Looking for info on my ex fepow ancestor - 1st Battalion

[Bleaseydoesit]

Hi all!

I hope everyone is well. I’ve been researching into my ancestor and have managed to find quite a few things on him but am struggling to find much on his earlier years in the Manchester regiment.

His name was L/cpl Charles George Blease , service number 3528232 with the 1st Battalion Manchester Regiment
He enlisted 21st October 1935

He was born 28/11/1918, but was underage when enlisting so numerous records like his Liberation Questionnaire and his Japanese POW index card list his birth year as 1917 and 1916 respectively.

He was captured in Singapore in February of 1942 during the fall of Singapore. He was stationed at many camps along the Burma Railway (first starting out in Changai Prison) and survived to see liberation from the Ubon Airfield camp in 1945. He died back home in Manchester in 1946 in an unfortunate accident.

Here is a picture of his liberation questionnaire via the cofepow website (the photo quality on the website is quite poor so apologies for that); he has a decoration in Palestine so I am assuming this is from the Arab Revolt?

I’m not very knowledgeable on military history so would like to know as much as possible that is relevant to his journey but it is hard to sift through all the copious amount of info especially when you’re not very experienced in anything to do with military history and research lol

I am currently looking at some topics on this site which are helpful but thought it also best to make a post here myself asking as well incase there is anything someone can provide that will be helpful!

I have a lot of stuff on him during his time in Burma on the railways and the camps he was in and his medical history, but not much on his journey in the regiment before being captured in 1942.

Also I can post some of his story of his time on the Burma railway with some accompanying documents in another post if anyone is curious to see, where would be best to post this?

Thanks everyone!

[Tim Bell]

Hi Bleasey,
Hoping one of the WWII experts will come back to you.
I checked back and found Charles father, also Charles George, enlisted in 8th Bn in the Great War and served at Home in the Royal Defence Corps, probabley guarding POW Camps.  He had been a career soldier in the Royal Garrison Artillery and his brother, Joseph had served in 63rd Regiment of Foot - the predecessor of 1st Bn Manchester Regiment.  You have a great heritage to research.
Welcome to the Forum
Tim

[Bleaseydoesit]

This adds up as we do have his father listed as Charles George on the family tree too. I remember briefly seeing something of his fathers during the First World War when researching but I never looked further into it because i was so caught up in my other research but once I am done with said research I will definitely be looking into this as I didn’t realise any of the info you’ve just said, especially about Joseph!

Exciting news will deffo be making note of this to come back to later. I didn’t realise how many family members were military.

Did you perhaps see a service number for Charles George snr ? I will try and apply for his army service records too

Thanks Tim!

[Bleaseydoesit]

Big thanks to everyone and especially Cliff on this forum who reached out to me about my other separate post and ended up helping me lots on other parts of L/Cpl Charles George Blease’s life and military service. Lovely friendly people who are happy to help , I appreciate it guys!!  :-)