Introduction

Frank William Coaldrake was an Anglican priest and the first Australian civilian to enter Occupied Japan after the war. He was one of the pioneering members of the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, the Anglican religious order working for social justice in the slums of Melbourne from the late 1930s onwards. Frank Coaldrake felt he must go to Japan because of the combination of his priestly vocation, his conscientious objection and his commitment to practical measures, all those things which sat together so awkwardly in the estimation of his times and his superiors. He had to go to Japan because Japan was the enemy. The idea of going to Japan on a mission of reconciliation started taking shape in his mind in May 1942. By April, 1943, less than a year later, Frank Coaldrake had decided to go to Japan himself. During their period of service in Japan, Frank and Maida Coaldrake sent a total of sixty-three newsletters back to Australia.