Bill will remember his close friend on Armistice Day
Armistice Day will have a special poignancy for 99-year-old Bill Tutty, a resident at MHA Priceholme care home in Givendale Road, Scarborough.
Bill is remembering his late friend, Sgt Leslie Watkins. Bill and Leslie were close friends before joining the military in the 1930s. In World War Two, Bill served in Egypt where he attained the rank of Sergeant, whilst Leslie was an ‘Ack Ack Gunner’ in Tobruk, Libya.
Sadly, after the Battle of Tobruk, Leslie was captured as a prisoner of war and was transported to Greece by a German ship. According to reports at the time, the Germans had informed the British that the ship was transporting prisoners, however they were not believed and the ship was tragically destroyed by the RAF with a loss of all life.
“When I heard about the bombing, I thought it was a terrible way to die. The British pilot must have felt so bad about what had happened. I will always remember Leslie as a really bright young man,” Bill recalls.
Priceholme is decorated in over 1,300 hand-knitted poppies, thanks to a huge reaction from the people of Scarborough and beyond following an appeal.
A ‘Fallen Soldier’ cut-out was created by Priceholme’s maintenance worker Mike Wardman.