soon made contact with the Catanachs
via the jewellery shop and the watch finally made its way back to Australia. It
now takes its place in the Shrine’s James Catanach Collection. Both it and the
19th birthday watch are on display.)
The watch Jimmy left behind in Stalag Luft III which was later returned to Australia. Photos taken when Roy Nielsen’s family visited the Stalag Luft III museum in 2014. Courtesy of Marek Lazarz.
Bundling up effects to
send to Jimmy’s parents was a melancholy task for Hazel McEachern but it was a
responsibility she and her husband undertook willingly. As well as offering
comfort to the Catanachs knowing that Jimmy’s effects were taken care of, it
helped assuage the grief the McEacherns felt for the loss of Jimmy. ‘We deeply
mourn the loss of these brave lads to whom we owe so much’. (Hazel’s mourning
would continue. Malcolm would soon be diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus
and die on 17 January 1945 after an operation. Their only son, Lieutenant
Robert Malcolm McEachern of the Royal Armoured Corps, would die in Germany two
months later.)
Jimmy’s insistence that
he maintain regular contact with Malcolm McEachern raises some interesting
speculation. I have written elsewhere how fellow Great Escaper Albert Hake
dropped some very large hints to his wife Noela that his circumstances were
about to change. http://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/43-years-albert-hake-australian-in.html
It seems Albert was not the only one.
Fellow Australian Great Escaper, Albert Hake. Photo courtesy of the Preen Family
Albert’s escape partner, New Zealander
Johnny Pohe wrote a letter to his family in February 1944 asking that his
uniform be cleaned. He followed up with another asking for progress because he
‘might be using it soon’. The James Catanach Collection does not contain
Jimmy’s last letter home but in his last letter to McEachern he reported that
he was looking forward to leaving Germany and hinted that it might be in the
very near future: ‘Get my suit pressed’. It seems that these were just a
handful of the letters full of broad hints making their way through the German
postal system because, on 23 May 1944, the Adelaide Advertiser reported that ‘Nazis warned by letters. Prisoners’ hints
of escape’. Apparently there were so many of them that, according to the Advertiser’s Special Representative in
London, ‘it is believed that the Gestapo redoubled its watchfulness on airmen
prisoners at Stalagluft Camp 3’ as a consequence. While not drawing a link
between letters out and Gestapo watchfulness, Melbourne’s The Argus reported similar extracts from letters, including
Jimmy’s. While the Advertiser article
is not in Scrapbook Two, The Argus
one is, and I wonder if William Catanach—and indeed the McEacherns—ever
contemplated the possibility that Jimmy may have unwittingly contributed to his
own death.
While not family members,
the McEacherns acted as pseudo family members—as honorary family—and, as such,
can be considered as part of William’s ‘fictive kin’ network of support.
Another member of that network was Ralph Anderson, brother of George Robert
‘Bob’ Anderson, Jimmy’s navigator who been captured at the same time.
Bob and Jimmy had more
than just a good working relationship. They ‘had an affection for each other
formed mostly under extremely dangerous conditions’. Ralph and his family ‘in
turn looked upon that friendship with a very sincere regard’. It also presented
them with an obligation—or happy duty—to reach out to the Catanachs in
friendship and support at an early stage.
The Collection reveals
Ralph sent the Catanachs a copy of an extract from Bob’s first letter to Ralph,
written on 29 December 1941, shortly after he commenced operations, so Jim’s
family could get a sense of what life was like on an operational squadron (and
perhaps what life was like with Jimmy as a captain of their bomber aircraft).
In his first letter home from Stalag Luft III, Jimmy recorded that he was
‘quite comfortable. We are 8 in a room and do our own cooking and are very thankful
for comforts of the Red Cross as added luxury. Tony Gordon [a fellow trainee in
Australia who had been posted to 455 Squadron before Jimmy and had been
captured on 7 November 1941] is here and very well, Bob Anderson too’.
Room mates, Tony Gordon (left) and Jimmy Catanach (right) shortly after Jimmy arrived in Stalag Luft III. Tony had arrived a few weeks earlier.
Photo courtesy of Drew Gordon.
No doubt
it would have been a comfort to the Catanachs that, even if Jimmy was a
prisoner of war, at least he had his friends with him. Perhaps the Andersons
felt the same way and all looked forward to the day when their ‘boys’ would be
released.
