About

My father Francis Xavier Larkin Snr was a signaller in the 2/19th Battalion, 8th Division, AIF. My father was captured by the Japanese during the Battle of the Muar in January, 1942. He was incarcerated in Malaya, Singapore, Thailand and Japan. He was liberated in August, 1945. In 1993 my father shared a box of belongings that documented his time in the army. I realised that the materials were rich in history and should be shared. I decided that technology was the best way to share the material. Students of history could access the material without the material ever being lost or damaged. This web site is the latest incarnation of that shift to technology.

This present web site had its origins in an Apple HyperCard stack created in 1993. This stack had comprised an assignment for a subject within the Information Technology programme of the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong. Dr John Hedberg, a talented and visionary educational technologist, had guided myself and other students of that cohort in the creation of the HyperCard stacks. Three screens from the HyperCard stack are illustrated below.

In 1998 the content that had formed the basis of the HyperCard stack was transferred to the Internet. The site underwent a major upgrade in 2006. This latest version (2011) incorporates additional photographs and documents that were obtained since the original HyperCard stack was created. Photographs taken in Singapore and Thailand during recent years are also included in the web site.