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From: Forrest Anderson <>
Subject: Re: [WW1] Sinking of the Leasow Castle - Aug 1918
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 00:19:44 +0100


On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 07:59:50 +0200, "Pickard - Hungary"
<> wrote:

>Does anyone have any information of the sinking / rescue of the
>troopship the Leasowe Castle in August 1918 ?
>
>It is said to have been full of Warwickshire infantry, and a 'Secret'
>telex of thanks has just come to light indicating that my gf was
>involved with the rescue. Family rumour has it that my gf (F. Trepess
>R.N.) was given freedom (or 'the key') of a Warwick city
>subsequently, but no proof has ever been found of this.

The 9737 ton Leasowe Castle was built at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead in
1916 for Greek owners as the Vasillissa Sophia, but she was never
delivered to them. Instead she was taken over by the Government, put
under the management of the Union-Castle line, renamed, and used as a
troopship.

She survived being torpedoed off Gibraltar on 20 Apr 1917, but on 26 or
27 May 1918 she was torpedoed again, this time 104 miles W by N 1/2 N off
Alexandria. She was carrying 3000 troops for Egypt to Marseilles, and 92
people, including the captain, were killed.

As regards it being full of men from the Warwickshire Regiment, then I
had a look at "Soldiers Died in the Great War..." for that day, but I
only found the following Royal Warwickshire Regiment casualties, who are
all listed as having been "killed in action" or "died of wounds", rather
than "died" or "drowned".

Number:Rank:Surname:Forenames:Battalion:Died Date:
240SERGT.WOOLLEYFREDERICK WILLIAM16th Battalion27/5/1918
50242PRIVATEEASTMANALFRED16th Battalion26/5/1918
50232PRIVATEDRAYCOTTFREDERICK ERNEST16th Battalion27/5/1918
201337PRIVATEFISHERJOSEPH16th Battalion26/5/1918
263010PRIVATEDENTONFREDERICK16th Battalion27/5/1918
267733PRIVATEADKINSCHARLES EDWIN2/6th Battalion27/5/1918
242415PRIVATESNOOKEJOHN THOMAS2/6th Battalion27/5/1918
32798CPL.BEARMANROBERT15th Battalion27/5/1918

You may want to look these men up on the CWGC's Debt of Honour Register
at www.cwgc.org to see where they are commemorated, as this will give a
good clue as to where they died.

Hope that helps

Forrest


--
Forrest Anderson, Edinburgh, Scotland.
E-mail:
Website: http://www.forrestdale.dial.pipex.com/
Forrest Research - Army, Navy and Air Force Genealogical Researcher

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