Advertisement
Advertisement
David Willott searching for relics in a cave. Photo: Red Door News

ID tag found in Tai Tam sparks search for family of wartime British sailor

Local historians have launched a search for the family of a British sailor who fought to defend Hong Kong from the Japanese during the second world war, after his Royal Navy ID tag was found on a mountainside in Tai Tam.

Hazel Parry

Local historians have launched a search for the family of a British sailor who fought to defend Hong Kong from the Japanese during the second world war, after his Royal Navy ID tag was found on a mountainside in Tai Tam.

The ID tag, bearing the name "J Siddans" and his service number and religion, was uncovered by military-history enthusiast David Willott as he combed the area around Stanley Gap Road - a known battleground - with a metal detector last month.

Local historians later identified its owner as Able Seaman John "Jacky" Siddans, who was based at Tamar, the Royal Navy's base in Hong Kong, and died on October 4, 1942, aged 42. Military-history enthusiast and retired banker Philip Cracknell, who has written a blog on the find, described it as the "holy grail of military metal detecting" because it is extremely rare to find anything with a name on it.

"As a group, we have found a variety of war relics including helmets and rifles, bayonets and buttons and even two crashed aircraft, but until recently we have never found anything we could tie to an individual," Cracknell said.

It is hoped the tag will be passed on to the sailor's family or placed in a military museum.

Willott, who discovered the tag in late January, said he knew he had found something of interest when he began cleaning the dirt off of it and saw the "C of E" (Church of England) inscription.

"I knew it was an ID of some sort, but because I knew that British army ID tags were not made of metal, I thought it might not be war related," Willott said.

Cracknell and author Tony Banham, who runs the Hong Kong War Diary website, used war records and accounts of old soldiers and prisoners of war (POWs) to find more details on Siddans.

They believe he was captured by the Japanese in the Stanley Gap Road area, possibly among a group of Royal Navy officers and ratings sent to counterattack at Wong Nei Chung Gap on December 19, 1941, after it had fallen to the Japanese.

In a blog, Cracknell speculates that the ID tag was possibly ripped off Siddans and discarded by Japanese soldiers as they marched him and other prisoners down to the POW camp at North Point.

Banham discovered records showing Siddans was put aboard the ship Lisbon Maru, which was bound for Japan.

But the ship sank on October 2, 1942 after being torpedoed by a US submarine.

Banham believes Siddans did not perish as the boat sank, but died two days later in a smaller boat taking prisoners from the sunken ship to Shanghai.

Banham, who has written a book about the Lisbon Maru, said he had spoken to a prisoner who was on one of those boats who gave an account of a fellow POW dying and then being cast over the side.

"I am 90 per cent sure the victim he refers to is Siddans," Banham said. "The Royal Navy records list Siddans as dying on October 4, rather than October 2 when the Lisbon Maru sank."

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records show Siddans' parents were Harry and Susanna Siddans, and his wife was named Florence. They married in 1934 in Cheshire, in northwestern England, and lived in Alderley Edge. It is not known if they had children.

Banham hopes to find direct descendants of Siddans who may be interested in the ID tag.

"Items which can be identified as belonging to an individual are very rarely found in Hong Kong," he said. "We would like it to go the family or a museum. I know of many cases where the families preferred personal items to be in museums. That is often felt to be a more fitting - and visible - memorial to a loved one."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: ID tag sparks search for family of wartime sailor
Post