locate ROYAL NAVY sailors in the eastern MED 1942

Michael has contacted me to inform us that he has had success, and asked me to insert the story as presented in Haaretz.
Well done to him for the effort involved in remembering these men:

The Makings of History / An underwater Italian mystery - Haaretz - Israel News
The Makings of History / An underwater Italian mystery By Tom Segev
On August 10, 1942 an Italian submarine named Scire approached the Haifa coast. Its objective was to sink British ships anchored in the port. The Italian navy was known for its operational excellence, and its commandos were equipped with a "mini submarine," a sort of underwater jet ski called a "pig" in Israeli naval lingo, which was used for demolition operations. But the British managed to locate the Scire in time, and sank it.

The remains of the submarine rest to this day on the ocean floor, about 10 kilometers north of Haifa. The human remains were recovered in 1984 and brought to Italy for burial. But two of the sailors, Egil Chersi and Eugenio Dal Ben, were considered missing until recently. Their bodies washed ashore at Kiryat Haim four days after the submarine was sunk. Various sources reported that the British had buried them in Haifa, but no one knew where exactly. Advertisement
One day, Egil Chersi's nephew asked an Israeli dentist living in Italy to help him find his uncle's burial place. The dentist wanted to help and got some of his acquaintances involved in the effort. And that is how a mystery was created that many people were eager to solve, including by means of newspaper articles and radio spots, and in time also through the Internet.

There is almost no limit to what people are willing to do for the dead. Take Michael Gottschalk, a Defense Ministry retiree who is now 73 years old. In the 1950s Gottschalk served in Shayetet 13, the Israel Defense Forces elite naval commando unit. He never forgot the Italians' contribution to his unit's equipment, including wet suits and diving gear. The "pigs" were also built after the Italian model. Gottschalk remained grateful to the Italians. The mystery of the divers whose burial place was unknown fired his imagination: He decided to find them.

From grave to grave

Gottschalk became obsessed with the story, and devoted all his time to it over the past few months: He neglected his friends; his wife nearly left him. One can understand her feelings - there are no fewer than seven burial sites in Haifa where the two could have been interred, and Gottschalk went through them one after the other, day after day, from grave to grave, tombstone to tombstone, making notes, taking photographs, plotting maps. It had to be there somewhere, he kept reassuring himself.

He spent his nights corresponding with the war commemoration authorities in Britain and Italy, and was a tireless pesterer. Many people volunteered to help him.

In the course of his quest he happened upon a small burial site on Haifa's Jaffa Street that the British had named the "Cemetery for Undesirables," a place where they interred the bodies of those who for various reasons could not be buried in the regular cemeteries. One of the tombstones bears the name of a man called Michael Smith, evidently a Jew who converted to Christianity. Beneath a Star of David the following words are engraved in Hebrew: "I was a great sinner and I earned hellfire, I trusted in the Lord Messiah and in his blood forgave." There is doubtless a story behind Smith's fate - but it was not the story Gottschalk was after.

In the British cemetery at Hof Hacarmel, Gottschalk found an Arab caretaker who said he had inherited the post from his father, and that his father had told him that five bodies were exhumed back in 1965. The Italian consul was among those present on that occasion. Initially, Gottschalk was inclined to ignore the story, but in a small plot, hidden from view, he discovered two graves without cross markers.

By that point, he had received the following information from Italy: The two missing sailors might be buried in graves numbered 2 and 3, but it was not known where they were. Gottschalk went back to the hidden cemetery plot and found that the graves lacking cross markers were indeed numbered 2 and 3. Once a sailor, always a sailor. Gottschalk decided to pay final respects to the two Italian divers. He purchased two metal crosses, painted them black and placed them on the graves. That was his good deed for the day.

But one of his Internet buddies, an Italian navy man, had meanwhile been nagging the defense ministry in Rome, and following his pestering the clerks located a file indicating that the caretaker at the little cemetery in Haifa was correct: Five bodies had indeed been exhumed in 1965 and transferred to Italy for reburial. Among them was one of the two divers, Eugenio Dal Ben, and another was apparently Egil Chersi, too, although the latter could not be positively identified and was buried anonymously as a result. The families had been notified; only Chersi's nephew did not know.

"It's true there was actually no mystery," Gottschalk said this week, "but I solved it." He learned a great deal about his city's history and made many friends, all of whom have a soft spot for the mysteries of the sea. On one of the two graves he discovered, Gottschalk placed a flower vase and a sign with the name of the diver who was never positively identified. His heart remains in Haifa, not far from where the prophet Elijah lived, Gottschalk wrote the family.

The Scirè :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_submarine_Scir%C3%A8_(1938)