Service: Army
Service number: VX24510
Locality on Enlistment: Apollo Bay
Duration of Service: 14 Jun 1940 – 3 Jul 1946
Prisoner of War: Yes Thailand POW camp
Honours: None for display
Date and Place of Birth: 24 Jun 1901 Cromdale Scotland
Parents: James LORIMER and Sarah COCKBURN
Spouse: Helen Wilson TOUGH
School/s:
Occupation: Labourer
Date and Place of Death: 2 Aug 1961 Apollo Bay
Place of Burial: Apollo Bay Cemetery
NOTES: The 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion arrived in Port Tewfik, the port of Suez, aboard the Queen Mary, in May 1941 and travelled by train to Palestine. In early 1942 the 2/2nd began the voyage home on the troopship Orcades. However, the Orcades was about to be caught in the Japanese thrust. The ship reached Oosthaven in Sumatra just as the Japanese decided to make a stand on Java. The troops aboard Orcades, as well as a battery of American artillery and a squadron from the 3rd King’s Own Hussars, combined to defend Java. However the majority of the 2/2nd survived the fighting (865 officers and men) and spent the rest of the war as prisoners. Of these, 258 men died, most while working on the Burma-Thailand railway. Others died in Java, Borneo, and at sea when ships they were being transported on were sunk.