Charles Toghill

Herbert Charles Toghill
Surname	Christian Names		Service Number			Rank	Regiment
Toghill	Herbert Charles		7398993			Pte	Royal Army Medical Corps
Born	Age	Enlisted at			Address
	34
Date of Death	Where killed					Cause of Death
12/02/1944	Off Ceylon					Killed in action - ship torpedoed
Cemetery	Plot					Country
East Africa Memorial	Column 8					Kenya
Next of Kin	Next of kin address					Town
Christine Toghill						Chippenham
Notes
Toghill's name was added to the War Memorial in 2006 Son of Joseph and Lilian Bird; husband of Christine Toghill, of Chippenham, Wiltshire. Lost in SS Khedive Ismail (London). Egyptian transport of 7,513 tons requisitioned by the British for use as a troopship while docked at Bombay in 1940. Sister ship to the Mohamed Ali el-Kebir, the vessel was carrying 1,511 returning service personnel including 178 ships crew, 996 officers and men of the 301st Field Regiment, East African Artillery, 271 Royal Navy personnel and a detachment of 19 British Wrens. Also on board were 53 nursing sisters with one matron and 9 WTS girls (Women's Transport Service, East Africa). While returning from Colombo, Ceylon, in convoy KR-8, the ship was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean at 14.33 hours. It took only 1 minute 40 seconds for the ship to sink taking 1,297 of her passengers and crew with her. There were 214 survivors including only six female passengers from the vessel, a victim of the Japanese submarine I-27 commanded by Lt-Cdr Fukumura. This was the greatest maritime tragedy involving female service personnel in British naval history. The I-27 was hiding under survivors and flotsam but priority lay in destroying the submarine rather than rescuing survivors and so a depth charge attack was made, unfortunately killing some of the survivors in the water. The I-27 was later blown apart by torpedoes fired from two of the escort destroyers, HMS Petard and HMS Paladin. George Duncan's Maritime Disasters of World War II http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/maritime-1b.html#maritime_disasters_1944
Memorials Commemorated on:
Chippenham Town War Memorial				Yes
Photos courtesy of FS Richard Evans RAF, former DRAFLO, Nairobi

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