Cpl. Cedric Jessep NX38660 - 2/1 Heavy Battery RAA

I was so thrilled to find your book and site. My grandfather, C. J. Jessep passed away 30 years ago this year when I was 11 and I have spent the last 30 years trying to piece everything together.

Finally and thanks to you I have found out so much more… He was a beautiful man, never bitter or angry after what he endured and he even used to buy Japanese cars. He always said that they had it tough but he felt more for the Vietnam vets when they came home after how they were received..

I know he was captured on Timor, now I know what date and how, thank you to you, he spent most of his time in Changi & on the railway, after which he was shipped to Japan, I have recently researched on one of the Japanese oil tankers after the fall of Singapore and I marvel at how lucky he was not to be bombed by the US Airforce as two of those ships were, by sheer mistake…

He finished up in a smelter and a coal mine in Japan and was marc! hed through Nagasaki after the atom bombing and the end of WWII..

He came home and did his best to raise a family which he did, they had hardly any help and we recently found a letter of request for a loan and my grandpa had written that he was anxious about the future and wasn't sure he would be able to support his family.

He was to be a very successful salesman and a wonderful grandfather whose life was turned upside down again by the onset of Leukemia which he fought valiantly for 15 years before his death in 1984.

I am so blessed to have had the very short time that I did have with him. He is my true hero who keeps me going every day as I have had different wars to fight in my life also.

Thank you so much for your book. I have always said I would love to write a story about his experience but it's been so difficult to find out anything as you know they never spoke of these things…

I would also love to be able to march in the Anzac Day march and will investigat! e how to do that for next year but if there's anyone you know ! of I could contact I'd be most grateful.

Thank you,

Tasha Clyne

#SparrowForce #2nd1stHeavyBattery #POW #Timor