The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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228665 Edward Vickers Royal Navy HMS Sussex I'm trying to find a bit of my father-in-law's wartime history. He served on HMS Sussex in 1945 and was at the liberation of Changi in Singapore later that year. His name was Edward (Ted) Vickers and he came from Middlesbrough. He received the Burma Star. If anyone know of him or any history of the ship around that period I would love to hear from you. Update My father was serving on HMS Black Swan at about the same time and place. He recalled that they took some of the most seriously injured (and mentally damaged) ex-POWs from Changi to Australia for medical attention. The less serious were eventually returned to the UK so the Sussex might have been involved with that most harrowing of tasks. I might add my father in later life would walk for miles rather than buy Japanese goods as a consequence of what he saw at that time. As you might imagine, with the passage of time, that became a more and more a difficult job as he searched for his new TV etc. We owe so much to that generation of British men and women whose country we have inherited. - Chris Pownall. Update My father was on HMS Sussex when it left Malta in 1945 and headed for Alexandria and then Port Said then through the Suez Canal for Columbo and the base at Trincomalee. Whilst there they went out for 2-3 days at a time and bombed targets in Burma. During one of these excursions he saw HMS Squirrel (a mine sweeper) hit a mine and sink. The destroyer HMS Racehorse picked up survivors and transfered them to the Sussex. During this time the Japanese Kamakazi attacks started. One headed for the Sussex and exploded before impact, causing minor damage to the starboard quarters of the Sussex. With the end of the war declared on the 14th August 1945 the Sussex headed for Singapore and accepted the surrender of the Island on 4th September 1945 led by General Seishiro Itagaki and Vice-Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, surrendered to British forces Led by Lieutenant-General Alexander Frank Philip Christison and Vice-Admiral Cedric Swinton Holland on board the HMS Sussex in the Straits of Singapore. My father was taken ashore to signal the troop ships into Singapore with supplies and troops. He later, with another signalman Jackie Batt, went to Raffles and hoisted the Union Jack flag. The Sussex was used as a hotel ship and accepted some POWs onboard till they were shipped home. The Sussex went onto Indoniesia including Surabaya, Batavia and Semarang to drop troops and help liberate these areas as well. My dad was dropped eventually at Tanjong Priok were he stayed for a year till the Dutch came and took over. He returned to Singapore and Blakang Mati (now Sentosa) for a week before returning to the UK in 1947 on HMS Salvage Duke. He is not sure where the Sussex went after he was dropped at Tanjong Priok. - Antony Update Stoker Bob (Sharky) Ward served on HMS Sussex 1944-1945. Can any one help? The way I remember it was like this, after comming off the first dogwatch on Sunday evening when the captain announced that we would bombard Phucket, after that all hell broke loose when we were attacked by Kamikaze aircraft. Half the ship's company went down with food poisoning, the Captain put it down to going into action. I was on the starboard side of the upper deck at the time and saw the Kamikaze hit the ship. What I would like to know is, why wasn't I at action station? my action station was magazine B turret. - Sharky. Roger Walker Add to this record.  Related Content: HMS Sussex HMS Black Swan Changi Prison Prisoner of War Camp Battle of Singapore Burma & India Campaign Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.