Description
Object description
Folder containing a collection of original documents, photographs and press cuttings, together with photocopies of many of them, relating to his life and that of his wife, Elizabeth (whom he married in July 1940), with particular reference to his service as a Lance Bombardier in the 77th Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA) (July 1940 - March 1942) and his time as a prisoner of war in Japanese hands (March 1942 - November 1943) and including two ms letters (6pp and 8pp, the latter incomplete) from him to his wife at their home in Miles Platting, Manchester just prior to and following his embarkation on a troopship for passage to Java (circa November - December 1941) and one prisoner of war postcard sent by him from Java (early 1943), twelve official letters and communications from the RA Record Office and other organisations to his wife in response to her enquiries about her husband following the surrender of the Netherlands East Indies and then giving news of his death at sea on 29 November 1943 when the Japanese prison ship SUEZ MARU was sunk by the American submarine USS BONEFISH while on route from the Moluccas to Java (April 1942 - February 1944), two legal documents in respect of his death (March 1944) and the official scroll commemorating his death during the war, two letters and two photographs of the Singapore Memorial on which his name is recorded (1957), two photographs of him in uniform (circa 1941) and a series of press cuttings from a local Manchester newspaper, the first few giving news of him while a prisoner of war and the remainder consisting of a series of poignant notices placed by his wife (who had given birth to their only child, about whom her husband never knew, in June 1942) and family in the paper's 'in memoriam' column in the years immediately following his death.
Content description
Folder containing a collection of original documents, photographs and press cuttings, together with photocopies of many of them, relating to his life and that of his wife, Elizabeth (whom he married in July 1940), with particular reference to his service as a Lance Bombardier in the 77th Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Regiment, Royal Artillery (RA) (July 1940 - March 1942) and his time as a prisoner of war in Japanese hands (March 1942 - November 1943) and including two ms letters (6pp and 8pp, the latter incomplete) from him to his wife at their home in Miles Platting, Manchester just prior to and following his embarkation on a troopship for passage to Java (circa November - December 1941) and one prisoner of war postcard sent by him from Java (early 1943), twelve official letters and communications from the RA Record Office and other organisations to his wife in response to her enquiries about her husband following the surrender of the Netherlands East Indies and then giving news of his death at sea on 29 November 1943 when the Japanese prison ship SUEZ MARU was sunk by the American submarine USS BONEFISH while on route from the Moluccas to Java (April 1942 - February 1944), two legal documents in respect of his death (March 1944) and the official scroll commemorating his death during the war, two letters and two photographs of the Singapore Memorial on which his name is recorded (1957), two photographs of him in uniform (circa 1941) and a series of press cuttings from a local Manchester newspaper, the first few giving news of him while a prisoner of war and the remainder consisting of a series of poignant notices placed by his wife (who had given birth to their only child, about whom her husband never knew, in June 1942) and family in the paper's 'in memoriam' column in the years immediately following his death.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS