Communications Officer
Joan Bamford Fletcher was in Sumatra, Indonesia as part of the South East Asia Command Welfare Unit. Canadian by birth, she had previously served with the FANY Polish Unit. Charged with evacuating by road 2,000 former internees, including many women and children, she commandeered vehicles from the local Japanese Army Headquarters, as well as 70 surrendered Japanese soldiers to act as armed guards. Most of the internees were Dutch. They were hated by many of the local population who, now liberated from the Japanese, had turned to attacking their former colonial masters.
Bamford Fletcher conducted 20 convoys, from Sumatra to the port of Padang, 500km away. During one journey she earned the admiration of the Japanese soldiers when, badly injured as a result of being trapped between a lorry and a jeep, she took herself to hospital, had three stitches in her head and resumed command 2 hours later. On a later convoy, the well-armed Indonesian guerrillas stopped one of the vehicles and took away 2 Dutchmen. Bamford Fletcher intervened and by bluff and possibly FANY charm, persuaded the guerrillas that the two men were British and secured their release, thus most certainly saving their lives.
Within a month Bamford Fletcher had completely evacuated the Sumatra camp. She so impressed the Captain of the local Japanese Army Headquarters that he presented her with his personal ceremonial sword, a 300 hundred year old family heirloom. It is now in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
Read more about the Corps' history here.