David Spiteri - Stoker Munro: Survivor

BurmaSiam (Thailand) Railway

Route of Rakuyo Maru

I first met Stoker Munro over 25 years ago at the Byron Bay bowling club in northern New South Wales, after I had retired from the Royal Australian Navy. Id heard he had also served in the navy but that was about all I knew. After almost twelve years of occasionally chatting over a beer, one day the HMAS Perth was mentioned and Stoker told me he had served on her. The penny never dropped for me as to what that meant coming from someone his age, but I did tell him I had also served on the Perth for four years and had an old Perth sailors cap tally band at home. Would he like it? In his dry voice he just said, Yeah, I lost my last one.

That afternoon a mutual friend, Nick Casey, said to me, You dont know Stokers story, do you?

No, I said. Can you tell me?

I couldnt believe what I heard and immediately thought that I would love to re-tell the retiring mans story. Stoker wasnt interested, plus I was writing another book at the time, so I left it at that. When my book The Prez was published a while later I approached him again. I told him I didnt want to portray him as a hero but that his story deserved to be told, to inspire a younger generation to never give up no matter what barriers may be thrown up against them. I must have worn him down because eventually he started to relate little things; even after 60 years his memory remained vivid, and at times no detail was too small. He always took a back seat to the events he described and was blessed with a natural gift for understatement. He could find the humour in a situation, even in the darkest times.

Recounting his stories, Stoker never wanted to dwell too much on the atrocities he experienced. Ive been sunk three times, once by the Japanese, once by the Yanks and once by the Aussies, he would quip. This easy line hid the sad truth of what Stoker Munro and thousands of other Allied soldiers and sailors endured serving for their country in World War II. Yet Stokers story is also unique. Aboard the Perth when it was torpedoed by the Japanese in 1942, Stoker survived drowning to be shipped to Changi; from Changi he went to work on the ThaiBurma Railway and survived that; from Thailand he was transported to Japan, where again the overcrowded rust-bucket vessel he was on attracted enemy fire this time from American subs. That he lived to tell his tale makes him one of the lucky ones.

Like many men of the time, he kept his war to himself. Sometimes when we were talking he would just stop and sit there I could only imagine what he was thinking, as he never showed any emotion. I have spoken to shipmates he served with after the war, as well as old friends who grew up with him in Byron Bay, and they all said the same thing: that he never discussed the war with them. Maybe he should have but that was his choice.