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Sergeant Errol Frederick ECKFORD (5528)
3rd (Penang and Province Wellesley Volunteer Corps) Battalion, Straits Settlement Volunteer Force Date of birth: 22nd August 1915 Date of death: 13th November 1944 Died aged 29 Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial Column 392
Errol Frederick Eckford was born at Chefoo in Northern China on the 22nd of August 1915 the third son of Vyvyan Robert Hans Eckford, a China merchant, and Mabel Josephine (nee Lavers) Eckford, of Chefoo, later of Blackheath in London. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Heads House from May 1929 to July 1933. He was a member of the Athletics Team from 1931 to 1933 and held the record for the “Weight” in the latter year. On leaving school he returned to China from London on board the SS Glenogle on the 11th of August 1934. He moved to Penang in Malaysia where he worked as an engineer for Borneo Motors of Penang. While he was living there he enlisted in the 3rd (Penang and Province Wellesley Volunteer Corps) Battalion, Straits Settlement Volunteer Force where he rose to the rank of Sergeant. He was captured at Singapore on the 15th of February 1942 and was interned with thousands of other prisoners of war at Changi Barracks. On the 28th of March 1943 he was part of the 1,000 strong "E Force" which was loaded on board the Imaji Maru (formerly the Dutch cargo ship SS DeKlerk). The ship arrived at Kuching on the 3rd of April where a group of around two hundred and fifty Australians were unloaded to work on the docks there. Errol Ekford and the remaining prisoners set sail for Jesselton where they arrived on the 9th of April 1943. In the spring of 1944 Captain Nagai was tasked with setting up a new camp on the island of Labuan, which the Japanese had renamed as Maeda Island, in order to construct a new airstrip to protect the anchorage at Victoria Harbour and in Brunei Bay. He arrived on Labuan on 16th June 1944 with one hundred British and Australian prisoners of war to begin the work. The first camp was originally built in the grounds of the Victoria Golf Club, near Victoria Harbour but was later moved due to Allied air raids to a new site some three miles to the north of the harbour. On the 15th of August 1944 a further two hundred prisoners arrived on the island. From October 1944 malaria and malnutrition caused a large number of deaths among the inmates. Forty prisoners died at the original site and by the 23rd of Jan 1945, when Captain Nagai left, one hundred and sixty three prisoners had died. Errol Ekford died from malaria and beri beri during this period and was buried in the camp cemetery there.

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