Members of No. 455 Squadron RAAF, April 1942. Bob Anderson is second from left, and Jimmy is third from right. Lifted from the Australian War Memorial’s picture collection: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/SUK10124/
Anderson’s letter,
written the day after William Catanach received the appalling news, noted that
‘the shock of Jimmie’s death in Germany has filled my family and me with the
utmost sympathy for you and yours. Words are useless at present but I do want
you to know how deeply we too feel his loss’. Anderson may not have had the
gift of glibness, but his ‘utmost sympathy’ was accepted and preserved in the
scrapbook and the extract from Bob’s earlier letter was also saved and is held
in the Collection.
Thomas White, Great War
pilot and former politician, also penned a condolence letter. At the outbreak
of the Second World War, he joined the Citizen Air Force and, taking leave from
parliament in April 1940, accepted an appointment as commanding officer of the
newly established No. 1 Initial
Training School at Somers, Victoria. Jimmy commenced there on 18 August
1940. Their acquaintance was renewed when they met during White’s visit to 455
Squadron during his tenure as commanding officer, RAF Station, Brighton. White
once flew as ‘a spare observer’ in Jimmy’s Hampden and Jimmy wowed him with his
flying skill. (Details of this is included in White’s ‘An RAAF Bomber Squadron
in Britain’, a copy of which has been preserved in Scrapbook One. There is
another loose copy within the Collection.)
Wing Commander Thomas White, March 1942. Lifted from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_White_(Australian_politician)
White told William
Catanach that ‘at Somers and in England I was glad to be associated with, and
developed an affection for him’. So close had he become that he felt ‘almost as
if I had lost a son myself, as I had such an admiration for his qualities and
eager courage’. William may not have realised it beforehand, but Jimmy had so
impressed White as an ‘outstanding type’ that he included the young pilot in
his 1943 Sky Saga, a monumental poem
which pays tribute to the Empire airmen.
Sky Saga. Author’s copy
(An aside along the lines
of ‘you learn something new every day’. I had long recognised Sky Saga’s Blue Prescott as Bluey
Truscott, Darrel Smith as Ray Thorold-Smith, the Irish Boy as Paddy Finucane,
and LC Witham as Battle of Britain pilot, Latham Carr Withall, but until
reading White’s letter, I had no idea that Jimmy Catanach had also found a
place Sky Saga.)
Jimmy
and his crew returned. Shelled soundly
On their circuit of the Ruhr. Dazed by searchlights;
Tracked by fighters. And once in depthless solitude
Among the silent peaks and valleys of the clouds,
Icing glazed their rushing wings. […]
Above the silent sea they found the ‘fix’ to bring
Them home… ‘Another jaunt to Happy Valley!’
Said Jimmy, ‘We kept our date though. That’s the thing!’
‘It is too unutterably
sad to think that after all Jimmy had done and had endured, that he was not
spared to see you again.’ White, who thought it ‘too cruel that he was not
fated to return, to play an equally good part in peace as he has done in war’,
understood only too well the drive to escape, the need to take any risk to be
free from captivity. He too had been a prisoner of war, but he had successfully
escaped from his Turkish prison camp in the last months of the Great War.
White was unforgiving of
the Germans, and perhaps this reflected a similar sentiment in William Catanach
which was later honoured by his wife. ‘I hope no pity will be extended to the
merciless Huns responsible, who seemed to have forgotten that it is the
obligation of an officer to endeavour to rejoin his comrades…’. On 14 October
1947, exactly six months after William’s death, Sybil received a letter from
Elly Koester, the sister of Hans Kaehler, who was one of those accused in the
war crimes trials of shooting Jimmy. Elly pleaded for Sybil to intervene on her
brother’s behalf. ‘Dear Mrs Catanach—I now beg you is it your wish that my
brother—who is honestly innocent—now must die?’ Still grieving over the loss of
her husband and stepson (she continued to insert memorial notices ‘in loving
memory of Jim’ in The Argus’s In
Memoriam lists for some years) it seems Sybil was silent. It appears that ‘no
pity [was] extended to the merciless Huns responsible’ and Kaehler was executed
along with his surviving fellows (one committed suicide) in February 1948. (Elly’s
poignant letter is on display in the Shrine’s James Catanach Exhibit.)
Photograph of James Catanach Exhibit, Shrine of Remembrance (POW section) by Vlad Bunevich, the Shrine of Remembrance, 26 October 2016. Reproduced courtesy of the Shrine of Remembrance.
Elly Koester’s letter is bottom centre.
