230896 Pte. Samuel James Henry Hulse British Army 1st Battalion Kings Own Royal Regiment Lancaster from:Crewe, Cheshire This story was passed on to me from my elder brother. I was only five & a half years when the WW2 started. Samuel Hulse, my uncle, relates a story when he & his fellow prisoners were working on a railway track and the guard in charge apparently lost his false eye in a disturbance, and had the prisoners looking for it, story has it that it was eventually found. This incident caused some slight amusement in a what must have been a drab and repetitive, drudgery day.
Sam was captured in Leros, Dodeconese Islands after a very short battle in November 1943. He was torpedoed 17th of August 1942 on HMT Princess Margerite but was one of the fortunate few to survive. I have a group photo of other fellow comrades in a camp but I don't know where it was taken but I do know that his aunt in Canada enlarged it and sent it to my grandmother in Cheshire, there are names on the back of the original, small photo(that I understand were sent to all relatives back home).
I recently bought a (book called SBS in WW2 by Gavin Mortimer & one of the main men mentioned in the book was Dick Holmes who it appears is on the photo. It could be that another was Duggie Pomford, it would be good to know more about the photo & it's people. The men of SBS in this book were transporting troops by boat in the Agean at the time, they left Alexandria, on 2/11/43 not knowing where their destination would be & arrived on Leros on 5/11/43. If anyone has any information on the photo or any connection with other facts I would be most grateful if they could get back to me.
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