Rockhampton woman deciphers diaries kept by father in Changi WWII prisoner of war camp
Growing up, Denise Carr didn't know much about her father's experience in a prisoner of war camp during World War II.
Her father, Walter Cave, was kept at the Changi prison in Singapore for four years until the end of the war in 1945.
She said he rarely talked about the atrocities he suffered over those years, and he died when she was a teenager.
Now in her sixties, Ms Carr is getting a rare insight into what he endured, through his old diaries.
"A lot of them had been hidden, dug into the into the ground because if the Japanese would have found them … he probably would have lost his head," she said.
"They're very hard to read. They are so fragile. The bulk of them is just scraps of paper.
Ms Carr's father's diaries document his time at the Changi prisoner of war camp. (ABC Capricornia: Rachel McGhee)
She said her dad had nice handwriting, but it was very small.
"I've now bought this huge magnifying mirror hoping I can start to decipher them," she said.
'We were never allowed to touch them'
Ms Carr said it was emotional looking through the diaries because her parents kept them hidden away.
"We were never allowed to touch them. They sat in in mum's cupboard," she said.
"They were very personal … because dad didn't speak about them.
"It's only really now that I'm older and … I think 'wow, that's some sort of history that that we've got of our dad'."
Denise Carr and her sister are sifting through their father's diaries from the war. (ABC Capricornia: Rachel McGhee)
Ms Carr said one of the first passages she read was an entry about the end of the war.
"What I've tried to read so far … they said that the camp went very, very quiet for a few days, then the Japanese soldiers decided to give them a holiday one day, they didn't have to go to work," she said.
"Then it was the next day that the American bombers flew over and dropped the pamphlets and that's how they knew that the war was over.
"So then they just had to wait to be rescued, for the Red Cross to come in."
Ms Carr said sifting through the diaries and transcribing them was a huge project, but she hoped to see them used as historical resources in schools or universities.
Denise Carr's father kept a meticulous diary while he was held in a prisoner of war camp. (ABC Capricornia: Rachel McGhee)
'Too hard and too sad' to talk about
The only time Ms Carr's father talked about what happened in the war was on Anzac Day when he would gather with fellow veterans.
"It was just too hard and too sad," Ms Carr said.
"They lost their mates, their mates they've carried through everything, and then to get to that point and they didn't survive or come home.
"When you saw them on Anzac Day all together they were different men. They remembered things and they would sit down around a table and have a beer and cry."
Denise Carr's father's items from the war were kept hidden away until he died. (ABC Capricornia: Rachel McGhee)
Ms Carr recalled going to dawn services in Rockhampton every Anzac Day with her dad.
"I didn't go to look at what was going on," she said.
"I went to look at the men crying because there was so many of them."
War widows group founder
Ms Carr's father died when she was a teenager, leaving her with her 21-year-old sister and mother who then started the Rockhampton War Widows branch.
"Dad was only 62 when we lost him, he was only a young man. My mum was only 42. She then had to start a new life."
Ms Carr said her mother, Edna Cave, made it her life's work to support women who had lost their husbands to war.
"There was nothing here and mum was only a very young widow and she decided that something needed to be done to help the widows because there was quite a lot back then," she said.
Ms Carr says she is proud of her parents and family history. (ABC Capricornia: Rachel McGhee)
"She was the president for 27 years … and she retired in 2002."
Ms Cave was recognised for her significant contribution to the health and wellbeing of war widows in the Rockhampton region in 2003 when she was given the Veterans' Affairs Health Promotion Award.