Quote:
Originally posted by Ali Hollington@Mar 19 2004, 09:40 AM
Not sure if this could be leading you off down the wrong track but.....,
I put 2nd July 1940 into a search engine (google) and came up with this page:
http://www.bluestarline.org/arandora.html
Basically a ship sunk by a german u-boat whilst transporting POWs, could your man have been part of or in charge of an escort party? The following is an extract from the above website, hope it helps/doesn't hinder:
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This ship was torpedoed by Gunther Prien, and actually the prisoners on the "Arandora Star" were not POWs, but Civilian Internees. They were a mixture of German/Austrians, mostly refugees from Hitler, who had been interned by the British, and "Italians". I used inverted commas around the word Italians because, although of Italian origin, they majority had lived in Britain for most of their lives, and some were even British born.
An "Arandora Star Campaign" has recently been launched, and details can be found here:
http://www.arandorastarcampaign.com/
Please note that the list of victims given on this site comes from the names released by the British Government in 1940. All these names give a place of birth in Italy etc, and none in Britain. This is not believable. Another ship, the "Ettrick" was moored next to the "Arandora Star" at Liverpool. Prisoners were placed on the ships in random order, and the "Ettrick" actually reached Canada. One of the prisoners on the "Ettrick", Glaswegian Joe Pieri, has written his story, and claims that a high % of his fellow prisoners were British born, or raised, and many did not speak Italian. Many more were naturalised British subjects. In fact Italian sailors, pulled off of merchant ships, did not think that these internees were Italians. Nazi German fellow prisoners attacked them, as they thought them to be English.
I believe that the Merchant Navy men who were killed in the "Arandora Star" incident are listed on a memorial at Tower Hill, rather than Brookwood. So, unless the CWGC decided to remember the army dead in a seperate place I don't think that Lieutenant Thomas Cartman was on the "Arandora Star".
As far as I am aware none of the drowned prisoners are remembered by the CWGC, despite the fact that some were British born/naturalised British subjects. For example there was the case of a 75 year old naturalised British subject from Hull, whose family caused such a fuss that questions about his death were asked in the House of Commons. He is not listed by the CWGC.