Commando News Magazine edition 8 2021

Medals for Z Special Unit fighter finally make
their way home
Two sisters from the Kim -
berley in northern Western
Australia, whose Malayaborn
father served in Australia’s Z
Special Unit during WW2, are celeb -
rating the receipt of their father’s war
medals and service records.
“Z Special Unit ” was the admin -
istrative unit which provided opera -
tives for the Services Recon nais -
sance Department (SRD) a highly
secret reconnaissance and sabotage
unit that operated behind Japanese
lines in South East Asia.
Faye Elizabeth Dodson, 85, and
Georgina Frances Dodson, 80, are
the daughters of Abu Kassim, a
pearl diver in Broome who was 27
when he enlisted in Z Special Unit in
June 1942.
Abu Kassim’s mobilisation form
records his next of kin as Patricia
Djiaween, from Beagle Bay Mission
near Broome; he declared her as
“unmarried wife”.
He wrote “No” to a question
about whether he’d ever been
convicted in a civil court, but he had
certainly been in conflict with the
authorities back in Broome because
his relationship with Patricia, an
Abo riginal woman, was prohibited
by law.
Abu Kassim was indentured to a
Broome pearling company, Streeter
and Male, and his relationship with
Patricia was closely monitored by
local police and native affairs
officers.
He was at sea as a diver for long
periods but kept up supplies to his
young family and faithfully paid
maintenance for his daughters into a
government trust account – but
most of the money was not for -
warded to his family.
Deportation was a constant
threat until he enlisted in the Army.
After commando and parachute
training on Fraser Island, he was
parachuted into Borneo where he
trained local Dayak people in
guerrilla warfare.
He reached the rank of Sergeant
and served for 1564 days (1314 days
on active service in Australia, 250
days overseas) before he was
discharged in 1946.
Faye and Elizabeth remember
their father’s return to Broome after
the war when he would bring lollies
and clothes to the orphanage where
they were temporarily held and take
them on outings.
Abu Kassim resumed his job as a
pearl diver, but he his health was not
good.
He suffered from leukaemia and
ongoing effects of a bayonet wound
and was sent south to hospital in
Perth, where he died and was buried
in an unmarked grave in the Muslim
section of the Karrakatta cemetery.
Patricia Djiaween finally got
official permission to marry another
non-Aboriginal man, Snowy Dod -
son, after he did 18 months hard
labour at Fremantle prison for
springing Patricia and her children
from Moola Bulla Station near
Wyndham, where the WA Govern -
ment confined Aboriginal families.
With a newborn son, Patrick
Dodson, the family were able to
move to Katherine in the Northern
Territory in 1948 to escape the
punitive regime of the Western
Australian Commissioner for Native
Affairs.
Patrick is now a Labor Senator for
Western Australia and told the story
of Abu Kassim to another former
Commando, Luke Gosling, now the
MP for the Northern Territory
electorate of Solomon.
Gosling volunteered to secure
Abu Hassim’s war medals for his
surviving daughters.
“We think it strange that he was
fighting for the freedom of Australia
but was not allowed to marry our
mother and that we were subjected
to the stolen generations laws at the
same time,” Faye and Elizabeth
reflected when Patrick delivered
their father’s medals.
“His medals remind us of all this
history, but it does not make sense.
“We are proud of what he did for
us. Having the medals now means
so much. Our grannies can march
with them now in future Anzac Day
ceremonies.”
For all advertising please contact…
Russell Maddocks
Statewide Publishing P/L ~ 0432 042 060
Email: russell@commandonews.com.au
www.commandonews.com.au
COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian Commando Association ~ Edition 8 I 2021 33