Stanley James Hopkins

1.Listed Bygone Queanbeyan as KIA Malaya but not mentioned Bungendore War Memorial Hall ROH. Listed Collinson " Final List"as KIA. 2. DVA Nominal Roll:DATE/POB:2.07.1917/ Marrickville,NSW ;DATE/POE:20.06.1940/Paddington NSW;LOCALITY ON ENLISTMENT:Undercliffe ,NSW;NOK:James Hopkins; DISCHARGE DATE /UNIT:23.11.1943/POD: Siam(Thailand) Illness Commemorated Kanchanburi War Cemetery Thailand. 3. Father (James Wells Hopkins) served in the Boer War and is remembered on the Bungendore ROH and the Marrickville,NSW ROH. 4. There is Sidney James Hopkins 138955(RAAF) on the DVA WW2 Nominal Roll who was born in Bungendore.He was not KIA and is therefore not the SJ Hopkins recorded on the Bungendore ROH.
5. After intensive training in Australia, Hopkins embarked for Singapore on the troop ship Katoomba arriving there in August 1941.By January 1942, the Japanese were at war and were advancing through Thailand and Malaya. From then on the Regiment’s guns were in almost constant action, providing artillery support for the infantry withdrawl along the Malayan peninsula towards Singapore. By the end of January, the last of the Allied troops had crossed the causeway and reached Singapore. Heavy fighting continued, but on 15 February 1942, outnumbered by the Japanese and with communications cut, the Allied Forces surrendered.Initially imprisoned in the Changi prisoner-of-war camp, members of the 2/15th Regiment were soon despatched to serve on the Thai-Burma Railway, and in Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Malaya and French Indochina. Of the 556 officers who were captured, 294 died. The survivors were released in late August 1945 and returned to Australia, after three and a half years in captivity.Sadly, Stanley James Hopkins died as a Prisoner-of-War, and is buried in Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand; Plot 1, Row A, Grave 59.
6. Listed as KIA on Bungendore Memorial.