Winston “Blow” Ide was a pioneering fly half and centre who is forever remembered as Wallaby No. 317 and the first player of Japanese descent to pull on the gold jersey.
He served in World War II with the 2/10th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, and survived the horrors of the Changi prisoner of war camp and the Burma-Thailand railway before sacrificing his life to save others after an horrific maritime attack.
His friends wrote his epitaph: “Blow Ide died as he had always played, for his team.”
His life inspired a 1993 novel by Tsutomu Kaniya, its title roughly translating as The Fatal Full-Time, and in 2010, a Japanese television producer turned it into a documentary.
Read his remarkable story here: Forgotten Stories: An Ode to Winston 'Blow' Ide, Australia's only Japanese heritage Wallaby.
