Military Chat

I’m trying to trace a Ronald Markham who was serving in Sierra Leone 1940/1941, possibly having sailed from UK on HMT/HMHS Neuralia around Christmas time 1940. Do passenger lists exist for such voyages & where might they be kept? He may have been attached to a field hospital – 34 British General Hospital or 51 British General Hospital? Would there be any records of British Forces personnel who served in Sierra Leone? Tony.

Not an answer to your question - but just for interest - here's an account from someone who served in Sierra Leone in 1945:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/user/37/u1453237.shtml


WW2 army records are not online. You'd have to apply to the MOD for a copy if you have the necessary amount of detail to make an application.

See ErikaH's post:
https://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/military_chat/thread/1380443

Ancestry has records of the "Neuralia" taking evacuees from Gibraltar to the UK in 1940, leaving Gibraltar on 10/8/1940 and 19/8/1940.

Also from Gibraltar to Jamaica in October 1940.

But so far I don't see anything else for Neuralia in 1940.

The ship was sunk in 1945.


As a side note, my father was on a troopship ("Otranto", not "Neuralia") going from Glasgow to Egypt in Nov/Dec 1940, and the ship put in to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to refuel and take on supplies. They went through the Red Sea on Christmas Day

National Archives info re MN ship movements during WW2:

https://tinyurl.com/y786hzhn

But not including lists of passengers or crew.

FMP has these results:


R M E
Markham
YOB: 1913
Liverpool
1938
Sekondi-Takoradi
Ghana (Gold Coast)


R M E
Markham
YOB: 1913
Liverpool
1940
Sekondi-Takoradi
Ghana (Gold Coast)


R W
Markham
YOB: 1907
Southampton
1938
Madeira
Madeira



You don't say if your Ronald had a middle name, or when he was born.
The 1940 voyage from Liverpool to Ghana might be a possibility ??



EDIT:

NO, that's this one - not the Neuralia:

R M E Markham
in the UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960
Name: R M E Markham
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Birth Date: abt 1913
Departure Date: 30 Oct 1940
Port of Departure: Liverpool, England
Destination Port: Takoradi, Ghana
Ship Name: Abosso
Shipping Line: Elder Demrster
Official Number: 164265
Master: P Sulm Dso


And he's not a soldier - he's a civil servant, from 1 Victoria Square, Newcastle-on-Tyne