210543 Able Sea. Herbert William "Bert" Stafford Royal Navy HMS Electra from:Sittingbourne I was fourteen in 1942, when a telegram for my parents, informing them that my brother Herbert William Stafford (Bert) had been wounded on active service. He was serving on HMS Electra when it was sunk in the Battle of Java Sea in February 1942.
The American submarine USS S-38 picked up 54 survivors of which Bert was one. Despite his injuries being described in the telegram as 'Not reported as serious', presumably they must have been sufficiently concerning (A head injury) that he was one of the 10 critically injured that were left at the hospital in Surabaya when the remaining men were taken to Australia.
Shortly after this the Japanese over ran the island. No further news was heard of Bert for 13 months (March 1943), when we learned he was a prisoner of war.
Nothing more was heard of him until September 1945 when the war in the Far East was over. The first airmail from Bert was to my mother, telling her he was 'a free man again'. It was sent from No1 Cycle Camp Batavia Java.
His first stop on the long journey home was in Singapore. While he was there Bert and 5 other sailors were invited to dine at the Naval Barracks
with Lord and Lady Mountbatten (3rd October 1945) and he tells us in his letter that he really felt his luck was certainly in!
He sailed from there on the SS Cecilia to Colombo and eventually arrived home in November 1945.
Bert had a wife and 3 children and died in 1970 at the young age of 53.
|