White understood the
tragedy of Jimmy’s death and appreciated the importance of imparting meaning to
it. ‘Though such a heavy blow to bear, your grief will perhaps, in some ways be
softened by the proud knowledge of what Jimmy had already achieved while so
young, and to know that his name and memory will long endure as among the
noblest of those who gave their all.’ (How little did White realise that
Jimmy’s name would still be recognised and that his contribution would be
honoured by the Shrine.)
White was the father of
four daughters. While he may not have experienced the father/son bond, he
reached out to William Catanach as a parental equal: in Jimmy, he wrote, ‘I
feel almost as if I had lost a son myself’.
White’s emotional letter
was preserved in the scrapbook, as was that of a father who laid bare his own
grief even as he attempted to condole with William. ‘My dear friend’, wrote
Charles Martel on 18 May 1944. ‘I was very sad indeed to read in this morning’s
paper that your dear Jimmie had died in Germany.’ Martel, a French wool buyer
of Prouvost, Lebevre and Co and long term resident of Australia, understood bereavement.
Like William, he had lost a wife—his Australian born wife had died in early
January 1938—and he too had lost a son.
Maurice Joseph Martel and
Jimmy had been friends. They had trained together at Somers under Thomas
White’s command, and the Collection holds a photograph Jimmy and his fellow
recruits of Hut 61 at Somers, including Maurice and Tony Gordon, one of his
roommates at Stalag Luft III. Jimmy, Maurice and Tony went on to complete their
elementary training at Narrandera, all participating in the ‘inspiring
spectacle’ of 8 EFTS’s first graduation parade. Maurice was the course’s high
flyer (pun intended). He received the highest aggregate at the examination and
claimed the book prize. Tony was 6th in the order of examination passes and
Jimmy was 11th. Maurice had shown such promise before his Hudson failed to
return to base on 17 March 1942, during a patrol from RAF Station Wick in
Scotland. (A small clipping noting that ‘Melbourne Flyer’ Maurice had been
posted missing in action is pasted onto one of this album’s earlier pages.)
‘A cold shiver ran through my spine, reopened
a wound which has never and never will heal, that of my dear Maurice lying in
his Bomber under the cold waters of the Norwegian coast’. Although confessing
to envying William Jimmy’s safe exit from operations and eventual return, Charles
could sympathise with a father who grieved as he did: ‘I know how you feel and
what your thoughts are’. Charles recognised that William, like he, had been
‘frustrated of what you loved most’.
As someone who had
experienced the same searing grief, Martel could entreat his ‘dear friend’ to
be brave. Like Thomas White, he knew that the only way they could make sense of
senseless deaths was to look at the contribution that preceded those deaths,
and in doing so, place the deaths of their servicemen sons in the age old
tradition of noble sacrifice: ‘His sacrifice has not been in vain. Soon Germany
will be crushed for ever and on the day of victory you will only think that
Jimmie, Maurice and thousands of others have pioneered the way to that
victory.’ And rather than grieve for lost lives, ‘we can only thank them and be
proud of them.’ Martel, however, knew that it would be difficult to move from
sorrow to pride and so he closed his heartfelt condolence by entreating William
to ‘believe me, dear friend.’
Perhaps William finally
came to believe that his son’s death represented a noble sacrifice. Acting in
her dead husband’s stead with the Imperial War Graves Commission, Sybil advised
her choice of inscription for Jimmy’s gravestone in Poznan’s Old Garrison
Cemetery: ‘His duty fearlessly and nobly done. Ever Remembered.’
War Graves Record Card. NAA A8231, 6/CATANAH JAMES World War II
Jimmy Catanach’s grave, Old Garrison Cemetery, Poznan. Courtesy of Geoff Swallow, RAAF Deaths Photographic Archive of Headstones and Memorials WW2
The Catanach family had an extensive network of family, friends, and
business ties, evidenced both by condolence notices in The Argus and the James Catanach Collection’s Scrapbook Two. While I
can’t state it conclusively, it seems that those mounted in the scrapbook
represent only a small sample of the many the family received. Towards the end
of the book, spanning 17 and a half columns over nine pages, is a list of
names. There is no heading to indicate what the names represent and I can’t
recognise all of them (some are just surnames), but judging by the ones I do recognise
or can make out, I believe this is a list of condolences received. Some of the
names that stand out for me are: Peter Isaacson DFC DFM, well known bomber
pilot renowned for his exploits in Q for Queenie, as well as and his parents;
Paddy Padula (Spitfire Paul Angelo ‘Paddy’
Padula of 452 Squadron); Wing Commander Thomas White DFC; John
Lawson (adjutant of 455 Squadron who wrote the next-of-kin letter); Jack and
Alan McAinsh, Jimmy’s mother’s brothers; H Fairchild and J Fairchild, relatives
of Sybil Catanach; Margaret Cully of Narrandera; EM Anderson, Bob Anderson’s
mother; 3AW; and popular singer and radio identity Jack O’Hagan. An Egan appears on the list and I wonder if it
could be Richard Egan who was a fellow inmate of Stalag Luft III? Righetti also appears.
