Extended Description
These men also gave their lives in the
World War
1939 – 1945.​

Private 14317958 Richard Joseph Howkins. 7th Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
Born 1920 to Ernest and Louisa Howkins, of Lower Tadmarton, Oxfordshire.
Killed in action, Italy November 11 1943 age 23.
At rest in Cassino War Cemetery, Italy.

Bombardier 1475880 Bernard Austin Freeman. 85th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery. Died a Prisoner of War in Japanese Hands. September 21 1944 aged 24.
Born 1920 to Herbert George and Alice May Freeman. Husband of Hilda Frances Freeman, nee Batchelor of Broughton, Oxfordshire. They were married in 1940.

15 February 1942 the Singapore Garrison capitulated on 15 February 1942 and the POWs were marched to Changi Prison. Most of the POWs were enslaved and forced to work on the Death Railroad and others but on cargo ships bound for Japan. His unit were enslaved on Hell Ship, Hofuku Maru SS which was a Japanese cargo ship. It embarked from Singapore carrying 1,289 prisoners-of-war en route from Singapore to Japan was attacked and sunk by US torpedo carrying bombers. Loaded with British and Dutch POW´s, it stopped at Manila to unload the sick and dying. It sailed again in convoy Mata-27 and was attacked for the second time about eighty miles north of Corregidor when only three days out it was attacked and sunk by US aircraft carrying torpedoes from an US aircraft carrier 21 September 1944. at 1028, North of the Masinloc Sea. It took only a few minutes for the ship to go down drowning around 1,047 men who were trapped in the holds. Less than 250 survived, he was aged 24

His is commemorated on the Singapore Memorial.

Wills and Admin, Ancestry.
Bernard Austin Freeman of Broughton Oxfordshire died 21 September 1944 on war service. His effects went to his widow Hilda Frances Freeman-Hillier.
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Tadmarton War Memorial Oxfordshire
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