Private E H 'Ted' Ings, Binalong, New South Wales

Whenever the parishioners of the Anglican Church, Binalong, New South Wales, attend a service, they are reminded of the tragedy and loss of war. The memorial gateway to the church is dedicated to the memory of Private E H Ings, 2/19th Battalion, 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF), who died in 1945 on active service.

Ted Horace Ings at work, Binalong, late 1930s. [Photograph: Ings Family]

Ted Ings was born in 1903 at Binalong and in the 1930s, with his brother Les, he ran a dairy farm near the town. The Ings brothers were well-known for their skill in building the large old-fashioned haystacks. At local dances, Ted's skillful playing of the squeezebox was much in demand and he is remembered in the district as gentle-natured and well-liked. On 17 July 1940, at Goulburn, New South Wales, he enlisted in the 2nd AIF and was assigned to the 2/19th Battalion. In early 1941, Private Ings and the 2/19th Battalion, 8th Australian Division, sailed from Sydney on the Queen Mary, bound for Singapore and the defence of Malaya.

The Ings brothers building a haystack, Binalong, New South Wales, c. 1930, [Photograph: Ings Family]

As letters in the possession of the family show, throughout that year Ted regularly wrote home from Malaya. But other events were soon to have a telling effect on Ted and the soldiers of the 8th Division. On 15 February 1942, the British defenders of Singapore, which included the 2/19th Battalion, surrendered to the Japanese. Months later, on 19 July 1942, the Sydney Sunday Telegraph published the name of Private E H Ings in a list of 430 New South Wales soldiers classed as 'missing in action' in Malaya, Singapore and Java.

After this alarming news, the Ings family in Binalong would have been relieved to hear that Ted was not 'missing' but a prisoner of war. Over a year later, in September 1943, a card from Ted, which said he was a POW in Malaya, reached his sister-in-law May, in Binalong. It had been sent through the International Red Cross.

Paybook photograph taken on enlistment of NX60355 Pte Ted Ings, 2/19 Battalion. [AWM PO2467.777]

Today the family still has the telegram May sent to the other members of the family, telling them the good news. A later letter from the Red Cross Bureau for Wounded, Missing and Prisoners of War, Sydney, sent on 6 November 1944 to Binalong gave the following brief information from the International Red Cross, Geneva:

Tokyo Cables NX 60355, Pte. E.H. Ings Transferred From Malaya to Borneo Camp Since 1/4/44.

Ted Ings never returned from Borneo.

The inscription on the memorial gates at the Binalong Anglican Church records that Private E H Ings died on 24 February 1945, aged 41, at somewhere called 'Sandakan-Ranau'.