|
|
|
9th December 1941On this day:
If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
|
Remembering those who died this day.
- Forrester James Arthur. Pte. (d.9th December 1941)
- Forrester James Arthur. Pte. (d.9th Dec 1941)
- Pearce George Robert John. Gnr. (d.9th Dec 1941)
- Scarth Edward Robert. L/Cpl. (d.9th December 1941)
- West Thomas Ian Arthur. Sgt. (d.9th Dec 1941)
The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please
Add a Name to this List
|
|
|
The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
Announcements
- The Wartime Memories Project has been running for 24 years. If you would like to support us, a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting and admin or this site will vanish from the web.
- 18th April 2024 - Please note we currently have a huge backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 263925 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible.
- Looking for help with Family History Research?
Please read our Family History FAQ's
- The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors. If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web.
If you enjoy this site
please consider making a donation.
Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our
Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. |
|
We are now on Facebook. Like this page to receive our updates.
If you have a general question please post it on our Facebook page.
Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home. If you have any unwanted
photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them.
The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.
World War 1 One ww1 wwII second 1939 1945 battalion
Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a
Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
|
|
Want to know more about the 9th of December 1941? There are:13 items tagged 9th of December 1941 available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
|
Stories from 9th December 1941
|
L/Cpl. Edward Robert "Ted" Scarth. British Army, 1st Battalion The Buffs East Kent Rgiment. (d.9th December 1941) This is in memory of my Uncle Ted, who I never met as he died in WW2 only 21 years old. He was my father's older brother. He believed really strongly in fighting Fascism. Mosley's Blackshirts used to march through east London where his family lived and hold rallies. My grandmother Millicent {Ted's mother} used to tell me stories of having to go the the local police station to bail Ted out after getting into fights trying to break up the rallies etc.
Both my grandmother and Ted were members of the Communist Party during the war as were lots of people at the time as they believed Communism was the antidote to Hitler and Facism. Ted had been learning Russian at night school because of this. He was proud to fight in the war, and with The Buffs East Kent Regiment was sent to the Western Desert to fight. I have read letters that he sent home, obviously no content about details of where they were etc but he believed in the war he was fighting and also wrote of how much he missed everyone back home. He and his wife Edie had a daughter Edith born in 1940. He spoke of maybe going to live in South Africa after the war.
He was killed in action on 9th December 1941 in Tobruk, Libya and is buried in the Knightbridge Cemetery at Acroma, Libya.
I think of how awful it must have been for my grandmother and father and his wife to hear that news so close to Christmas. My grandmother placed a memorial in the local Hackney Gazette which read "We are still fighting, Ted". She wanted the inscription on his grave to be written in Russian and the War Graves Commision have translated it for me. It reads "The most holy and heartfelt tears that I have seen in this world are the tears of poor mothers".
I am very proud of Ted and I am told I look like him. Dorothy Scarth
|
Pte. James Arthur Forrester. British Army, 1st Btn. Essex Regiment. (d.9th December 1941) James Forrester was serving in the Western Desert and reported as POW on 29th November 1941, then as missing at sea, then as died at sea on 9th December 1941.Robin Forrester
|
Sgt. Thomas Ian Arthur West. Royal Air Force, No. 14 Operational Training Unit. (d.9th Dec 1941) Sergeant (Pilot) Thomas West was the son of Arthur and Amy Elizabeth West, of Cashelgarron.
He was 23 when he died and is buried in Drumcliffe (St. Columa) Church of Ireland Churchyard, Co. Sligo, Ireland.
S Flynn
|
Gnr. George Robert John Pearce. British Army, 60th Field Regiment Royal Artillery . (d.9th Dec 1941) George Pearce is remembered on the Alamein Memorial. He was married to my aunt Lillian Dora (Allen). No other information is known.Simon
|
Pte. James Arthur Forrester. British Army, 1st Btn. Essex Regiment. (d.9th Dec 1941) My uncle Jimmy, James Forrester enlisted in the Essex Regiment as a Regular soldier on 11th Mar 1936 and was trained by Gallipoli Squad at Warley Barracks, Brentwood.
He signed on for 7 years full-time service and 5 years on Reserve. In April 1936 he paid a Life Membership Subscription for the Essex Regiment Association and on 28th June 1936 was confirmed in the Regimental Chapel, aged 18.
In January 1938 Jimmy was posted overseas to the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment, initially to Egypt and Palestine then for over a year to Cyprus. He then returned to North Africa, firstly to Sudan then Egypt. In November 1941 the Battalion was involved in the epic struggle for Ed Duda during the successful break-out from Tobruk.
