No.5828688, Private, Francis Edward HAMMOND
Aged 32
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Francis Edward Hammond was born in Hill Top Cottage, Chalk Terrace, Ixworth on 10th July 1911 (3rd qtr 1911 Bury St.Edmunds 4a:1813), son of William and Edith Sarah HAMMOND
(née BYFORD). CWGC have Edith Elizabeth but the marriage registration was Edith Sarah.
In 1921 the family were at Hill Top, Ixworth, father a horseman. In 1924 he left school and started work for Mr. F.C.Folger, one of the village blacksmiths. When Mr.Folger was killed in a road accident, Ted went to work with his father at Street Farm. When his father died in 1933, Hill Top was given up and the family scattered. Ted had a spell of working on the building of RAF Honington, returning to farm work in 1937. He married Bertha Violet TIPPLE [22-9-1909] in 1937. In the 1939 register she was at The Stores, The Fen, Pakenham with Alice MIXER and Alice's son William. Francis and Bertha's daughter, Maureen, was born later that year. They were later at Oak Cottage, Pakenham and then Ixworth Thorpe (the latter from CWGC). His widow (now Mrs ROSE) had the diary that Ted had kept whilst a prisoner of the Japanese, at great risk to himself and others. She allowed an abridged version to be published in the November 1979 "Ixworth Magazine". |
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"Ted" arrived in Singapore on the USS Wakefield on January 29th and was captured at Bukit Timah crossroads onthe surrender of Singapore to
the Japanese on 15th February 1942. Initially put to work in Changi, building a shrine to the glory of the Japanese Army. On October 16th they were moved by
train to Kanchanaburi in Thailand for work on the railway.The diary ends on 15th February 1943 His death on 16th October was recorded as due to beriberi and
dysentery.
click here to go to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website for full cemetery/memorial details |
