3529515 Pte Frank Wadsworth Hewkin, 1st Bn, died 12-6-1943

[grimmy]

Photo taken on Wednesday (25th April):

[rafboy]

Thank's for sharing grimmy.
Do you have any other names for the men in the group photo and do you know where it was taken?
I have had a lool at the 2 POW group photos and cannot see him in them.
Cliff

[grimmy]

Hi Cliff,

No and no, I'm afraid. The photo was sent to me by Frank's nephew with no further information.

[Robert Bonner]

1st Manchesters arrived in Singapore on 20th October 1938.

The officer in the photograph is Lieutenant Rex King-Clark MC, who commanded number 11 Platoon of C Company.

Rex left Singapore in March 1939. In his book Free For a Blast, still available from the museum bookshop, Rex records:

Before leaving Singapore, the Mess was kind enough to dine me out.  Less happily, I had to say goodbye to my platoon, which I had commanded in Egypt, Palestine and Singapore for two years.  The platoon sergeant invited me along to their barrack room at teatime where, over something rather stronger, he presented me with an inscribed table lamp.  We then had our photograph taken - smiling, tanned, a neat little unit of Manchester men.  Thirty-two strong in March 1939, only half survived Japanese captivity.

Robert