He was initially reported as missing then as a POW on 29th of November 1941, then again as missing at sea together with 9 other members of his unit, his death is shown in the Army Roll of Honour as presumed dead at sea whilst a POW on 9th Dec 1941 and he is commemorated on the Alamein Memorial.
My Father, Jonny, serving with the Royal Navy on the cruiser HMS Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, did not receive the news of his elder brothers death until July 1942, when he was told that he had been killed at Tobruk.
As I was curious as to the circumstances of Jimmy's death, I have undertaken further research, both using the internet and at the National Archives Kew.
On 8th Dec 1941 the Italian Motor Vessel Sebastiano Veniero had left Benghazi harbour carrying a large draft of 2100 POWs: UK, South African, New Zealander and Australian troops, all captured by the Germans in North Africa, with rations sufficient for the 36-hour dash across to Italy. The ship had been built in Amsterdam in 1939 under the name Jason or Jantzen, was requisitioned by the Italian Navy and renamed Sebastiano Veniero. In the middle of the next afternoon, just off Cape Methoni, 5 miles off Pilos on the south-west coast of the Greek Peloponnese, she was struck by a torpedo fired by the Royal Navy Grampus-class submarine HMS Porpoise. She was hit between the No.1 and No.2 hold on the starboard side, the force of the explosion hurled the heavy hatchway covers to mast height, the falling timbers killing dozens of men trying to escape from the hold. From the flooded No.1 hold only five men survived. The Italian hospital ship Arno appeared on the scene and according to one account, ploughed its way through the men struggling in the water and kept on sailing, its priority being the rescue of the crew of a German ship sunk nearby (another account says that the Arno rescued men from the Sebastiano Veniero and there is no record of another sinking).
Five hundred or more of the prisoners packed in the holds were killed.
As soon as they had recovered from the shock of the explosion, surviving POWs rushed to the decks up ropes or still usable ladders. The rugged coastline of Greece could be seen several miles away with heavy seas breaking on it, and lashed by a bitterly cold wind.
The Italian captain and most of the panic stricken crew, reportedly, had taken themselves off in two of the three lifeboats, the other having capsized in launching, and some of the POWs jumped overboard in an attempt to swim to the shore. Nine New Zealanders reached one of the boats, which eventually made it to a nearby uninhabited island where they spent the night, and they were taken over to the mainland the next day. Fifteen got away on a raft they had managed to launch, but more than half of these died of exposure.
Meanwhile a German naval engineer officer had taken control of the ship, explaining to those on board that the engines would still go and that there was a good chance of reaching safety. He ordered everybody aft in order to keep the weight off the damaged bow and organised rescue parties to bring up to the officers' quarters the injured from the lower decks.
Although the wind and sea were still strong, the ship was brought in stern first and beached at about 5 p.m. broadside on to an open piece of coast. A South African lance corporal, Bernard Friedlander of the 3rd Battalion, Transvaal Scottish Regiment, swam ashore with a rope, which took him 90 minutes, the rope was then used to haul a cable ashore, which was made fast on land. Nearly 1,600 survivors then used the cable to reach safety. In spite of the bitter cold many also now swam the remaining fifty yards to the shore, and when darkness fell many others made their way to safety along other ropes secured to the rocks.
The next day dawned fine, and those still on board came off in the remaining lifeboat or on stretchers slung to the ropes. A check made later showed that a little over two-thirds of the British and Commonwealth prisoners had survived, the remainder (including 44 New Zealanders and Jimmy) having perished either in the explosion or in the events which followed. One source gives different figures for the total number of prisoners killed: either 300 or 450 - 500. I have confirmed in the National Archives that Jimmy was among those killed.
Sebastiano Veniero remained stranded at Methoni, and on 15 December the British T-class submarine HMS Torbay sank her with a torpedo.
The German officer saw Friedlander's heroism on 9 December and recommended the lance corporal for a UK bravery award. In July 1945 Friedlander was awarded the George Medal. In 1947 King George VI toured South Africa, and at a ceremony in Johannesburg on 31 March personally decorated Friedlander with the medal.
British authorities tried to confirm the names of the Allied soldiers who were killed on the ship by writing to surviving POWs in German and Italian camps but with limited success. However, Jimmy is named, together with other members of 1st Essex Regt. in the National Archives File reference WO361/133.
Perhaps it is a consolation that Jonny did not know that his brother Jimmy had been killed by a British submarine, particularly as in his later life he worked on the maintenance of a later British submarine also named HMS Porpoise.
Robin Forrester
|
|
