T/177343 Private Joseph Henshall, RASC, died April 26, 1941 at sea???

Hi all, been researching my local war memorial and come across this man - T/177343 Private Joseph Henshall of the Royal Army Service Corps who lost his life on April 26, 1941. The newspaper reports are quite vague, but state he was lost in waters around Crete and is commemorated on the Athens Memorial. Has anybody any idea what ship he was on please, or the incident he was lost?? Thanks for reading, best wishes, Mark.


https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2106531/joseph-henshall/
PRIVATE JOSEPH HENSHALL
Service Number: T/177343
Regiment & Unit: Royal Army Service Corps
Date of Death: Between 26 April 1941 and 27 April 1941
Age 25 years old
Buried or commemorated at ATHENS MEMORIAL
Memorial Reference: Face 8.
Location: Greece
Additional Info Son of Mr. and Mrs. S. Henshall, of Shavington, Cheshire.

 

Hi,

Naval net gives this for late April 1941-


“27th - As units of the Mediterranean Fleet carried out the Greek evacuation, destroyers DIAMOND and WRYNECK rescued troops from the bombed transport "Slamat", but were then sunk by more German bombers off Cape Malea at the southeast tip of Greece. There were few survivors from the three ships.”

World War 2 - U-boats, Hood, Bismarck, Crete

I doubt you will narrow it down to more than that he was killed on one of the 3 named ships.

Steve

 

Mark,

The Athens Memorial has 631 dead listed 26-27/4/1942; 605 are British and 225 from the RASC. Most have no known sub-unit, except when looking at the first fifty a lot are from 308 Reserve Motor Transport Company. (On CWGC 308 Res. M.T. Coy).

Operation Demon was the name for the evacuation that began 24/4/1942. As I recall most ships lost were sunk in air attacks.

The ship Slamat was a Dutch and if you use the forum's simple search function with Slamat there are x41 posts id'd (fewer threads), at a glance some say few UK aboard and at least one says lots from the RASC.were aboard.

Good luck at finding the answer!

 

Thank you all for your replies. Much appreciated.