5932931, Private, Alfred EDGLEY
Aged 23
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Born in Q3-1920 [Newmarket 3b:918],(22nd July 1919 according to his Japanese PoW card) to Samuel William and Jessie Susannah EDGLEY (née SNOWDEN) of 4 Semper Cottages, Newmarket.
A stablelad, he was employed by Walter Earl, but according to his PoW card, a valet.
In the 1939 register his parents Sam [11-2-1877] a cow man, Jessie [4-7-1878] and brother Len [11-7-1916] a gas works labourer, were at 4 Jarvis' Yard, Mill Hill, Newmarket. (same address as 4 Semper Cottages) His younger brother Leonard missed going to Singapore with the Cambridgeshires but died at home from illness, also dying in 1943.. see here His uncle William SNOWDEN of Exning died in the Great War see here |
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The 1st Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment were very heavily involved in the finals days before the surrender of Singapore to the Japanese.
The day of the surrender, 15th February 1942 was when Alfred was captured.
Alfred died of Tuberculosis at Tamarkan, Thailand, whilst a prisoner of war of the Japanese on the Burma railway. The bridges crossing the River Mae Klong (renamed after the war as Kwa Yai) were started in October 1942, using PoW labour, completed and operational by February 1943. Both the wooden and the adjacent steel bridge were subjected to numerous air raids between January and June 1945. POW labour was used to repair the wooden bridge on each occasion. The steel bridge had been dismantled in Java and shipped to Burma. The prisoner of war camp was close to the bridges and resulted in some Allied deaths due to Allied bombing raids. He was initially buried in Tamarkan, and moved to Kanchanaburi on 27th January 1946 |
Picture PA, as reproduced in Daily Mail ánd Daily Telegraph
showing the two bridges and the prison camp to right of the bridge
© Commonwealth War Graves Commission
click here to go to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website for full cemetery/memorial details
