PAGE, Ernest

Connection with the School not yet established
He seems to be this man, but he is named on the post 1945 plaque and would therefore not be on CWGC lists
Possibly recorded too late for the WW2 plaque, but added to the supplementary 1945 plaque.





7932239, Trooper, Ernest Joseph PAGE
Aged 33


3rd King's Own Hussars, Royal Armoured Corps
Died at Sea in captivity on Monday, 29th November 1943


strongly believed to be:-
Ernest Joseph PAGE was born on 31st October 1910 in Portsmouth,(Portsmouth Q4-1910 2B:375) son of William and "Daisy" Emma Grace Darling PAGE (née HEATH).

1911 census...Aged 5 months he was at 23 Monmouth Road, North End, Portsmouth with his father William {34] a Wesleyan Methodist Evangelist born Nottingham and his mother Emma Grace Darling [30] born Bristol

He married Evelyn Beulah P BRUCE in 1937.(Walsingham Q2-1937)
His P of War card gives their address as 272 Aylsham Road, Norwich, which is where they were on the 1939 register, Ernest as a Post Office Sorting clerk/telegraphist. His mother had died in 1935 in Gloucestershire.


He was captured in Java on 8th March 1942 and died on one of the "hell ships", the "Suez Maru" on the way to Java. This was not the "usual" sinking by an Allied submarine. Once the ship was sunk by an American submarines, the Japanese ordered a minesweeper to machine gun all the survivors. The summary here is reproduced in many websites so I am not sure of the original:-

In 1943, the Japanese decided to ship the sick back to Java. A total of 640 men, including a number of Japanese sick, were taken on board the 4,645-ton passenger-cargo ship "Suez Maru" [KA-7]. 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" sailed from Port Amboina but while entering the Java Sea and about 327 kilometres east of Surabaya, Java, Netherlands East Indies, the vessel was torpedoed by the American submarine USS "Bonefish". 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 sailed off towards Batavia (Jakarta) at 16.30 hours.
Sixty-nine Japanese had died during the incident, 93 Japanese soldiers and 205 Japanese sick patients were rescued by the Japanese.
Of the 547 British and Dutch prisoners, there was reported to be just one survivor.







SUEZ MARU the only photo found, and sister ship Yoshida Maru for comparison




photo from asiawargraves.com

Ernest Page is commemorated on the Singapore memorial, column 2

click here to go to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website for full cemetery/memorial details


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