大象传媒

We were visiting my Grandad and Grandma Birch at Hall Street Alvaston Derby, my Uncle Stanley was there on a home visit and he was going away to sea again.I was nearly 5years of age, he was an extremely good swimmer and so he had been teaching me how to swim. I had managed to swim a few strokes before he went away,and his advice to me before he left was to practice as much as I possibly could so that when he came home I would be able to swim a width of the swimming baths. But he never came home he was lost at sea on the 12th February 1944, we never knew the name of the ship he was on and what had actually happened to him, as certain documents of the Second World War were not released.
Noreen Perry my Aunty, the sole surviving Sister of Stanley Birch, for many years had been trying to find out what had really happened all those years ago.She was told many times over that the information concerning her Brother would not be released for 40/50 years. After 50 years she was finally allowed to have the information, and the papers received were stamped "Most Secret" It was discovered that my Uncle Stanley's ship the SS Kadive Ismail was far out in the Indian Ocean on 12th February 1944 when a Japanese submarine torpedoed the ship, killing 1,297 people in 2 minutes. The Family only found out about his death days later when a Telegram was received. It was Britain's third - worst allied shipping disaster in the Second World War.
Uncle Stanley in civilian life had been a trainee mechanic at Rolls Royce, when he joined the Royal Navy at 18 as an engine room mechanic, at the time of his death he was 19. We had always wondered what had happened to him, had he been badley injured, did he suffer or was he killed outright? On Sunday 9th November 2003 a tribute was paid to young sailor who died in 1944 and we were able to remember him and have a permanant reminder to him, his family came from as far away as America,Spain, Wales and from all corners of England, some to remember an Uncle they had never known. At St Micheal and All Angels Anglican Church in Church St. Alvaston Derby a marble plaque was placed in the Church dedicated to the memory of Stanley Birch who had lived at Hall St. Alvaston who all those years ago worshipped at this Church, there is also buried his Mother and Father (Alice and James Birch) and one of his Sisters named Hilda. The events on the 9th November 2003 signaled the end of a labour of love for Aunty Noreen who only discovered what happened to her Brother 5 years ago. There was no grave to visit, it was not like being killed on a field of war we had no papers nothing to remember him by, now we know that his name will nver die. In a small corner of England is a plaque to remember my swimming Hero, Uncle Stanley.

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