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Lieutenant Colonel Albert CoatesPrint Page Print this page

Albert Coates Memorial
Albert Coates Memorial

Photographs supplied by Kent Watson

The sculpture commemorates Albert Coates, a doctor who was a Prisoner of War of the Japanese during World War Two.

In 1941 Coates was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel and Senior Surgeon to the Second Australian Imperial Force in Malaya. Following the Japanese landings on the Malay Peninsula, Coates moved with the 2nd / 10th Australian General Hospital to Singapore. A few days before the city surrendered he was a part of a group ordered to Java. Their convoy was bombed; Coates was rescued and reached Sumatra. There he treated casualties and declined opportunities to leave.

He became a prisoner of the Japanese and in May 1942 was sent to Burma. Conditions were deplorable, the treatment brutal, and the death rate enormous. In 1944 he became responsible for a major prisoners’ hospital in Thailand.

After the war Coates returned to Melbourne and resumed his distinguished medical career. In 1953 he was made a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and in 1955 received a knighthood.

Location

Address:Sturt & Dawson Streets, Median Strip, Ballarat, 3350
State:VIC
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -37.561547
Long: 143.853939
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Sculpture
Monument Theme:People
Sub-Theme:Military
Actual Event Start Date:03-September-1939
Actual Event End Date:15-August-1945
Artist:Louis Laumen (Yarraville, VIC)
Monument Manufacturer:Fundere Fine Art Foundry
Link:http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/adbonli…

Dedication

Front Inscription

Albert Coates

Colonel Coates stood out...he not only saved lives...he saved reason...he was a man among men."

 

Source: MA,ADB,VWHI
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au