Private Brian Frank Tyson died of malaria at Bisroot on the Palong River, Northern Johore, on January 26th, 1943, at the age of 38.
A New Zealander, he was a student at the Otago School of Mines from 1924 to 1928, graduating with the degrees of B.Sc. (Geol.) and B.Eng. (Min.), and thereupon took up a position as drill superintendent with the Siamese Tin Syndicate on an alluvial deposit in Otago. In July, 1929, he was appointed assistant mining engineer, Pahang Consolidated Co., Ltd., at Sungei Lembing, Pahang, F.M.S., and seven years later was promoted mining engineer, becoming underground manager in 1939.
His whereabouts were unknown after the Japanese invasion of Malaya but it is said that he remained voluntarily to assist in the operation of a secret radio transmitter, and, in 1945, Mr. Tyson was reported to have been mentioned in a letter from a member of the Institution who had been with the same company and was in Malai prisoner-of-war camp. The report of his death was received from the New Zealand Missing and Prisoners of War Agency.
Mr. Tyson was elected to Associateship of the Institution in 1939.
Vol. 55, Trans IMM 1945-56, pp.579-80
[See: Sixty Years of Tin Mining: A History of the Pahang Consolidated Company, 1906-1966, by Pahang Consolidated Co. Ltd, 1966, p.46].
