Update on the Ray Simpson, VC, DCM Biography Project

by Mick Malone and Pete Lutley

This update will hopefully keep all of you who have contributed to this book up to date on what we’ve achieved so far whether you are family, friends, fellow soldiers or other interested parties.

This biography project follows "Simmo" the man over his 52 years of life including his younger days in Dalmar  Children's Home in Sydney during the depression years, his stellar career in the Army from 1944 and to his latter days working in the Australian Embassy in Japan. Overall he was on Active Service for nearly 9 years (108 months). His military career had many stops and starts and a few down sides especially in the early days of his WW11 service.

As he came to view the Army as his family and together with his marriage to the love of his life, Shoko his Japanese wife whom he met and married while serving in Korea (1951 to 1954), he became a better soldier as the story will tell. From a young soldier involved with the aftermath of the Cowra Japanese POW breakout in 1944 to his gallant Victoria Cross actions in Vietnam in 1969 this story of a fair dinkum Australian has been a pleasure to research and put together.

Since we began this daunting project in 2009 we have achieved the following:

1. Received approximately 250 individual contributions from all over the world. Part of this includes the recording (and typed transcription) of in-depth interviews with over 40 people in Australia, Japan and the USA who had been directly involved with Ray Simpson in childhood, his military career and civilian life.

2. Over 1,200 pages of applicable official documents have been photographed for our reference from the files of the Australian War Memorial (AWM), National Archives and National Library.

3. Numerous other documents, related articles, maps, book references and media references have been accessed, copied and noted e.g. from the AWM comprehensive research papers donated by a Mr Brian Kelly who wrote the Australian Dictionary of Biography reference on Simmo (who's who of significant Australian's).

4. We now have copies of a number of letters written by Simmo, mainly to various military mates and also some from Shoko.

5. Photographs of Simmo have been scarce to come by but to date we have around 40 that are useable. The War Memorial also has another 40 odd that are accessible in their collection.

6. Numerous newspaper articles have been collected or photographed.

7. Travel – Mick and Pete have travelled from Perth to Adelaide to Canberra (four times to Canberra), Melbourne and Sydney to meet up with and interview people who knew Ray or to research documentation. Further travel to NSW is planned with ANZAC day in Sydney this year (2012).

8. In 2011 Peter travelled to Japan to interview Ray’s Japanese step daughter Harumi and family, he visited his grave plot at Yokohama War Cemetery and the Australian Embassy where Ray worked from 1972 after discharge. Mick travelled to the USA, visiting the Library of Congress chasing copies of the Silver Star and Bronze Star citations. This is still on going. He also travelled to San Francisco and met with and interviewed Chuck Koscinski, the United States Special Forces medic (green beret) who attended Simmo while under enemy fire himself when Simmo was seriously wounded in action at Ta Ko in Vietnam in 1964.

9. An application for funding assistance was submitted to the Army History Unit which was not successful. A further submission for funding was made to HQ Special Operations Command – this is still on-going. A submission for funding will also be made to the Returned Services League (RSL) in 2012. Hopefully book sales will cover the substantial costs that have so far been born by Mick and Peter.

10. Articles have been placed in numerous Ex-Service newsletters and journals e.g. Western Australian and Victorian RSL's, the Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) Association 'Duty First', 7RAR Association 'Seven News', Special Air Service (SAS)Association 'Rendezvous', Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) Association 'Persevere', Dept of Vet Affairs newsletter 'Vet Affairs' etc. Follow up articles plus further articles will be prepared for other Ex-Service organisation newsletters such as 1 Commando Association ‘Strike Swiftly.’ These articles have been very successful in informing people who knew Ray about this book project resulting in a good flow of information.

12. A bibliography of primary sources and books has been formulated with further documents and books being added weekly. It presently contains well over 30 books with either some direct reference to Ray or otherwise providing background to the various conflicts he served in, e.g. the Cowra outbreak and Tarakan in World War 11, then Korea, Malaya and Vietnam.

13. There are still gaps to fill in on his life story, e.g. where was he from May 1966 to May 1967, and from May 1970 to Early 1972, Australia, Japan or Vietnam? Does anybody know? We have some information but it is scarce indeed.

14. Draft chapters have been laid out with headings. The publishing and marketing preliminaries have also been laid out.

We are looking at the book seeing light of day in the bookshops hopefully in early 2013.

We extend our appeal to anyone who may still have information, anecdotes, documents, photos etc of Simmo either in Service or as a civilian, or know someone who may have!

We would sincerely like to thank all of you who have contributed in some way to this biography. It is greatly appreciated by us. We do hope we can give due justice to Simmo's story when it finally hits the shelves.

Profits after recouping our costs (fingers crossed) will be donated to the Australian SAS Association.

Regards to you all,

Mick and Pete

Please contact:

Peter Lutley:

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Phone: Home: 08 93858037

or Mobile: 0416307734

Or

Mick Malone:

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Phone: Home: 08921953911

or Mobile: 0417964530

or write to:

M.J. Malone

PO Box 695

MUNDARING WA 6073