NEWBRIDGE man Jack Wardman is at rest with his parents after a poignant family ceremony.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Wardman - brother of former Bathurst mayor Les Wardman - died age 27 in the Sandakan Death Marches in Borneo in World War Two.
At a service held recently at Holy Trinity at Kelso, a tag inscribed with Mr Wardman's name was placed at his parents Alf and Daisy's grave.
The service was attended by six of Mr Wardman's nephews and nieces from four of his siblings, as well as Les Wardman's widow Betty.
IN OTHER NEWS AROUND BATHURST:
The tag had made the journey, with Mr Wardman's nephew Mike Freeman and his wife, from Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia - where, according to local legend, the spirits of the dead ascend.
Family member Narelle Wardman said Mr Wardman would have been 103 on the day of the ceremony at his parents' grave.
"We brought his spirit home," she said.
She said the family did not actually know what had happened to him - just that he was killed in a POW camp.
"None knew about the absolute horrors that happened at Sandakan because the government had kept it a secret," she said.
Historian Lynette Silver told the 60 Minutes program in 2005 that the details of what happened at Sandakan "were so bad that the Australian Government decided deliberately not to tell the next-of-kin".
