Sex
Male
Status
Deceased
He is listed at http://www.hongkongwardiary.com/searchgarrison/hkvdc.html as Company Sergeant Major under Corps Signals for the Volunteers:
| Rathmell, Richard CSM 2231 K 26.10.42 |
It gives his cause of death in the POW camp as 'Avitaminosis', or vitamin deficiency.
Photos that show this Person
1939
1941
Comments
Pre-war
I think he's the man on the left in this photo:
It's cropped from this photo which is dated to the 1930s:
I think he also appears in several photos of the Volunteers in the 1930s that have recently been uploaded, e.g.:
The earliest mention so far is his first and only appearance in a Jurors List, the list for 1937:
RCA's Photophone was their technology for recording sound onto motion pictures, so they could be played back in cinemas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_Photophone). Rathmell's work experience would have made him well qualified for his role in the Signals section of the Volunteers.
The only other mention I've found is on page 5 of The Hongkong Telegraph, 1938-09-19. It's an article about the wedding of Mr. Royal Leonard from California ("The pilot of Mme. Chiang Kai-shek's private plane") to Miss Maxine Carolyn Thayer, also from California. Mr Richard Rathmell gave the bride away, and his wife was the matron-of-honour.
If you can add any more details of his life, and when he first came to Hong Kong, please let us know in the comments below.