The engraved fountain pen of Lieutenant Ronald Lister.
In 1941, Lieutenant Ronald Lister of the 2/1 Australian Ordnance Stores Company was captured by German forces on Crete. His engraved fountain pen was confiscated, and he was issued a receipt for it.
Sam Fricker, assistant curator at the Australian War Memorial, recounts the story of this personal keepsake—how it was taken and remarkably returned to Lister years later.
I'm Sam Fricker and I'm an Assistant Curator in the Military, Heraldry and Technology section here at the Australian War Memorial.
So the first object I have to talk to you about, is this, an engraved fountain pen that belonged to Lieutenant Ronald Lister of the 2/1 Australian Ordnance Stores Company.
Before the war, Lister worked at an etching and lithography company in Melbourne and upon his enlistment he was gifted this pen by his fellow colleagues.
They actually had it machine engraved with his name and his embarkation date which was the 11th of January 1940.
Lister then took part in the Greece and Crete campaigns but was subsequently captured on the 1st of June 1941 and unfortunately for him was moved to a prisoner of war camp in Germany.
The Germans confiscate this pen but he's issued with a receipt.
Over the next four years he would move three times in total, right up until the 29th of April 1945 at which time American forces would push through Germany liberating prisoners of war camp.
The story is really interesting because he has this pen and it gets taken off him and you would think you know it's going to go into somebody's pocket, another officer is going to take it.
I think the reason why this story would speak to people is just this object's whole journey between Australia to the Middle East to Greece to Germany and then it gets back to him.
The receipt is respected and he manages to get it back by the end of the war.
Objects like these have massive significance in the National Collection because they tell the stories of prisoners of war in the Second World War.
They show hardship, they show endurance even in the most difficult of places.
