Throughout the Durnford family are very brave men and women, no more so than Evelyn Mary Tarbat and her husband Rev Capt Alan Cecil Parr.
They were evacuated from Singapore, a couple of days before surrender.
Neither survived, he died at the Burma Rail, she survived bombings, twice on different ships. She was one of a few who eventually were sent to a Prisoner of War Camp in Sumatra.
Evelyn Tarbat our 4th cousin was the daughter of Ethel Mary
Victoria Durnford, and her husband Rev James Edward Tarbat. She was born in 1867 in Malta, daughter of
Arthur George Durnford and Victoria Devon.
Arthur was the brother of Col Anthony William Durnford who was
incorrectly blamed for the loss of the Zulu War in 1879.
Arthur and Victoria had 4 children, Gwendolen Alice Mary Durnford, Ethel
Mary Victoria Durnford, 2nd Lieut Arthur Cecil Somerset Durnford and
LT Col Guy Edward Jervois Durnford RE.
Ethel and her sister Gwen would play with the grandchildren of Queen
Victoria when they were on holidays near Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
Ethel and Rev James Tarbat married in 1903 in Weybridge. He had been the Vicar at the Church.
Their son Alan Cecil Tarbat born 1904 went to Oxford and became Assistant Master at Wells. He became a writer of poems. He died in 1978 and is buried at Fareham close to his parents.
Evelyn Mary Tarbat, born 1906 married Captain Rev Alan Cecil Parr in
September 1940. She had studied and
trained to be a Physiotherapist and Masseuse.
After their marriage, in November 1940 they left Liverpool for Singapore
onboard the Glenbeg.
Alan joined the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, 1st (Singapore Volunteer Corps) Bn.
He was teaching at St Andrew’s Mission School in Singapore. On 8th December 1941, the Japanese
bombed Singapore, and by February 1942, the city surrendered.
Only days before the surrender, the European women were ordered to
leave, Evelyn Parr was shipwrecked on
one of the late boats. She was onboard
the Kuala, which was bombed near PomPom Island.
Having
survived a heavy bombing attack on the 12th February, H.M.S. Kuala
arrived at Singapore safely and on the 13th was ordered to assist
with the evacuation of the City. She
embarked 500 civilians of which 250 were women and children, under orders her
captain F. Caithness sailed for South Java.
The
following morning Captain Caithness along with various other ships packed with
refugees sought shelter close to the island of Pom Pong. The ships were soon spotted by Japanese aircraft
heading for Java and approximately forty planes detached from the main
formation and attached the virtually defenceless ships. H,M.S. Kuala suffered a direct hit on the
bridge and subsequently caught fire. The
planes bombed and straffed the ships all morning even refugees struggling in
the water and those that had made landfall didn’t escape their attention.
In
all eleven ships sand that Saturday morning with the loss of many lives, even
more were to die as they attempted to reach Sumatra. Approximately 130 women and children were
lifted off Pom Pong the following day by the Heap Eng Moh Steamship vessel,
Tandjong Pinang amongst great jubilation.
Their
joy and excitement however was short-lived when the vessel which was little
more than a barge was bombed a short while later, claiming the lives of all on
board save three or four.[1]
ref. used:http://www.merchantnavyofficer s.com
Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?105528
Evelyn lost the use of an arm. She was sent to Palembang Prisoner of War Camp, [2]
in Sumatra.
Evelyn frequently recited the Michaelmas Prayer to the others in the
camp. Evelyn died of beri-beri and malaria 11th January 1945.
Rev Captain Alan Cecil Parr
After
leaving King’s College, he attended St Edmund Hall Oxford and then Wells
Theological College. From 1928 – 1931 he was a curate at Benwell,
Nottinghamshire. In 1931 he became
Assistant Master of Bishop Cotton School Bangalore, 1933 – 1936 at Catholic
High School Bombay, and from 1936 St. Andrew’s School Singapore.[3]
Cecil Parr, as an army chaplain, became a prisoner of war and died from
dysentery in Thailand in June 1943.
Captain Alfred Cecil Parr of the 1st Battalion, and Minister,
Vice-Principal of St Andrews School, died at Kami, Thailand, of malaria and
malnutrition on 24th June 1943. He is
buried at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand.
In the centre of the Thailand–Burma Railway
Centre is a statue based on the image drawn
by Australian POW Ray Parkin of 'Two Malarias with a Cholera'. |
Evelyn Parr, although wounded in the arm, managed to reach Sumatra,
where she died in an internment camp at the beginning of 1945. Her husband, the
Rev. Cecil Parr, formerly senior assistant master at St. Andrew's School, died
in 1943 as a P.O.W. in Siam, where he was one of the Chaplains with the men on
the Bangkok Moulmein railway. After the Japanese surrender I met people who had
been with both of them. She had had illness after illness at a time when
conditions were very bad in the Sumatra camps, until her strength finally gave
out, while he impressed all those who knew him by his cheerfulness and
endurance.
Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.
