Arthur Moon

Major Arthur Moon (17 May 1902 – 1973) was an Australian army doctor who saved the lives of dozens of Far East prisoners of war as the Thailand-Burma Railway was being constructed during World War II.

Early life
Moon was born on 17 May 1902 at East Maitland, New South Wales. By his early twenties he had embarked on a medical career as a gynaecologist and obstetrician.

Military service
Moon enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in 1940. Initially he was a member of 2/4 Field Ambulance, which was in the Middle East and deployed into Syria. There he transferred to the 2/2 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS). In February 1942 the 2/2 CCS sailed from Suez and landed in Java to honour a British undertaking to assist the Dutch in the defence of Java. However, on 6 March the Dutch capitulated and the Australians, known as “Black” Force, became POWs.

A General Hospital was established with 23 officers including Arthur Moon as a Medical Officer. In January 1943 a party of around 900 POWs, known as “Dunlop” Force was assembled to move to Thailand under the command of Colonel Sir Edward Dunlop.

The force arrived at Banpong in Thailand on 24 January and was trucked to Tarsau. From Tarsau the Force moved on foot approx 25 km to their first work area at Konyu where they arrived with 875 POWs.

Moon moved to Hintok Mountain Camp early April, then on to Tamakan later in the month. Whilst at Tamakan, Moon worked under a British Territorial Officer Lt Col Philip Toosey. Toosey appointed Arthur Moon Senior Medical Officer (SMO) at the Medical facility. Moon was also at Chungkai and Tamuang at various times.

Record of conditions and atrocities
Moon is credited with causing one of the most comprehensive records of wartime Far East POW camp conditions and atrocities to come into being. He enlisted four prisoners with artistic skill, Ashley George Old, Jack Bridger Chalker, Philip Meninsky and Keith Neighbour, to create paintings of the camps, prisoners and injuries. The artists undertook this work in circumstances of extreme difficulty and danger. Many of these paintings were buried in the ground at Moon's final camp, then recovered after the war and archived by the State Library of Victoria. In 1995 an exhibition of the works was held under the title 'The Major Arthur Moon Collection'. The collection catalogue cover shows a painting of a beckoning hand titled 'Bomb wound (air attack)' by Old and is compared in the narrative to Picasso's Guernica as a truly extraordinary image of war. The Australian War Memorial holds photographs of Moon operating in the camps.