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| Sydengham “Syd” Duer In Japan, 1950. Born of a Japanese mother and British businessman |
As Syd Duer was starving at the Japanese internment camp from 1941 to 1945, my father was sloggimg through the Papuan jungles, an Australian Army Intelligence officer fighting those same Japanese.
After the war, Syd remained in Japan, became a doctor, married and had two children. My father joined the Australian Department of Foreign (then “External”) Affairs, was posted to Tokyo, met my mother, had two children, one, me, born in Tokyo. He might have met Syd…
/Snip:
When Sydengham Duer left his family’s house in Yokohama, Japan, for university on the morning of December 8, 1941, he had no idea it would be the last time he would see his home for nearly four years.
Before the day was out, Duer – better known as Syd – and his businessman father, William, had been arrested by Japanese police because they were registered as British nationals, and the Japanese attack on the US fleet at and advances against British forces in Malaya had made them enemy aliens and, potentially, spies.
