Captain Albert
Anthony Dumont

Albert Anthony Dumont was born on 4 January 1921 in London, the son of a Belgian father and a French mother. His father, Albert Jules Cornelius Dumont, was a textile dealer from Ypres, Belgium — a city that had been virtually obliterated during the First World War. His mother, Valentine Chave, was from Valence in the Drôme department of southeastern France.

The family lived at 106 Batherley Court, London W.2, in the Bayswater area. Anthony’s father died before his son joined SOE — the personnel file records him simply as “dead.” His mother remained at the Batherley Court address, and Anthony allotted what small private means he had to her support.

He was educated first at St Nicholas School, Littlehampton, then won a scholarship to Ardingly College in Sussex (1934–37), where he matriculated with six credits. He went on to the Law School of the Law Society, London, passing the Solicitors Intermediate Examination in law and bookkeeping.

In January 1938, at just seventeen, he was articled as a solicitor’s clerk and within twelve months had risen to Acting Managing Clerk — remarkable responsibility for someone barely out of school. His SOE file records his hobbies as “Most of the Arts (Architecture, Ballet, Music in particular). Walking and biking, hiking and camping and almost everything except the usual games and cards.”

He was Roman Catholic, stood six feet tall, weighed 161 pounds, and had grey eyes and light brown hair. He spoke fluent French from childhood. He knew Paris and Valence “intimately.”

The Karen Campaign

Operation Character was launched in February 1945 to mobilise the Karen people of eastern Burma as a guerrilla force against the retreating Japanese. The Karen Hills, between the Sittang and Salween rivers, were ideal guerrilla country — thick jungle, steep valleys, and a population with deep grievances against the Japanese occupation.

Captain Dumont was assigned to the Otter area under Lt.Col. Edgar Peacock, specifically the Otter/White sub-sector. He was also listed on team Ferret. The Otter area operated around the Mawchi road from Toungoo to Bawlake — a critical Japanese supply route.

The operation was divided into four regional groups, from north to south: Walrus (commanded by Tulloch), Otter (Peacock), Hyena (Turrall, then Howell), and Mongoose (Critchley). Together they harried and disrupted the Japanese retreat through eastern Burma.

We know from Dumont’s own writing that he held a position of real authority. His assessment of Lieutenant Calvin Ogh survives in the historical record: he wrote that Ogh “undertook the whole of the administrative and ‘Q’ side of our operation, and was invaluable in dealing with the rather difficult Karens in our area.” The fact that Dumont was writing evaluations of fellow officers tells us he was in command of his sector.

The Bench at Singapore

The photograph from the Australian War Memorial (catalogue P09211.001) shows the court during the Ishida trial — the Death Railway case. The five judges are seated at the bench, probably from left to right: Major J.C. McMath, Major A.A. Dumont, Lieutenant-Colonel P.A. Forsythe (Court President), Lieutenant-Colonel C. Honod de Froideville (Dutch military), and Major N.F. Quinton (Australian military).

The international composition of the bench for Case 084 was deliberate. Dutch and Australian officers joined the panel because their countrymen formed a significant portion of the victims. The scale of the charges — covering the entire railway construction programme — demanded a court of unusual gravity.

That Dumont, at just 25 years old, sat on this bench alongside a Judge of the Supreme Court of Japan (for the defence) and officers of considerably greater seniority speaks volumes about his legal acumen and the respect he had earned during the earlier trials.

The SOE was created on 22 July 1940 at Winston Churchill’s direction to conduct sabotage, subversion, and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Churchill’s famous instruction to Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton: “And now set Europe ablaze.”

Headquartered at 64 Baker Street, London (earning the nickname “the Baker Street Irregulars”), SOE at peak strength employed over 13,000 people, of whom about 3,200 were women. It operated across occupied Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Force 136 was SOE’s arm in Southeast Asia. Under Commander Colin Mackenzie, it ran operations across Burma, Malaya, Sumatra, Siam, and French Indochina. Burma was its largest and most active theatre, where Force 136 recruited over 20,000 personnel from at least 14 different ethnic communities.

SOE was dissolved on 15 January 1946 with just 48 hours’ notice. Most records were classified for decades; many files were destroyed. The full story is still being reconstructed from surviving documents in the National Archives HS series.