Page 91 - Sylvia Malt - Side by Side
P. 91
The return of the British troops, scattered across the world, took many months before they
could be demobbed and able to return to their homes. By cruel irony, several of those
named on the two Memorials of Foots Cray and St. James died many months after the
official ending of the war: Arthur Cunnington who died in a motorcycle accident in
November 1945 and George Whittington died three days after being involved in a traffic
accident in October 1945,and Frank Farley, who died in November 1945 in the Far East
while rescuing and repatriating our men from the horror of the Japanese Prisoner-of-war
camps.
Towards the end of 1945, the local newspapers were able to print the names and publish
the photographs of the men who had been released from Japanese Prisoner-of-War
detention camps. But, of course, the families could then not have known just what
psychological damage, as well as physical, their loved ones had suffered. Many of the men
never fully recovered.
91
