AUTHOR Ryan Butta is looking forward to a road trip from the south coast of NSW to Wangaratta, to promote his new book, ‘The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli’.
The writer was last in the rural city two years ago to speak about his first work of historical non-fiction, ‘The Ballad of Abdul Wade’, and will be back at the Wangaratta Library on August 21 from 2.30pm to discuss the new release.
“It will be great to get out and meet some readers,” he said.
‘The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli’ tells the story of Harry Freame, who became the first Australian to win the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) at Gallipoli. Harry, who was raised as a samurai, risked his life again and again in World War 1 to scout the beaches and hills of the battlefield, reporting invaluable intelligence back to his officers and relieving stranded soldiers who would otherwise have surely died. Some say he should have received the Victoria Cross but didn’t because he was half Japanese, a fact he tried hard to conceal.
After the war, Harry became a soldier settler and champion apple grower, but when Japan emerged as a perceived threat to Australia, he was recruited into Australian intelligence to spy on the Japanese community in Sydney. Before Japan’s entry into World War 2, Australia opened a diplomatic legation in Tokyo and Harry was sent as a translator, but his real role was as a spy. Extraordinarily, his cover was leaked by the Australian press, and the Japanese secret police tried to assassinate him not long after his arrival in Tokyo in 1941.
Harry died back in Australia a few weeks later, but his sacrifice had never been acknowledged by Australia, until Ryan’s research prompted him to push for official recognition for Harry, who was then in an unmarked grave in Rookwood Cemetery.
“I came across Harry’s story while researching, and he had such a great bio – adventurer, orchardist, interpreter – I thought it was a fascinating story,” he said. “(Through my research), I got a strong sense of who he was, and the fact that Harry didn’t like to big-note his contribution to the war. For instance, he won the DCM, but he said it was just for carrying water; the full story was that he saved the lives of men while carrying water to the frontline. When you write someone’s biography, you come to know them, and I guess you lose them in a way too, once it’s completed. More people need to know what Harry did. His story needs to be known more widely, because a lot of the time, the Anzac myth is used to promote White Australia. What if Australia’s best soldier at Gallipoli was not a white Australian, but was actually a Japanese samurai raised under the code of Bushido?”
Ryan said he had enjoyed the investigation into Harry’s life and death.
“I love delving into the archives,” he said. “I use (online research portal) Trove a lot, and if it wasn’t for Trove, I would have finished this book in half the time. It was really interesting looking at things like the history of Japanese-Australian relations.”
He said he enjoyed writing historical non-fiction.
“I think people want to know what happened in Australia, because they don’t know all the stories,” he said. “I’ve been really lucky, and well-supported by Affirm Press, to be able to work on telling
those stories.”
Ryan said his author talk at the Wangaratta Library would cover not only his work on this book and an overview of Harry Freame’s life, but Ryan’s own path to writing and being published.
To book your place at the Wangaratta Library event on August 21, which is supported by Edgars Books and News, contact the library on 5721 2366 or visit https://events.humanitix.com/meet-the-author-ryanbutta
