ALAN FREDERICK WEBB  /  ALLENBY WEBB

This man is mentioned in the Bata Record for 1938 when he won 15/- for being Pounder No. 2 in the Leather Factory, he worked in Department 422. He was born  in Hampshire on 9th October 1918 to May Webb. Morris Webb then moved to Laindon Essex  and started employment for the Bata Shoe Company in June 1935. Prior to this he was employed as an Assistant for W. Charatt.

Alan was a Gunner in the Royal Artillery Service No: 1507596

Alan loss his life 29th November 1943

Allenby Webb

 

 

Prisoner of War Record
Certificate of Birth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following details are what happened to Alan when he was taken from the POW camp to the ship SUEZ MARU

Suez Maru
Sunk 29th November 1943

by USS Bonefish, off Kangean Islands 6º 22′ South by 116º 35′ East.
In 1943, the Japanese decided to ship the sick back to Java. A total of 640 men, including a number of Japanese sick patients, were taken on board the 4,645-ton passenger-cargo ship Suez Maru. In two holds, 422 sick British (including 221 RAF servicemen) and 127 sick Dutch prisoners, including up to twenty stretcher cases, were accommodated. The Japanese patients filled the other two holds.

Escorted by a minesweeper W-12, the Suez Maru set sail from Port Amboina but while entering the Java Sea and about 327 kilometers east of Surabaya, Java, Netherlands East Indies, the vessel was torpedoed by the American submarine USS Bonefish commanded by Cdr. Tom Hogan. The ship started to list as water poured into the holds drowning hundreds, many managed to escape the holds and swam away from the sinking ship. The Japanese mine sweeper W-12 picked up the Japanese survivors, leaving between 200 and 250 men in the sea. At 14.50, the minesweeper, W-12, under orders from Captain Kawano,  opened fire, using a machine gun and rifles. Rafts and lifeboats were then rammed and sunk by the W-12. The firing did not cease till all the prisoners were killed, the minesweeper then picked up speed and sped off towards Batavia (Jakarta) at 16.30 hours.

Sixty-nine Japanese had died during the attack,  93 Japanese soldiers and 205 Japanese sick patients were rescued by the Japanese.  Of the 547 British and Dutch prisoners all died.

 

 

 

 

 

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