FREDERICK WILLIAM MILLS
Frederick is not remembered on the war memorial at Christchurch Park.
Born: 1922, Ipswich.
Died: 21st September 1944; age 22; Lost at sea on the Hofuku Maru – Japanese PoW – Thailand-Burma Railway.
Captured during the fall of Singapore 1942.
Residence: 85, Shakespeare Road, Ipswich.
Captured: 15th February 1942.
Rank: Private; Service Number: 5836430.
Regiment: Cambridgeshire Regiment, 1st Battalion.
Final resting place unknown.
Memorial Reference:
Column 60.
Kranji,
Singapore.
Relatives Notified & Address: Son of Frederick Mills, & of Ethel Maud Thurston Mills, of Offham, Sussex.
Father: Frederick Mills, died 1929, Ipswich.
Mother: Ethel Maud Thurston Mills (nee Woolnough), born April 1892, Chesham, Buckinghamshire.
Probate to Ethel Maud Thurston Mills – widow.
21st September 1944
The Hofuku Maru cargo ship carrying 1,289 British and Dutch prisoners of war in squalid and inhumane conditions. The ship being part of a convoy consisted of 10 other ships, 5 of which caring a total of 5,000 POWs. Most of the men had been captured at Singapore in 1942 and were being used as slave labour. The Japanese decided to move the POW’s to Japan to work in factories, mines and shipyards.
80 miles north of Corregidor in the Philippines. The ship was sunk by an American aircraft, which they believed the ships to be caring cargo for the Japanese war effort. 1,047 POW’s died on board unable to escape from the hold. Those who were able to break out spent five days at sea clinging to wreckage, most were recaptured by the Japanese. All 11 ships were sunk.
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