This imperial Japanese non-commissioned officer (NCO)'s sword was said to be liberated from the Japanese commander of the prisoner of war camp (this being Nonpladuc/Nong Pladuk/Nompladuk, a base camp of the entire Burma-Thaland railway that was a labour camp, then a hospital camp), by Dr Thomas Hamilton who was interned there and from which he was liberated at the end of World War II. Like the NCO's swords made during the World War II period, this sword with its aluminium hilt and metal scabbard was mass-produced as indicated by the serial number (also a manufacturing number) on its blade. Dr Hamilton enlisted into the Australian Imperial Forces on 17 October 1940. He went to Malaya in 1941 as the Commanding Officer of the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station of the 8th Division in Malaya and Singapore, to support the Allied fighting troops during the withdrawal down the Malayan Peninsular. The unit members became POWs following the British surrender in February 1942. As a POW at Roberts Hospital in Changi, Dr Hamilton was in charge of a ward of about 100 wounded men. In May 1942, Dr Hamilton was sent to Burma together with many of his unit members to work on the construction of the Burma Thailand Railway. He was in the vicinity of Kanchanaburi in Thailand when the war ended and was discharged from the Army on 11 February 1946.
