The Researching FEPOW History Group (RFHG) first met FEPOW Bob Hucklesby in October 2011 when, as President of the National FEPOW Fellowship Welfare Remembrance Association (NFFWRA), he led the group’s visit to Liverpool. There they joined over 600 people gathered for the unveiling of RFHG’s first Repatriation Memorial on Liverpool’s Pier Head.

From then on Bob became a keen advocate for, and supporter of, RFHG’s efforts to establish the second Repatriation Memorial at Town Quay Park in French Street, facing the waterfront in Southampton. What drove Bob’s need to help was a vow he had made nearly 70 years earlier never to forget the friends he left buried in a foreign land, their young lives needlessly cut short. He wanted to ensure that we and future generations never forgot them either.

Two years after the Liverpool unveiling, on Sunday 27 October 2013, Bob was among the FEPOW veterans at the Service of Dedication at St Michael’s Church in Southampton. Following the service, the congregation walked down to Town Quay Park overlooking Southampton Water where the Repatriation Memorial was unveiled. Back at St Michael’s the veterans chatted to the RAF and Army cadets who served as the Honour Guard for the day.

Bob forged links with St John’s Church of England Primary School, situated next to Town Quay Park. Each November since 2013, on or around 18th, Bob joined civic dignitaries, children and teachers from the school and volunteers from Friends of Town Quay Park at the memorial for a brief Remembrance Service. It was on 18November 1945 that Bob landed back in Southampton on board an Italian hospital ship, Principessa Giovanna.

In November 2014 at NFFWRA’s Llandudno reunion weekend, Meg interviewed Bob for the FEPOW oral history project. At the end Bob said:

“I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful that I’ve had an opportunity to serve others and I’m grateful it gave me the experience to know that everyone should be respected… I’m very keen that those we left behind in the Far East, in a totally foreign culture, and having served to the best of their ability, that they’re never forgotten”.

Robert “Bob” Frank Hucklesby was born and brought up in Lowestoft in Suffolk. He served as a sapper in the Royal Engineers, was taken prisoner of war at Singapore and survived captivity in Thailand.

Post-war and once his health had recovered, Bob trained as an engineer working near Manchester, before settling back in Suffolk where in 1950 he served briefly as Secretary of the Ipswich FEPOW Club. In 1951 he moved the family to Poole in Dorset to take up a job in Town Planning and soon after joined the Bournemouth, Poole and District FEPOW club, serving in various roles on the committee including Welfare. Caring for people mattered to Bob. In 1996 he was appointed Trustee of the FEPOW Central Welfare Fund and the Far East POW and Internee Fund, helping to ensure that FEPOW would always be able to look after their own.

We have lost a good friend. Bob may be gone but he will not be forgotten.

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Bob wrote a brief history of the National Federation of FEPOW Clubs and Associations (NFFCA), including the annual FEPOW Federation conference, together with a summary of his various roles with NFFCA over the years. You can view this by clicking the link below.