No. 5827519, Lance Corporal, Wilfred GATHERCOLE
Aged 25
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Born in Lakenheath on 21st February 1919 (Mildenhall Q1-1919 4A:1200 Son of Bernard William and Hannah Charlotte F. GATHERCOLE (née CRANE) of 41 Back Street, Lakenheath. In the 1939 register, at 41 Back Street, Lakenheath were his father Bernard William [11-4-1885] farm worker; his mother [6-12-1883]; brothers James [17-12-1907] farmer, brother Bernard [29-1-1910] farm worker and Albert Noah [11-8-1916] farm worker; sister Gladys May [11-5-1915] later FINNIE and Agnes Maud LOVERING [4-3-1911] married domestic. There are 2 closed records. All the family were born in Lakenheath. Wilfred is believed to be the cousin of Jack GATHERCOLE :- see here |
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Wilfred was captured by the Japanese in Singapore. It is not known when or why he was mentioned in despatches From the book "God's without reason" Capt. C.F.Blackater 1948 Capt.Blackater was assigned to start a pig and duck farm (at Tamarkan ?), everything had to be constructed from scratch. The Captain states that he was lucky enough to get L/Cpl Gathercole from the Cambridgeshire Regiment to help. He was full of praise for him during his time running the farm. When the Captain was ill with dysentry and ulcers he describes how Gathercole washed him, fetched and carried for him and piggy backed him to and from the latrines. As times got more normal L/Cpl Gathercole became the Captain's batman. With time and better conditions men began to improve physically and the Japs started to send groups of men back to Singapore to be transported to Japan. The Captain says the last time he saw faithful Gathercole was when he was amongst 3,000 men marching out of the camp. On 4th September 1944 a convoy left Singapore, amongst the vessels were two ships with over 1,2000 prisoners of war on board being taken to mainland Japan for forced labour. About 900 were on the 'Kachidoki Maru'[KA-15] and 1,300 on the 'Rakuyo Maru' [KA-25]. On the morning of the 12th September the US submarine 'Sealion' torpedoed the Rakuyo Maru and just before midnight that same day the US submarine 'Pampanito' torpedoed the Kachidoki Maru. At 22:54, LtCdr (later Rear Admiral-Ret) Paul E. Summers’ (USNA '36) USS PAMPANITO (SS-383) fired three torpedoes at KACHIDOKI MARU and got one hit in No. 7 hold that caused flooding. At 23:15, KACHIDOKI MARU stopped and foundered. At 23:37, she sank by the stern. 12 sailors and 476 passengers (including the POWs) were KIA. The escorts rescued 521 POWs and transferred them to KIBITSU MARU for Japan. American submarines later returned and rescued 159 survivors of whom seven died enroute to Saipan. In all, 92 Australian and 60 British ex-POWs survived . These Japanese vessels came to be known as the "Hell Ships" due to the inhuman treatment of the prisoners on board. |
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