Gunner
James Henry Pullin
Military Details
Service Number: 936850
Regiment & Unit / Ship
97th Field Regiment
Service Branch
Army
Service History
Gunner Pullin had served in France and had been evacuated from Dunkirk before being sent out to the Middle East
Personal Details
Date of Birth
7th April 1918
Address
Valley View, Greenbank
Parents
William George and Dinah Pullin
Education and Occupation
Occupation
Hotel Worker
Death and Memorial
Date of Death
14th November 1942
Age at Death
24
Circumstances of Death
He was lost at sea on 14 November 1942 while a Prisoner of War. He had been taken prisoner during the fighting in Middle East (North Africa) and was being transported to a POW camp in Italy.
The vessel on which he was being transported was the S.S. Scillin, an Italian cargo ship. Her intended passage was from Tripoli (Libya) to Trapani (Sicily, Italy) when she was intercepted by a British submarine (HMS Sahib) off the Tunisian coast and sunk by a single torpedo.
The Scillin was massively overcrowded and many of the POWs had been placed in the hold. Given the combination of these two things, those POWs who were in the hold had virtually no chance of escape when the vessel was hit by the torpedo. Of the 814 Allied POWs on board, the Sahib was able to rescue 27 of them, along with a rather greater number from the Italian crew.
Initially posted as 'missing', Gunner James Pullin's family received confirmation of his death about 18 months later, in May 1944.
Theater of Action
North Africa
Buried or Commemorated at
El Alamein Memorial
Libya
Private Memorial: is commemorated in the Borough of Whitehaven 'Book of Remembrance'. Gunner James Henry Pullin also had family connections with Cleator Moor and is commemorated by the Cleator Moor 'Roll of Honour'. I
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