Cableship Retriever IMO 129024

[Thomas W]

Cableship Retriever was bomed and sunk in the Med on 11 April 1941. Eleven souls including the Master: Cecil Arnold Foy went down with the ship. The ships complement was 46.
TNA lists a few sailors who appear to have been taken prisoner and ended up in the German PoW camp at Milag. Does anyone have the full story please?

Regards
Tony

[Hugh]

The survivors reached Greece in lifeboats, but six wounded men were left behind when Greece was evacuated. These six men were harshly treated after being captured but survived to be imprisoned in Milag. ("Milag:Captives of the Kriegsmarine") by Gabe Thomas.
I have lists of the prisoners.
Regards
Hugh

[j.sabourn]

If you look hard enough there are always such stories of mistreatment of prisoners , however I always look at both sides of a story. My own father told me later in his life that before being shipped out to Burma via Ceylon and India he had done a short spell on exchange of POWs with the Germans in 1942 via a hospital ship up the Baltic. This was done in all correctness . His remarks were the British pows appeared to be in better condition than the returning German POWS , that may have been due to the rationing in the uk however. During the change over 2 escaped British pow’s managed to get on board the hospital ship and were hidden by the ships crew . They thought they had got away with it. Until coming out of the Baltic via the Skatterack a German Uboat surfaced alongside them and demanded return of the two escaped prisoners under threat from their deck gun so there was no option but to do so. The only other war story I heard from his lips was how the japs had been stopped at Imphal before getting into India , he said the only troops to stand their ground were the British and Ghurka regiments, reading history books I think also playing a big part of this was the japs had out paced their own supply lines . However I would prefer to hear the facts from someone who was actually there than some professor of history consolidating newspaper cuttings .The likes of the Retriever I would believe right away as there were survivors to verify and as long as they were genuine was and is true.Cheers JS