Tracey, Percy Bernstein (Stoker, b.1914 - d.1998)

Collection relating to the Second World War service of DKX128680 Stoker Percy Bernstein Tracey, HMS Repulse, Royal Navy, United Kingdom, 1941-1998.

Wallet 1 of 1 – Contains four folders of material relating to Stoker Percy Bernstein Tracey.

Folder 1 of 4 consists of service documents and personal documents of Stoker Tracey. It contains:
1x Temporary Certificate of Service, 1941-1942
1x Certificate of Service, 1941-1946
1x Order of Release, issued 14 January 1946
1x Cover for service records, used c1942-1944
1x Copy of birth certificate, issued 11 September 1975
1x Copy of marriage certificate, issued 18 August 1947
1x Copy of death certificate, issued 13 May 1998

Folder 2 of 4 consists of one memoir and one transcript of memoir of Stoker Tracey, and one note by Stoker Tracey’s wife, Mrs Helen Kathleen Tracey (née Westall). In his memoir, Stoker Tracey writes about his enlistment to the Royal Navy, serving on HMS Repulse in South East Asia, surviving the sinking of HMS Repulse by Japanese torpedos, recovering in Singapore, attempting to escape Singapore on HMS Dragonfly, the sinking of HMS Dragonfly, becoming a Japanese prisoner of war, making friends with Australian prisoners, working on the Burma-Thai Railway, life in Japanese prisoner of war camps, and his eventual liberation. In her note, Mrs Tracey comments on Stoker Tracey’s life after the war.

Folder 3 of 4 consists of two copies of the British Battalion Diary of Prisoners of War, Singapore, May 1942 to March 1945.

Folder 4 of 4 consists of one book, “Forty Drawings by Ronald Searle”, published in 1946. Ronald Searle shared similar experiences as Stoker Tracey, as a Japanese prisoner of war.