VJ Day

The 80th Anniversary of VJ Day falls on Friday August 15th.

Memories and photographs are being collected from families of Torpointers who lost their lives in the Far East, and also information about those who survived. TAHC do not wish for them to be the “Forgotten Army.”

Below is just a sample of the information we have about Torpoint servicemen who were inthe Far East during WW2.

You can find out more by visiting the Torpoint Archives to see our display this month and speaking to one of our volunteers.

Memories and photographs are being collected from the families of Torpointers who lost their lives in the Far East,and also information about those who survived.

TAHC do not wish for them to be the “Forgotten Army.”

Chief ERA Leslie George Perkins, aged 32, died in HMS TAMAR, Hong Kong on October 2nd 1942.

He is commemorated on the Plymouth Hoe Memorial.

This is only part of the story. We are very grateful to Leslie’s nieces, .Jill Geary and Paddy Knott, for sharing family photographs and documents.

He advanced to be a Chief Engineer Room Artificer (ERA) serving in HMS TAMAR, Hong Kong . The Japanese overran Hong Kong and Leslie became a Prisoner Of War (POW) on Christmas Day 1941

We know that life was very grim in POW camps but the inmates tried to keep positive and sent optimistic letters to their families. This letter written by Leslie to his parents on 2nd Sept 1942 is not in his usual copperplate script - maybe they were ordered to write in capital letters so that the Japanese censors could read them. This letter would have reached Torpoint several weeks after Leslie died

You can find out more about the Lisbon Maru sinking here: http://Roll-of-Honour.pdf

We know that life was very grim in POW camps, but the inmates tried to keep positive and sent optimistic letters to their families.

In the last week of September nearly 2,000 Allied and Chinese prisoners were herded onto a freighter, the Lisbon Maru. The prisoners were to be taken to Japan as slave labourers.

Coded messages from informants were not received by the Allies. There was no indication that this freighter had human cargo, so it was torpedoed by the USS Grouper.

The Lisbon Maru began to sink slowly. Japanese soldiers on board were taken off immediately, just leaving a basic crew, but the holds containing the prisoners were battened down. Desperate battering efforts eventually allowed POWs who were well enough to reach the top deck, but they were under continual attack from guns and bayonets.

At first the Japanese rescue boats would not pick up POWs from the water, but this order was eventually reversed. Flotsam was used to keep some swimmers afloat, some were picked up by Chinese fishermen, and a few swam to nearby islands.

Most of the escapees were recaptured. Only 3 POWs made a complete escape back to Europe.

Within 24 hours of the torpedo hitting the Lisbon Maru, 828 Allied POWs, including Leslie Perkins , had died, and over 200 more died of disease or exposure in the next few months.

The letter below reflects the worries of many families of serving personnel.

Five months after his capture, Edith Perkins is still desperate to know of the whereabouts of not just Leslie, but also of Victor Bruce. During WW2 the Red Cross responded to or sent 2,676,220 letters and telegrams from Great Britain alone