Civilian Internment : Copy of a letter from Doreen Kelley to her mother

Civilian Internment

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Copy of a letter describing the bombing of Kuching during the Second World War and Kelley's eventual evacuation to Sydney, following a trek through the jungle of Dutch Borneo (16 sheets).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Wallace Kelley served with the Sarawak Police, and married Doreen, a trained dancer, at Kuching. Their son John was born in 1931. During the Second World War, they were evacuated from Kuching when the Japanese invaded in December 1941. Kelley served as a major with the Royal Marines in Ceylon, before being posted to Hong Kong to debrief liberated Allied POWs. Doreen Kelley spent the war in Australia. The couple divorced at the end of the war. Doreen married J.W. Pim (1914-98) who had worked in Sarawak before the Japanese invasion, and had escaped through Java to Australia. The Pims returned to Malaya, where he worked as a civil engineer and she taught dance, helping to persuade the Royal Academy of Dancing to send examiners to Malaya.</p>