The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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212791 Sgt. Eric Hendry Shaw Royal Air Force My father, Eric Shaw, was on the SS Anselm when it was sunk. He was a sergeant in the Royal Air Force, aged 20. He jumped off the ship as it was going down and after 20 minutes in the water he was picked up by British survey vessel HMS Challenger, and later transferred to HMS Cathay which took survivors to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Eric was based there until January 1943. During his time in the RAF Eric kept a diary which includes a detailed and vivid account of the sinking of Anselm, including events leading up to the sea journey and also the following 18 months when he was in Sierra Leone. He does mention some of his pals from that time, but only by first name or nickname. He was artistically inclined, and his diary is illustrated with many drawings of the events, people and places he has written about. I am the present custodian of the diary which is being kept as a family heirloom. I am in the process of transcribing it into MS Word format, and scanning the illustrations. When I have completed this, I will make it available to anyone who may be interested in having a copy. Brian Shaw Add to this record.  Related Content: 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.