David Richie Roper

A Private with the 2nd Battalion, David died on 21st of September 1944 aged 38. 

David was born at Chalfield, Suffolk, on 11 May 1906, a son of John William and Maud Roper. In 1911 his family lived at The Street, North Cove, Suffolk, and by 1921 they were living at 35 Pudding Moor, Beccles, and David worked for H.G. Rose, Corn and Coal Merchants, at Beccles, doing odd-jobs.  

On 13 June 1924 David, who worked as a labourer, enlisted in the Royal Artillery (Territorial Army) at Beccles. He left on 8 December 1925 and then re-enlisted in the Suffolk Regiment. Subsequently he joined the Cambridgeshire Regiment.   

In 1938 David married Bessie Daisy Grace Dolder, this was registered in the Wainford District of Essex. In 1939 their home was at 31 Bevan Street, Lowestoft, and David was a kitchen porter at a hotel.

David served with the 2nd Battalion Cambridgeshire Regiment. His battalion was embodied for service on 1 September 1939. On 1 November the battalion was concentrated at Melton Constable, Norfolk, and assigned to 53 Brigade in the 18th Division. In January 1940 the battalion moved to Stiffkey, Norfolk, and then took over coastal defences between King’s Lynn and Cley. In August they moved to the Sheringham area and later in that year they moved inland to Houghton Hall and Raynham. In January 1941 they were sent to Dumfries and in summer 1941 they were on exercises in Yorkshire and Lancashire before deployments to the north west coast and helping to gather the harvest in Leicestershire. 

On 18 October the battalion sailed from Gourock for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the embarked the U.S.S. Mount Vernon and departed for South Africa. Next the battalion’s ship made for Mombassa and, after three days, left for Singapore, arriving on 13 January 1942. The battalion encamped at the Bukit Timah racecourse but were quickly put into the field, joining the 15th Indian Brigade and moving to Batu Pahat, north Johore, to defend the airfield. Here the battalion sustained its first casualties.

Eventually the battalion were in danger of being surrounded at Senggarang and the order was given for the men to try to make their way back to Singapore, some seventy miles away. David managed to get to Singapore but was taken prisoner there, when the city was surrendered, on 15 February 1942. On 22 October 1942, he was among a party of men taken overland to Thailand to work on the Burma Railway. 

Once the Burma Railway had been completed British prisoners of war were taken back to Singapore and then transported by Japanese ships to Burma. These ships were known as ‘Hell Ships’. In July 1944 David was one of the prisoners that embarked the ‘Hell Ship’ Hofuku Maru. The ship left Singapore in a convoy but developed engine problems and had to dock at Manila for repairs. The prisoners were kept on board in appalling conditions. 
On 20 September the Hofuku Maru set sail for Japan in a convoy with ten other ships. The ships were attacked by carrier borne aircraft of the United States Navy. The Hofuku Maru was torpedoes and sunk. The ship had been carrying 1,289 British and Dutch prisoners, of whom only 242 survived the sinking.