Perhaps it is Alan Righetti, another fellow prisoner who recalled: ‘I did not know Jimmy Catanach when I first
arrived in Luft III, but not long before the Escape, we saw a lot of each
other, and shared many common interests. I was very envious of his ‘good luck’
when his name was drawn from the hat to go out through the tunnel, and my name
was not!! My parents knew his when we lived in Melbourne.’
Clearly, the letters of
sympathy pasted into this album do not represent all that the Catanach family
received. So, where are the condolence notes to Mr and Mrs Catanach jointly (only
Don Rutter asked after Sybil)? Where are the personal ones to Sybil, Jimmy’s
loving and loved stepmother? Even if there was no place for Sybil’s
correspondence in this album, why are her sympathy notes not found elsewhere in
the James Catanach Collection? And above all, why have only these particular condolences
and related items been singled out and preserved in an album that began as a
celebration of aerial success but ended up as a memorial?
Male grief is often
hidden from public view. Men grieve stoically and in silence. I believe that the
compiler—I am sure it was William Catanach—preserved the items which best reflected
and acknowledged his grief, which revealed something of his son, and which
helped him make sense of a tragic and senseless loss. Compiling and maintaining
the album was his way of expressing—making visible—the love he felt for his
son. The letters he kept especially also demonstrate that he wasn’t alone in
his grief. They reinforce his belief, that, at a time when the world was still
at war with the allies in the ascendant, Jimmy’s death had helped bring about the defeat of the enemy.
The scrapbook celebrates
and commemorates Jimmy Catanach’s service, achievement and death and is tangible
evidence of a father’s love and loss. Through it we learn how much Jimmy
affected those around him; we also learn how one person responded to Jimmy’s death.
So much family material
relating to Jimmy has either been lost or is held elsewhere. As such, the James
Catanach Collection cannot tell us everything we want to know about Jimmy’s
life and service and impact on those who loved him. We do need to go elsewhere,
reinforcing that no archive can represent the final word on any subject. Even
so, this Collection is significant and Scrapbook Two has a particular
importance. It endured for decades after 65 year old William Catanach’s death
on 14 April 1947 following an illness of several weeks. It was treasured within
the Catanach family before passing into the Shrine’s custody. While no doubt the
memory of it is still cherished within the family, others can see the impact of
Jimmy’s service, captivity and death. Preserving Charles Martel’s letter—and
every other item in the James Catanach Collection—and placing it in with a
public custodian has ensured that others will know that Jimmy’s death had
meaning.
James Catanach. Author’s collection
I
would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Shrine of Remembrance’s helpful
staff who made my visit such an enjoyable, illuminating and moving experience:
Jenna Blyth, Collections Manager, who facilitated my access to the James
Catanach Collection, Neil Sharkey,
Exhibitions Curator, for additional details about the collection, and Vlad Bunevich for the
photo of the James Catanach exhibit. My thanks too, to Marek Lazarz of the
Stalag Luft III museum in Poland for details about and the photos of Jimmy’s
watch; Geoff Swallow and his RAAF Second World War Deaths photographic archive
of headstones and memorials for the photo of Jimmy’s gravestone; and Drew
Gordon for the close up photos of Jimmy’s watch in the Shrine’s James Catanach
Exhibit and the photo of his father and Jimmy in Stalag Luft III.
I would
like to note that this personal response to items in the collection is my own
and may not reflect that of the Shrine of Remembrance.
Lifted from Brickhill and Norton: Escape to Danger.Before he returned to Australia, Comber produced for the Australian War Memorial’s collection three pen, ink and wash drawings of the memorial’s construction.
Unattributed clipping, courtesy of Preen Family.Group Captain Thomas White, former prisoner of the Ottomans and commanding officer at 1 Initial Training School, Somers where Catanach and Albert Hake had attended believed that the young man’s ‘name and memory will long endure as among the noblest of those who gave their all’.
