MOORE, Joseph John


No.C/J 110244, Able Seaman, Joseph John MOORE
Aged 32


H.M.S. Chakdina, Royal Navy
Killed by Enemy Action on 5th December 1941


Joseph John Moore was born on 1st February 1909 in Darsham, Suffolk (1st qtr 1909 Blything 4a:1071) son of Robert John and Bessie Florence MOORE (née BISHOP).

1911 census...Aged 2, he was at 18 Homefield Road, Wimbledon with his mother B.Florence MOORE [39] as visitors to the house of builder Thomas HOLLOWAY. His mother had been married 16 years and had 5 children. His father was back at Silletts Lane, Darsham with Joseph's brother Andrew and sister Honor and grandmother Ellen MOORE.

The family moved to Sudbury where he attended North Street School. Joseph had a brother and 3 sisters and the family lived at 1 Gardenside, Croft Road, Sudbury. His father was a platelayer on the Great Eastern Railway.

He married Dorothy Eileen Friedar BIRD [25-7-1909] of Church Road, Great Cornard in 1st September 1934 at St Andrew's Church, Great Cornard. They had two children, David J [6-9-1938] and Hilda [1936].

Joseph served in the Royal Navy for 7 years, and then, in 1933, he joined the police force. After marriage he lived in the police house at Ixworth. In the 1939 register he and his wife and 2 children were at the Police House, Ixworth. As a reservist he was recalled to the Navy when war broke out. This meant that Dorothy and the children had to leave the police house so they went back to Cornard to live with Dorothy's parents.returned to Great Cornard to live with her parents in Church Road.

His brother Robert died as a Japanese P o W in 1934 and is commemorated in Sudbury.


He enlisted in the Royal Navy on 7th May 1924, as a boy sailor, at HMS Ganges. At the age of 18, becoming a regular seaman signed for 12 years, (7 plus 5 on Reserve) he was 6 feet 2.75 inches tall, chest 37.25, brown eyes, dark brown hair.
On completion of his 7 years (1933) he then joined the Police, being posted to Ixworth.
He was mobilised on 4th December 1939 and quickly posted to HMS Chakdina on 2nd January 1940, and presumed dead on 5th December 1941 due to "enemy action".
Chakdina was built in Scotland as a passenger/cargo ship for the British India Steam Navigation Company. In 1940 she was taken over by the Royal Navy as H.M.S. Chakdina and fitted with two 3 ponder guns (later with two 4 inch and one 12 pounder) as an Armed Boarding Vessel. On 5th December 1941, sailed from Tobruk for Egypt with around 600 men including 380 wounded soldiers with officers and medical staff. At 9pm an Italian aircraft dropped a torpedo and hit the ship's after hold. She sank in three minutes. Some not seriously wounded reached the escorting destroyer HMS Farndake. Some 400 men perished. .



Constable Moore......................Dorothy and Joseph photos on http://www.cornard.info/community/history/roll_of_honour/joseph_john_moore.htm



photo CWGC

Joseph Moore is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial 43:2
and is also commemorated in Great Cornard, Sudbury and on the plaque in Bury St.Edmunds Police Station.

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


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