Description
This Identity Card was issued to Capt Read just a few days after his homecoming in Aberystwyth, after being a Prisoner of War of the Japanese in Changi POW camp, Singapore for 3 1/2 years during World War 2.
At the end of the War with Japan on the 15th August 1945, he was too ill to be repatriated immediately , so he and many other sick and injured POW's were sent to recuperate before arriving back in the UK. Capt Read had been shipped home on the Hospital ship SS Llandovery Castle after a few weeks recuperating in a hospital near Madras.
He had enlisted aged 14 in 1914 as a Bugler in the Royal Horse Artillery. He served in the BEF in France during World War 1, then sent to the Middle East until 1930, until he was sent back to the UK, here he was awarded his 21 year long servive medal in Jan 1936, by then he was Battery Quarter Master Sergeant with the 102nd TA (Cardigan) Regiment Royal Artillery, he left the Army in January 1939 only to re-enlisted as Lt. QM with the 146th Regiment RA in Cardigan. He transferred to the 118th Regiment RA and was sent to Singapore where he spent 3.5 years as a POW of the Japanese. He sadly died within a year of his return in September 1946 after 32 years in service. He's commemorated on Llanbadarn Fawr War Memorial.
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