Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip from 1941 shows Queensland governor Sir Leslie Wilson delivering a community announcement in which he appeals to Queenslanders to support the Red Cross Prisoner of War Street Adoption Scheme. He is shown standing in a suburban Brisbane street and speaks directly to camera. The fixed camera first shows him in close-up, then in mid-shot as he holds up the sign that streets supporting the Scheme could display. Stirring music accompanies the final scene, which shows the sign in close-up.

Educational value points

• The Prisoner of War Street Adoption Scheme is an example of the targeted fundraising that the Red Cross embarked on during the Second World War in an attempt to attract donations for specific areas of its responsibility. The funds of the Red Cross had been depleted as a result of the huge contributions it had made in the First World War and few people were able to make financial donations during the Great Depression.

• Sir Leslie Wilson (1876–1955) was the longest serving Qld governor in the state’s history, a distinguished former soldier and, as was the custom at the time, an Englishman. A political career followed his service in the South African and First World Wars. Appointed governor of Qld in 1932, he was a popular figure, highly regarded for his unstinting work on behalf of service organisations during the Second World War.

• In the clip Sir Leslie appeals to the audience’s sense of civic duty as well as their empathy towards prisoners of war (POWs) in his bid to raise funds. He speaks to Queenslanders directly and personalises the fate of the POW, asking them to imagine him as a man who used to walk down ‘your street’ but is now ‘ceaselessly pacing’ in an enemy compound. He also appeals to the audience’s national pride and their pride in their ‘own borough … town … street’.

• In 1941, the year the film was made, many Australian soldiers became POWs. Australian forces took part in the unsuccessful Allied expedition to defend Greece from German invasion and more than 5,000 Australians were captured. In the defence of Tobruk in the same year more than 940 Australian soldiers were taken prisoner. By the conclusion of the Second World War 28,756 Australian servicemen had been taken prisoner.

• Between the launch of the Lady Gowrie Appeal in September 1939 and the conclusion of the War in September 1945, the income of the Australian Red Cross reached a total of £12,250,000, the largest amount raised by any service organisation during the Second World War. This success was largely due to the emotional appeal made by the society’s publicity unit, which spelled out the plight of Australian POWs and sought funds to assist them.

• Wilson’s role in assisting the Red Cross followed a tradition of close association between vice-regal appointees and the Australian Red Cross that had begun with its founding in 1914 by Lady Helen Munro Ferguson (1865–1941), wife of the governor-general of the time. In 1941 when the film was made, the president of the Red Cross was Lady Zara Gowrie (1879–1965), wife of the governor-general, and the president in each state was the wife of that state’s governor.

• The Red Cross parcels referred to in the clip were relief packages for POWs and ‘capture parcels’ for the recently captured that contained supplementary food as well as extra clothing, toiletries, cigarettes, stationery, reading material and medicine. During 1941–42 between 5,000 and 10,000 parcels per week were delivered to Australian POWs in Europe. The packages helped sustain the troops as well as giving them items for barter with prison guards.

• Formal responsibility for most Australian POW services was delegated to the Australian Red Cross at a meeting with the Department of the Army in May 1939. The International and Australian Red Cross societies’ success in supporting POWs was contingent on all warring nations involved in the Second World War complying with Geneva Conventions guaranteeing Red Cross access to POWs to provide humanitarian relief.