Ringer Edwards, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetRinger Edwards
Australian prisoner of war
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
About Ringer Edwards
- Herbert James "Ringer" Edwards (26 July 1913 – June 2000) was an Australian soldier during World War II.
- As a prisoner of war (POW), he survived being crucified for 63 hours by Japanese soldiers on the Burma Railway.
- Edwards was the basis for the character "Joe Harman" in Nevil Shute's novel A Town Like Alice (1950; also known as The Legacy).
- The book was the basis for a film (1956; also known as The Rape of Malaya) and a television miniseries (1981). Edwards was born in Fremantle, Western Australia.
- He spent much of his adult life working on stations (ranches) in outback Australia.
- The nickname "Ringer" means a stockman who works on cattle stations, alluding to the stockmen's practice of ringing mobs of cattle at night, keeping them in a tight mob, which can be easily controlled.
- In the morning, as the cattle are moved off, a ring of manure remains.
- The term is shortened from "shit ringer".
- A gun shearer (the shearer who shears the most in a particular woolshed during an annual shearing) is also called a ringer; however, there is no evidence to suggest Ringer Edwards was ever a shearer. Ringer Edwards enlisted at Cairns, Queensland on 21 January 1941 and was posted to the 2/26th Infantry Battalion.
- The battalion became part of the 27th Brigade, which was assigned to the 8th Division.
- As the possibility of war with the Empire of Japan increased, the main body of the division was sent to garrison the British colony of Singapore, later in 1941.
- The 2/26th fought the Japanese in the Malayan campaign and the Battle of Singapore.
- Edwards, along with the rest of the 8th Division, became a POW when the Allied forces at Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942.
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