Born in Gloucester, NSW on the 10th of January 1916 to James and Ellen (nee Berry) Merchant, Henry was the 7th of their 11 children.
Working as a dairy farm hand, Henry enlisted in Gloucester on the 24th of May 1941 with the 16th LH Machine Gun Regiment. Marching into General Details Depot, Paddington 11th of June 1941, Henry gave his father, James Merchant of Barrington as his ‘Next of Kin’ (NOK). On the 12th he marched out to the 2nd Infantry Training Brigade and was transferred to the 5th Training Battalion at Tamworth. Henry was given pre-embarkation leave from 16:30 on the 16th to 09:00 on the 23rd of July and transferred to the 8th Division Mobile Laundry and Forward Decontamination Unit on his return.
Keeping clothing and bedding clean is only second in importance to good food and clean water when it comes to maintaining an Army’s health and morale. To this end, Laundry Units have been an integral part of the Australian Army’s Order of Battle since the First World War. But the early days of the Second World War heralded a change from the semi-static trench warfare of the First World War to a much more mechanised and fluid war – a war on wheels and tracks where gains or losses might be measured in tens of kilometres in a day.
Any unit operating in a forward area had best be prepared to move quickly in response to changes in the tactical situation. Mobile laundry facilities were first given serious consideration by the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (2AIF) in mid-1940, and by the Australian Military Forces (AMF) later the same year. By late 1940, orders had been placed for the supply of various commercially available laundry equipment, to assemble a pilot model mobile laundry for trials. Several Australian companies from across the nation were contracted – Robert Bryce for the washing machine, Robert Lilley and Co. for the hydro-extractor and the soap and soda dissolver, Burtons Ltd for the tumble dryer, Cameron and Sutherland supplied centrifugal pumps, and a clarifier was supplied by the Perth-based firm Boltons Ltd.
An entirely new device, a continuous drying machine, was being designed by the Land Headquarters Experimental Workshop, who would also assemble the pilot model laundry trailers. Power for each complete laundry was to be supplied by a 25kva, 415 Volt, three-phase AC generator mounted on a four-wheel trailer which was already an issue item. The equipment was manufactured and trialed and although trailers were not available by February 1941, sixteen mobile laundry units were allowed for on the Australian Army’s Order of Battle – six for the 2nd AIF, and ten for a fully mobilised AMF, each one attached to an individual higher formation.
The 8th Infantry Division in Malaya were in the greatest need, so the pilot model laundry – still not mounted on trailers – was sent to Malaya in September 1941 along with some additional commercially available equipment, to provide a static laundry facility. Tropical conditions were already proving to be particularly hard on troops, and regular changes of clothing and bed linen helped keep tropical diseases, particularly skin rashes, in check. Embarking aboard HMT (His Majesty’s Trawler) Z on the 29th of October, Henry disembarked in Singapore on the 25th of November to join his unit in Malaya.
Landing first on the north-east coast of Malaya on 8 December 1941, Japanese troops took just 70 days to crush the British Empire forces in Malaya and Singapore, which was surrendered on the 15th of February 1942. The 8th Mobile Laundry and Forward Decontamination Unit, which was in fact stationary was swept up with the Japanese advance.
On the 9th of April he was listed as Missing in Action on the 16th of February and was confirmed Prisoner of War on the 5th of November 1942 now interned Thai camp. In all, 9,500 Australian prisoners of war worked on the construction of the Burma-Thailand Railway, which ran from Bampong, Thailand, to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. Building commenced at each end of the railway. Altogether, 2,815 Australians died working on the railway. Prisoners in Changi were divided into forces to work on the railway in either Burma or Thailand. The railway was completed on the 16th of October 1943. Henry was reported having died of Dysentery in Thailand on the 25th of December 1943, aged 27 years.
