St John's School Leatherhead - Reverend Vivian Redlich

Leatherhead War Memorials - St John's School
Reverend Vivian Frederick Barnes Redlich

" ... I'm trying to stick whatever happens. If I don't come out of it, just rest content that I have tried to do my job faithfully. "

Vivian Redlich

The above words, hurriedly pencilled on a scrap of paper are the last words of a modern martyr. Soon after writing them, Vivian Redlich, a young Anglican priest was taken by the Japanese from his mission station in New Guinea and beheaded on a nearby beach. The staff were killed and the mission destroyed. It was the time of the Feast of the Transfiguration, 1942.

Vivian Redlich was a Leicestershire man, his father being Rector of Little Bowden, where Vivian was brought up. Vivian was trained at Chichester Theological College and after a period in England, served five years with the Bush Brotherhood of St Andrew in Central Queensland. His tour of duty completed, he offered himself for work as a missionary in New Guinea, where he quickly found himself involved in the war with Japan.

His farewell message is preserved in St Paul's Cathedral.

Chichester Theological College 1926. Deacon 1932; Priest 1933; diocese of Wakefield
Curate of Dewsbury Moor, 1932-35

Member of the Brush Brotherhood of St Andrew, Queensland, 1935. Priest-in-charge Dawson Valley, 1935-36, diocese of Rockhampton; Priest-in-charge, Winton, 1937-40. Diocese of New Guinea, 1940; Doguara, via Samuria, Papua; Priest-in-charge Sangara, Papua. Vivian was martyred in 1942.

In July 1942 after a short illness, Vivian returned from Doguara, the headquarters of the New Guinea Mission, to his Mission Station in Sangara, in Papua.

Japanese warships were already shelling the coast further South as he landed. On Saturday July 25th the travelling Medical Assistant of the Papuan Govt. arrived in the Sangara district, and, hearing that Vivian was in a shelter prpared for him by the natives, went to see him. This official was a Roman Catholic and was very friendly with Vivian and other members of the Anglican Mission in New Guinea. To him we are indebted for what details we have of Vivian's last few days. He found Vivian surrounded by church members of the district who were much alarmed by conditions in their neighbourhood.

Vivian said to them: "I am your missionary. I have come back to you to help you and I will remain with you as long as you will let me. Tomorrow is Sunday and I shall celebrate Holy Communion. I invite you to Communicate." Next day the Medical Assistant himself was present at the Celebration, though he did not communicate and was deeply impressed with the spirit of devotion of all who communicated.

On the following day, Monday July 27th, Vivian hastily wrote in pencil on a piece of paper the following message to his father, the Rev. Canon Edward B Redlich, Rector of Little Bowden: -

My Dear Dad
The war has busted up here. I got back from Doguara and ran right into it, and am now somewhere in my parish hoping to carry on, tho' my people are horribly scared. No news of May, and I am cut off from contacting her - my staff O.K. so far, but in another spot.

I'm trying to stick whatever happens. If I don't come out of it, just rest content that I have tried to do my job faithfully. Last chance of getting word out: so forgive brevity.

[Choosing to stay with his flock, when the Japanese invasion was imminent, he and fellow European workers were eventually beheaded on Buna beach. In a separate incident at about the same time, Vivian's fiancée May Hayman, an Australian nurse, was bayoneted to death by the invading Japanese army]

The New Guinea Martyrs (from St John's Cathedral, Brisbane)
"Twelve missionaries and church workers were killed by the invading Japanese in New Guinea in the Second World War. The four women in the group are commemorated in a window high up the east wall in the south transept of St John's Cathedral.

Lilla Lashmar and Mavis Parkinson were teachers and Margery Brenchley and May Hayman were nurses. Lilla and Margery were stationed at Sangara. They were rounded up by the Japanese with some of the men and were beheaded on Buna Beach in August 1942. Lilla Lashmar was originally from Kangaroo Island, South Australia, and trained as a teacher before responding to the call to missionary work. Margery Brenchley was born in England but came to Brisbane as a teenager. She trained as a nurse in Brisbane and went to New Guinea in 1927.

May Hayman and Mavis Parkinson were stationed at Gona and were captured by the Japanese after many difficult days in the jungle, trying to escape the patrols and were executed by the bayonet in late August 1942 at Jegerata.

May had worked as a nurse in various Australian hospitals and not long before her death had announced her engagement to the Reverend Vivian Redlich, another New Guinea martyr. He was with the Sangara group on Buna Beach. Mavis Parkinson grew up in Ipswich and was an old girl of Ipswich Girls' Grammar School. She trained as a teacher at the A.B.M. College before going to New Guinea.

All these women were devoted to their work with the New Guinea people and refused to leave them even at the risk of their own lives.