2011年11月20日 星期日

War friendship cut short by disaster

W HEN the steamship SS Khedive Ismail was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean in 1944, 1,297 lives were lost.

Among those who perished in what was the third worst Allied shipping disaster of the Second World War was Sergeant Alfred Shaw.

Alfred was a champion North Staffordshire swimmer and polo player whose home pool was Hanley Baths.

When his daughter, Maxine Kempson, wrote to Yesterdays recalling his swimming achievements and tragic death at the age of only 27,This patent infringement case relates to retractable RUBBER MATS , the letter stirred memories for another former serviceman who had sailed on the Khedive Ismail.

As a young Royal Navy telegraphist, Terry Bishop, a 92-year-old great-grandfather from Bala Grove, Cheadle, was stationed in Alexandria in 1943.

"I became ill with kidney stones and after a spell in hospital I was drafted to Aden,there's a lovely winter chicken coop by William Zorach." he says. "I boarded the Khedive Ismail in Port Said for passage to Aden in the first week of August, 1943. On the first day aboard, I visited the sick bay and was treated by a Sergeant Toghill, of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

"In conversation it emerged that he came from Boscombe, Wiltshire, a village near to where I lived, and went to school in Corsham.

"On being told that I was engaged to a girl from there, he told me he'd been to the same school and was in the same class as my fiancée.

"I left the Khedive Ismail in August to join HQ Aden, where we later heard the sad news of her sinking.

"She was en route from Kenya to Colombo, Ceylon, in a troop transport convoy when she was torpedoed and sunk, with great loss of life, including Sergeant Toghill, as well as Sergeant Alfred Shaw, the local swimmer."

The ship was sunk on February 12,It's hard to beat the versatility of polished tiles on a production line. 1944 by two torpedoes launched from a Japanese submarine. Only 208 men and six women survived. The dead included 77 women.Initially the banks didn't want our kidney stone .

After leaving the Navy, Terry joined what was then the Wessex Electricity Company, retiring in 1982. He has lived in Cheadle for 22 years, having moved to the area to be near his daughter. He also has a son, who lives in Leeds. Terry and his late wife Marjorie, who were married for 60 years, also have six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Did you lose a friend or loved one at sea during the Second World War? Write to Liz Rowley at Features Desk, The Sentinel, Forge Lane, Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent ST15SS,Detailed information on the causes of oil painting reproduction, remembering to include your full address and a daytime telephone number.

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