215716 Henry William Farrell Royal Marines HMS Repulse from:Plymouth Henry William Farrell was born in 1916 and enlisted in 1936. He lived in Plymouth, Devon.
He was a Royal Marine on HMS Repulse when it was sunk by a Japanese aerial attack off Malaya on 10th December 1941 with the loss of 513 men. It seems that speculation still surrounds the subsequent actions of the Japanese pilots as they did not interfere with the rescue of survivors. The rescuing destroyers took them to Singapore naval base. Shortly after the sinking, the remainder of Marines from HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, which was also sunk, merged forces with remnants of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, becoming known as the Plymouth Argylls. They took part in a series of land actions against the Japanese. They were ill prepared for tropical warfare and without air-cover so it was a mission doomed from the onset. Subsequently on February 15th 1942, the Argylls were led by a piper from Tyarsell Park Singapore, into 3 and a half years incarceration.
Henry was held in the flowing camps: Changi, Havelock Road, Kinkaseki, Hindato, Non Pladuk and No 17 Fukuoka
|