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Where to start with researching a family member's WW2 records?

Falcon

Falcon

Well-Known Member
It is said that one of my paternal grandfather's two brothers was presumed captured by the Japanese in WW2 and never heard from again.

That literally all that my father knows. His father was a few years too young to serve in WW2, but was in the RAF during the Berlin Airlift just after WW2. Unfortunately he died a few years before I was born. My grandmother also passed away when I was ten years old.

Apparently family history was never talked about much by my father's parents. My father does not have any more information or paperwork related to it at all.

However, I do have an uncommon surname.

With only the surname to start with, how would I go about researching my great uncle's WW2 history in more detail?
 
there is a forum for the great war, dont know if there is similar for WWII. also there is a site for War Records, I think you have to pay and join to get much info but you may get his service number which is a good start as its needed for record searches in some places. Good luck.
 
E**** *********
Service Number: ****552
Army
Buried or commemorated at Singapore Memorial

"Within Kranji War Cemetery stands the SINGAPORE MEMORIAL, bearing the names of over 24,000 casualties of the Commonwealth land and air forces who have no known grave. Many of these have no known date of death and are accorded within our records the date or period from when they were known to be missing or captured. The land forces commemorated by the memorial died during the campaigns in Malaya and Indonesia or in subsequent captivity, many of them during the construction of the Burma-Thailand railway, or at sea while being transported into imprisonment elsewhere. The memorial also commemorates airmen who died during operations over the whole of southern and eastern Asia and the surrounding seas and oceans."

TimG

P.S. The date of his death corresponds to the date that a Japanese ship, full of POWs was torpedoed and sunk by the allies.
 
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Thanks for the replies.

I do not have a date of birth or service number, but the information that TimG posted may well be the correct one.

His regiment were apparently taken prisoner after the Japanese invasion of Singapore.
 
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Falcon I have a screenshot of the Japanese POW index card, I can’t read all the kanji immediately but it has the camp name, capture date and location (? South island), etc. PM me an email address and I’ll send you the screenshot.
If I find time I’ll try to translate the kanji for you.
 
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Millsman and Snufkin are experts, found so much about my great grandfather and many others
 
Falcon. I now have the ship’s name that he was on when it was sunk in 1944. I’ve messaged you a link.


 
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Thanks for that.

He survived the Japanese invasion of Singapore, and over two years in the Japanese POW camps only to die after being torpedoed by an allied submarine.

I also have another great uncle on my father's side who was in the Home Guard. He worked in a vital occupation in a factory so did not serve in the regular forces. All I know is his full name. Where would I start there?
 
there probably Home Guard records for the area he was in, I found lots on my Grandfa. from Observer corp records, he was HG before transfereing.
 
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