Papers of Wg Cdr Thomas Stuart Tull, CBE, DSO, OBE (1914-1982)
INTRODUCTION
Born in 1914 and educated at Rossall School and Jesus College, Oxford; joined the Indian Civil Service, 1938; served in the Punjab as District Officer, 1939-1941; ADC to the Governor of Punjab, 1941; lent to Defence Department, Government of India for service with RAF, 1941; Staff Officer, Air Headquarters South East Asia Air Command, 1942-1946, including RAF liaison with Force 136, and service with RAPWI (Recovered Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) on Java for the rescue and repatriation of allied prisoners of war, 1945-1946; retired from Indian Civil Service and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1947; Foreign Office, 1947-1948; First Secretary at British Legation, Berne, 1948-1951; Foreign Office, 1951-1953; HM Consul at San Francisco, 1953-1954; HM Consul at Denver, 1954-1956; Press Counsellor at British Embassy in Cairo, 1956 and Berne, 1957; HM Consul-General in Gothenburg, 1958-1961, Philadelphia, 1961-1966 and Durban, 1966-1967; High Commissioner in Malawi, 1967-1971; retired in 1971. Member of the United Kingdom Delegation to the United Nations twelfth General Assembly, 1957. Founder-chairman in 1974 of Philafrica Action Group, to focus voluntary aid to the Third World, later renamed the Youth Development Trust in 1975; died in 1982.
Placed in the Centre by the family in 1983.
Tull's papers concentrate on his service during operation MASTIFF for the rescue and repatriation of RAPWI (Recovered Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) on Java in 1945-1946. These include a number of files of correspondence (2/1-3, 2/5 and 2/9) during Tull's tenure of the command of 5 RAPWI Contact Team, based at Ambarawa, Central Java, and Tull's own detailed report of December 1945 (2/10), which describe his arrival on Java, the activities of 5 RAPWI, the conditions of prison camp life, and the subsequent clashes between the Allied forces assisting RAPWI and Indonesian nationalists. Tull's memoir 'Mission to Java' contains further information in regard to RAPWI on Java, as well as his earlier RAF career, including an account of his liaison duties in Burma with Force 136 during operation DRACULA for the recapture of Rangoon. The memoir was written by Tull in 1980-1981 and was edited after his death by his sister Maryllis Conder.
Papers contained in Tull's RAPWI correspondence files have been maintained in their original order. The collection has been arranged into four discrete sections (see brief list for details), and the papers allocated to these in chronological order.
Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.
English; small quantity of material in Dutch and Indonesian.