This is an
edited account of the loss of the auxiliary patrol vessel HMS Kuala as related by her
commanding officer Lieutenant Franklin Caithness, RNR, to the late Commander
H.V. Creer, RAN
HMS KUALA sailed
from Singapore on Friday, 13th February 1942 with approximately 500 evacuees on
board – men, women and children. Embarkation began at 3 p.m. from the RNVR
Headquarters, HMS Laburnum, while the ships in the harbour were
being heavily bombed by Japanese planes. At 5.15 p.m. many of the evacuees were
killed by bombs, and motor cars were set on fire by incendiary bombs on the
wharf.
Lieutenant
Caithness gave orders to weigh anchor at 6.15 p.m. with instructions to proceed
to Batavia, Java via the straits of Rhio, Barbala and Banka, but anchored at
5.45 a.m. on the morning of the 14th at Pompong Island in company with
HMS Tien Kwang, an auxiliary anti-submarine vessel. After
anchoring, boats were lowered in charge of officers with orders to collect
branches of trees to camouflage the ship. By 9.30 a.m. the ship was completely
camouflaged. Tien Kwang, commanded by Lieutenant W. Briggs, RNR,
which was also at anchor a few cables astern, was also trying to disguise the
ship by the same method. Pompong Island is south of the southern exit of Rhio
Straight about 45 miles south east of Singapore.
At 11 a.m.
seven Japanese planes were observed making towards HMS Kung Wo,
an auxiliary minelayer, which had been bombed and abandoned the day before some
three miles distant from Kuala and Tien Kwang. One plane dive bombed Kung
Wo with a stick of bombs and disappeared. The other planes circling
around, sighted Tien Kwang and made for Kuala.
Both vessels were at anchor 200 yards off Pompong Island. Sticks of bombs were
dropped direct on Kuala, one bomb hitting the upper bridge, one
the stokehold and one the engine room. The ship at once burst into flames and
all the superstructure was soon ablaze.
Lieutenant
Caithness was on the lower bridge lying on his face, the whole top bridge had
fallen on top of him and the bomb blast had struck the back of his neck and had
almost paralysed him. He was badly wounded on the right side, but managed to
struggle free of the wreckage on recovering from shock. He opened the First Lieutenant’s
cabin door and rescued five women who had taken shelter inside. All were
suffering from shock and the effects from the blast of the bomb which had
exploded above their heads. To the captain’s surprise the women were uninjured.
After helping
the women out of the cabin and seeing they were uninjured, he proceeded onto
the shade deck and tried to lower the gangway, but discovered there was a
jambing hitch on the fall. It took five minutes to release the fall. When he
had lowered the gangway he ordered all women who could swim and possessed
lifebelts to take to the sea and swim for the shore as best they could.
The boats at
this time were ashore gathering trees to camouflage the ship. Thirty men and
women floated past on rafts and drifted east and then south west, however only
three survivors were picked up off a raft on the Indragiri River, a man and his
wife and an army officer. There was no panic, no tears were shed and most of
the women and girls walked down the gangway and plunged into the sea.
Sub-Lieutenant
T.S. Brand, with the lifeboats ashore, returned immediately with the utmost
despatch to take off the injured and got them safely ashore, where they were
received by lady doctors and nursing sisters, who were fortunate in reaching
the shore first.
There was very
little tide running at the time and the sea was calm, but when the struggling
women were between the ships and the rocks, the Jap had turned and deliberately
bombed the women in the sea and those struggling on the rocks. Quite a number were
killed. The lady doctors and nursing sisters, most of whom were Australian and
British nurses from various hospitals in Malaya, carried the wounded to a
clearing in the jungle about a hundred feet above sea level.
Chief Engineer
Lieutenant (E) Marshall RNR, set about and built a canopy overhead using
branches and vines for lashings, in order to protect the wounded from the heat
of the sun’s rays and dampness during the night. The scene was one never to be
forgotten and too awful to mention. One poor man asked Lieutenant Briggs to
shoot him as he was a mass of raw flesh, but Briggs had not the heart to do it.
Mercifully it was only a matter of a few minutes before he passed away for
which Briggs said ‘Thank God!’
Lieutenant
Caithness and Lieutenant George were the last to leave Kuala after
searching the ship fore and aft, but there was nobody alive on board. Captain
Hancock, Governor of Prisons in Malaya, who was one of the evacuees, was last
seen to go over the gangway, but returned with a vague idea of being able to
extinguish the fire then raging in the ship. There must have been a delusion on
his part as he was never seen again.
The bombs
which hit the engine room burst the auxiliary steam pipe, thus putting all the
fire fighting appliances out of action. The survivors who did reach the shore
landed at two different points on the island thus forming two camps. The tide
had in fact separated them with the ebb setting to the eastward.
The evacuees
consisted of nursing sisters, quite a number of Australians and British from
various hospitals in Malaya, and civilians. Senior officers, Army and Air
Force, were also included, amongst whom was Brigadier General Fosset, who had
lost three fingers in the bombing. He nearly passed away whilst on the island.
When all the
survivors were safely ashore the Army collected all stores available whilst the
Royal Engineers set off looking for fresh water. They finally found a small
trickle of water, which saved the situation (according to the Sailing
Directions no food or water was procurable on the island). The only other water
available was three beakers of water from three lifeboats.
