Posted 13 years ago
Mcgarrett50
(23 items)
These are the service record of my Great Uncle George Perry, he was a Leading Stoker 1 in the Royal Australian Navy on the HMAS Perth. This ship was sunk on March 1 1942 by a series of Japanese torpedos in the Battle of Sunda Strait along with the USS Houston. Of the 681 men aboard 353 were killed, my uncle was one of them . The remaining 328 men were captured as POW,s and forced to build the Burma Railway, 106 of them died in captivity and 218 were repatriated after the wars end. My Uncle Joined the Royal Navy in 1938 when he was 21 yrs old in 1939 he requested a transfer to the Royal Australian Navy and was approved to transfer on July 1 1939 to the Perth on her commisioning he stayed with this ship thoughout her time at sea though many battles and honours including Atlantic and Malta Convoys and the evacuations of Greece and Crete before moving to the pacific and her final end .When my Uncle George was killed he was only 25 yrs old .He was one of 4 brothers of the other 3, the eldest joined the Australian Army serving in Libya as a "Rat of Tobruk" and the 2 remaining served in the Aust Merchant Navy . It is amazinging to me how much all these young men did in such short lives .With Remembrance Day approuching I thought this was an appropriate momento .I will try to get some better close up as well Thankyou
thankyou regg243 I have added the extra photos and some more info
Well as I am just discovering all this about my family ,Im really quite amazed myself ! I was born in Balmain but we moved to Canada when I was 7 so really had not much contact with our family since then other than the odd visit so none of this really came up .But with the Relly,s getting older Ive started to search myself . You never really know if family stories are true or not ! lol ! Thankyou for the kind comment.
I was going to ask about that ,I didnt realize they were still powered by coal at that time ,I just assumed it was an old fashioed term still used and he was like a mechanic ! That must have been a heck of a hard job !! As far as we,ve been told all 3 brothers that went to sea started at age 14, so hard to imagine.
Its hard to imagine how much has changed so quickly really. The ship you mention above is that how you got your SI name ?
Glad to see you posted .
Thank you Pop !
Ive attached a photo of my Great Uncle .
Thankyou Kevin Ive also posted some Seaman,s photos of his father early 1900,s
The Burma Railway's most historically depicted portion was the Bridge 277, 'the bridge over the River Kwai'. This bridge was immortalised by Pierre Boulle in his book and the film based on it, The Bridge on the River Kwai.
There was tremendous death loss on this railway const. project, it was a result of the Japanese treatment of the soldiers, but more significantly all the bridges & other const. was based on the engineering specs for standard gauge railways.
One Japanese engineer had worked in the U S prior to the War on railway construction, he took home a reference book with him on bridge construction.
The only problem with this was that it was for standard gauge railway construction. The Burma railway was narrow gauge & did not need to carry the heavy loads of the standard gauge railways. They could have built the railway much quicker & with less death loss if it had been built to narrow gauge specs.
Just read your post while doing some family research. My wife is the grand daughter of George's eldest brother, Bill. We have a bit on the family history as well as Bill's service records. would like to get in touch and share these memories. sanbar47@gmail.com