PAL/1241 Driver Isaak WITKOWSKI, 462 General Transport Company, Royal Army Service Corps: 01/05/1943

Remembering Today

Casualty Details | CWGC
WITKOWSKI, ISAAK
Rank: Driver
Service No: PAL/1241
Date of Death: 01/05/1943
Regiment/Service: Royal Army Service Corps, 462 Gen. Transport Coy.
Panel Reference: Panel 17.
Column 2. Memorial: BROOKWOOD 1939-1945 MEMORIAL

 

From 'Palestine Jewish Volunteers movement during WW2': "...140 fighters from Transport Company 462 drowned at sea when their ship, in which they were sailing from Africa to Italy, was sunk by the Germans..." Link: http://www.jwmww2.org/show_item.asp?itemId=1412&levelId=65039&itemType=0

They were sailing on the SS "Erinpura was used as a troop transport in the Mediterranean, and in 1943 was the commodore's ship, under the command of Captain P.V. Cotter, in a Malta-bound convoy with three other British India ships, Karoa, Egra and Rohna, and twenty other merchantmen escorted by eleven warships. The convoy was attacked thirty miles north of Benghazi on 1 May 1943 by German bombers, with Erinpura being hit by a bomb in one of her holds. She sank within four minutes of being hit. Two junior engineers, 54 Indian seamen, three gunners, 140 Palestinian Jewish soldiers serving in 462 Transport Company of the British Army, and 600 Basuto pioneer troops were lost with her.

There is a memorial on Mount Herzl to the 140 Jewish soldiers who drowned aboard the SS Erinpura"; link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Erinpura

More information about the sinking: "Convoy MW 27: The troopship was hit by a bomb in her forward hatch or deck by aircraft from Kampfgeschwader 26 at approx. 20:15 hrs, and sank within four minutes with the loss of almost 1,000 men, 30 nautical miles (56 km) north north west of Benghazi at (32°40′N 19°53'E)"; link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_May_1943#1_May

CWGC/Geoff's Search Engine search results for 462 General Transport Coy, RASC, are here: http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1

 

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As mentioned in the foregoing post, there were 600 (in fact more than 600) Basuto Pioneers lost there lives when the SS Erinpura was sunk. Here is a journal report titled: "THE ERINPURA: BASOTHO TRAGEDY"; link: http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol085nc.html

"Of the ship's total complement of 1,215, only 273 survived. Four ships' officers and 110 ratings, mostly Indian, were lost. Only five of the eleven gunners survived, of the 1,025 troops only 203 were saved. Six hundred and thirty-three Basotho lost their lives, along with sixty-one Batswana. Only about 100, seventy-five from 1927 [Company] and twenty-five from 1919 [Company], survived."

-words in square brackets are mine.

This report is very informative!

 

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A good analysis of the SS Erinpura: http://navalwarfare.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/ss-erinpura.html

National Archive links: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11483654 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=9042222&catln=6

South African Legion analysis, including reference the memorials to the Africa troops lost: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=436530553183349&id=142385935931147&substory_index=0

Botswana Memorial picture and casualty records (including those that died on the Erinpura): http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2057801/Botswana%20Memorial http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1&sort=name&order=asc

Israeli Memorial picture: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=110493212

Lesotho Memorial (no picture) and casualty records (including those that died on the Erinpura): http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2057803/LESOTHO%20MEMORIAL http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1&sort=name&order=asc