Stratford Alan Stanley GILLATT PoW

[rigillatt]

Good evening all. I live in South Africa. I am married and we have three children and 5 grand children. A son lives in Australia, another in London and our daughter lives in South Africa. I came to South Africa in about August 1947 when my father got a job here as a teacher. My interests are wild life and photography.

My father Stratford Alan Stanley Gillatt was a Japanese prisoner of war from 1942 to 1945. I have a diary of his days as a P.O.W. on Java Island. An interesting aspect of his story is that he was sentenced to death at Bandoeng Camp for carrying a letter for a friend from Cycle Camp on 24 July 1945. Each day if he saw a guard heading his way he thought it was his time to be shot.However , with the Americans dropping the bombs on Japan in early August 1945 things suddenly improved in the camp and he lived to tell the tale.

I am now now trying to piece together his story from the time he joined the air sea rescue at Tayport in 1940 until he arrived back home in about October 1945.

This is where I will have to make use of your archives. I have already searched for Stanley Gillatt, Stratford Gillatt and Alan Gillatt but nothing comes up.

Please can anyone help me find more information on my father.

Kind Regards,

Richard.

[Pam Downes]

Hello Richard,

Welcome to British-Genealogy.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'make use of our archives'. Brit-Gen is a genealogy forum, and as such its only archives are messages posted over the years. If you came to us via Forces War Records, this link will explain our connection.
https://www.british-genealogy.com/th...rs-Please-Read

FWR have two references to your father though I doubt whether they will tell you any more about his captivity than you already know.
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk...of-war-1942-46
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk...-held-in-japan
(You will have to pay to access them. Scroll down the relevant page, and just enter the surname into the search box.)

Your father's service records are still held by the Ministry of Defence. Details of how to apply for them can be found in this link.
https://www.british-genealogy.com/th...-WW2-amp-after
You need to send a cheque for thirty pounds, and somewhere in my bookmarks I have a link to what happened to someone else who lived abroad, so next time I'm on my computer I'll have a look for it.

Pam

[rigillatt]

Good morning Pam.

Thank you so much for your prompt reply to my post.

We are off to the Kruger Park for two weeks tomorrow so I will look into the two web sites you mention when we get back.

I will also post on the forum to see if any of the listees can be of help.

Kind Regards,

Richard.

[Pam Downes]

Morning Richard,

Firstly, I've realised that your original post was in the 'Introduce yourself' forum but as it contained a query (which has now been at least partly answered) I've sprinkled some fairy dust and moved it to the more appropriate 'WW2 1939-1945' forum and changed the title of the thread to 'Stratford Alan Stanley Gillatt PoW'.

I've found the bookmark I referred to, but (a) it was for the army and (b) the link in it no longer works, but the good news is that I found the information I was looking for.

"When you submit your application please also send a photocopy of your father’s death certificate and an International Money Order or bankers draft made out in £30 sterling as directed"

I can't find an email address, so I would suggest that in the first instance you write to the RAF 3rd Party Disclosure Team at RAF Cranwell (full address at the top of the Part 2 form) explaining that you live in South Africa, giving your father's full name, service number, date of birth, brief details about him joining the RAF, and that he was a PoW, and asking if they could possibly confirm that they hold a record for him before you go to the expense of obtaining an IMO or banker's draft. Give them your email address to reply to. The person who had the army query did this and was told that a record existed, so I don't see why the RAF can't be as helpful.

Any further queries you have about your father or the camp should be posted in this thread. Duplicate threads are not allowed, and will either be merged with the original thread or deleted.

Pam

[rigillatt]

Hi Pam,

Thank you ever so much for all this information and for making use of your fairy dust..

In order to assist other forum members I attach a photo of my father when he was still with air sea rescue.

Looking at the photo he is first on the left seated on the bench.



From here he went to Singapore in September 1941 to be stationed at Seletar Transit Camp.

When the Japanese attacked Singapore in February 1942 he somehow managed to escape and get to Batavia on Java Island.

In March 1942 the Japanese invaded Java and he again managed to flee from Batavia and again somehow got to Probolingo on the east of Java and the back to Tasik Malaya. Looking at a 1952 map of Java it appears to be a distance of about 500 miles.Again I cannot find any information on how he got to these places.

On 12 March 1942 the Netherlands East Indies capitulated to the Japanese and he was interned at Tasik Malaya.

Between 12 March 1942 and 24 September 1945 he was sent to the following camps:

Djoackarta Airfield.
Sorabaya.
Haruku Island and Amahai.
Spent 9 months in hospital after returning to Batavia from Haruku Island.
Cycle Camp
Bandoeng Camp where he was sentenced to death for carrying a letter from a fellow prisoner at Cycle Camp to Bandoeng Camp.
Cycle Camp.

On 14 September 1945 when he was returned to Cycle Camp he was told that the England , America and Japan had made friends.

On 24 September he was returned to Singapore and during October 1945 he was on a boat back to England.

The original story together with photos, maps and documents is much longer than the above but if the above can help me find out how he escaped from Singapore or how he managed to get around Java for 12 days would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Richard.

[helachau]

A very warm welcome to Brit-Gen. I appreciate you have confined your search to 1940-45 period and you may very well have these details already. If so, pl. ignore this post.

Stratford's travel details on FindMypast gave a Dorset address (Valley Road, Swanage) and I found two 1934 newspaper articles about an S.A.S Gillatt linked to the 4th Battallion Dorset R. Checking the London Gazette it confirmed the full name -

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices

Put "gillatt" in Text search and restrict Publication Date to 01/01/1934 to 01/06/1934 - should return 2 hits and confirm full name.

I also spotted a 1929 newspaper item where an S A S Gillatt was acting as a steward on Canford School's sports day.

[StintonLomas]

There was an Alan S S Gillatt born in 1911 living in Tunstall Kent in 1939, he was involved in a Dry Cleaning business
Find My Past shows 7 docs covering his PoW years. there are 3 different service numbers, but maybe one is his actual number and the others are PoW numbers

[fentart]

Dear Richard,
I am a volunteer archivist at your father's old prep school in western Canada. I can only add a little 'hearsay' information about your father's activity in the war because he wrote to his old headmaster.

However, perhaps I can add to your knowledge of his early life here. I will try to contact you or one of the administrators in the hope that I find a way to forward my personal email address to you, so I can follow up.

The photo of your father which you mentioned in a message above is not now attached to that message. I have school photos in which your father is present. You may be interested in receiving copies.

Michael