Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War II (1939-1945)
- Date of Enlistment
- 17/07/1940
- Place of Enlistment
- Goulburn NSW
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Date of Birth
- 30/03/1914
- Place of Birth
- Southampton, England (Nationality shown as Australian on Commonwealth War Graves Commission database)
- Address (at enlistment)
- Yamba, Canberra ACT
- School(s) Attended
- Telopea Park (1928-29), Canberra Grammar School (1929)
- Occupation
- Farmer
- Next of Kin
- Son of Walter Herbert and Marion Louisa Osbaldeston Eddison of Canberra. Brother of Marion Douglas and Pam Yonge (both nee Eddison).
- Burial Place
Yokohama War Cemetery, Japan: Aust. Sec. A. B. 6.
Unit and Rank Details
- Service Number
- NX60320
- Final Rank
- Private
- Final Unit
- 2/20 Infantry Battalion AIF
Fate
Died 7 June 1943 aged 29 years, of illness while POW, at Naoetsu POW Camp, Yokohama, Japan
Commemoration
AWM Roll of Honour, Canberra ACT: Panel 44.
Eddison Park, Woden ACT, named in honour of Eddison family.
Canberra Grammar School. Roll of honour 1939-45; and memorial window in school chapel.
St John the Baptist Anglican Church, Reid, plaque on south wall of nave
St John the Baptist Anglican Church, Reid, Book of Remembrance of Canberra parishioners who died in the war of 1939-45, in recess in south wall of nave.
Notes
Eddison was a POW. Two brothers also died in the war: Edward Dalkeith Eddison and Frank Leslie Herbert Eddison. Jack Eddison was a POW of the Japanese.
Their father, Walter Herbert Eddison, served as a captain in the 56th Battalion in WW1. After the war, he applied for and was granted a soldier settlement block at Woden ACT. He and his wife called the property 'Yamba'. From c1920 until 1928, the family lived at 'The Oaks', Oaks Estate ACT, while the Woden property was being developed.
Eddison served with the 7th Light Horse Regiment before the war but shortly after he enlisted in July 1940 he was posted to the 2/20 Battalion. Eddison landed in Singapore in February 1941. A year later he became a prisoner of war when the British garrison on Singapore surrendered. He was sent to Naoetsu (4B) prison camp near Tokyo in Japan where he died of pneumonia on 7 June 1943.
Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Debt of Honour Register. <http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/search/>
Australia. Department of Veterans' Affairs. World War 2 nominal roll. <http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/>
AWM Roll of Honour and Roll of Honour Circulars <http://www.awm.gov.au/database/roh.asp>
Australian War Memorial. Photographs database. <http://www.awm.gov.au/>
Rex Cross, Bygone Queanbeyan, revised edition, 1985 (p.232)
Karen Williams, Oaks Estate: No Man's Land, Canberra, K. Williams, 1997 (pp. 35, 37, 238(note 1))
Procter, Peter. Biographical Register of Canberra and Queanbeyan, Canberra, Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra (p.88)
Don Mountain ed. Monumental inscriptions: Australian Capital Territory, including Jervis Bay. Canberra, Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra, 2001 (pp.40,41)
Fionna Douglas, 'Not without my Corsets', 1996
AWM Collections Record: P03412.001
NAA RecordSearch - Series B883 (Second Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1939-1947)
The Canberra Times - 27 January 1941