I'm researching the death of a local lad - Charles Joseph Wright - who is listed on the CWGC as an Able Seaman on HMS Highflyer dying on the 10th October 1943 and I'm trying to find the circumstances of his death I know from my WW1 research that sailors always had to be recorded on board a ship and therefore shore bases were given similar names - it looks like the Highflyer name had been used on four prior vessels. I believe HMS Highflyer was a shore base on Ceylon/Sri Lanka from July that year and would appreciate any background detail about it or if anything significant transpired on the 10th October.
Seems there might have been an incident of some kind http://www.naval-history.net/xDKCas1943-10OCT.htm
According to: Chas. J. Wright in the UK, British Army and Navy Birth, Marriage and Death Records, 1730-1960 Name: Chas. J. Wright Event: Death Birth Date: abt 1921 Death Date: 10 Oct 1943 Death Age: 22 Death Place: Trincomalee Ship: Lanka I cannot as yet post the document but it says: "Accidentally lost overboard on duty and drowned" TD Edited to add: The other document states "Accidental drowning" Trincomalee, Ceylon
HMS Highflyer and HMS Lanka were indeed a shore bases, my own grandfather was based there several times in the war, it was also a shore accounting base for small ships, on his service record it will have HMS Highflyer or HMS Lanka then a ship name in brackets the name in brackets is the ship he was serving on when he accidently drowned. Highflyer and Lanka were both shore bases in Ceylon.
James - glad you posted as it has reminded me that I can now post the item I hoped to before but could not due to the change over of the site to new software States: Accidental drowning TD
TD is the british army deaths marriages page on ancestry or find my past as I have a couple of navy casualties I want to research.
I'm signed up to Ancestry so thats where all my documents are downloaded from. Searching for his name in this case gave 2 specific responses from what seems to be the same document but as you can clearly see from the above they provide different information TD
