Notes
The All About Thornton website (see References) states: ‘William Walker, born in April 1920, son of William Henry and Elizabeth Ann Walker who in the 1921 census lived at 67 King Street, Bradford. By 1939 his parents had moved to Primrose Terrace, Manningham. In 1939 his future wife, Winifred Blackburn was living at 3 Watkin Avenue, Thornton, with Harry and Nellie Simpson. He married Winifred later in 1939. He enlisted into the Royal Artillery in 1939. Sergeant, Royal Artillery 122 Field Regiment, #913174. He had been taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese and was being transported in the Prison Ship Hofuku Maru, from Singapore to Borneo as part of a convoy. The ship’s engines failed and the ship went towards Manila where it lay a mile offshore, while they were repaired. The prisoners were kept in the ship’s holds, with very little space, poor food and water, and unsuitable sanitation. Disease was rife. The ship arrived in Manila in July 1944 and left on 20 September 1944. It, plus the other prison ships in the convoy were sunk by US Navy carrier aircraft, in the China Sea, 80 miles north of Corregidor Island. 1,047 of the British and Dutch Prisoners of War, who were trapped in the holds, drowned. Died 21 September 1944, aged 24. Commemorated on Column 6 of the Singapore Memorial, in the Republic of Singapore. Also remembered in the online Hofuku Maru Roll of Honour.'