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Name: CALISHER, Anne (Corporal)
Nee: dau of Herman and Pauline Calisher
Birth Date: 1893 Russia
Death Date: 12 Feb 1944 sinking of SS Khedive Ismail
Profession: Clerk
Area: previously lived in Bloemfontein
Married: No
Book Reference: CWGC, Orange Free State probate records
War Service: WTS
General Information:
CWGC - East Africa Memorial - Corporal Anne Calisher, K570. Women's Territorial Service (East Africa), lost in SS Khedive Ismail 12th February 1944
1901 Scotland Census Annie Calisher b. 1893 in Russia, living in Glasgow (the only Anne Calisher in Ancestry)
East African Forces Register of Deaths in WW2 www.londonremembers.com/subjects/corporal-anne-calisher-1 Anne Calisher was a Corporal in the Women's Territorial Service (East Africa), service number K570. We have been able to find very little information about this person apart from the Billion Graves website that states that her sister [wrong - it was her mother], Pauline Calisher, was buried on 3 December 1947 at Bloemfontein, Memoriam Road Cemetery, Memoriam Road, Bloemfontein Free State 9301, South Africa.
Her name is shown incorrectly as A. Callisher on the plaque outside St Paul's Church, Wilton Place, London, SW1.
On 6 February 1944 she was on board the S.S. Khedive Ismail, a liner that was being used a troopship. It formed part of Convoy KR-8 that sailed from Kilindini Harbour at Mombasa, Kenya to Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The convoy consisted of five troop transports (Khedive Ismail, City of Paris, Varsova, Ekma & Ellenga), escorted by the heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins and the destroyers HMS Petard and HMS Paladin.
In the early afternoon of Saturday 12 February 1944, a Japanese submarine sank the Khedive Ismail with two torpedoes. No fewer than 1,297 people, including 77 women, lost their lives in the two minutes it took for the Khedive Ismail to sink. Only 208 men and 6 women survived. The sinking was the third worst Allied shipping disaster of World War II and the single worst loss of female service personnel in the history of the Commonwealth of Nations. The https://www.royalmarineshistory.com/post/sinking-of-the-troopship-khedive-ismail website gives more details of the action.
Her body was never recovered and as she has no known grave she is commemorated on Column 95 of the East Africa Memorial Kenya in the Nairobi War Cemetery, Ngong Road, Nairobi, Kenya, and on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website.
Her name is shown incorrectly as A. Callisher on the plaque outside St Paul's Church, Wilton Place, London, SW1.
On 6 February 1944 she was on board the S.S. Khedive Ismail, a liner that was being used a troopship. It formed part of Convoy KR-8 that sailed from Kilindini Harbour at Mombasa, Kenya to Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The convoy consisted of five troop transports (Khedive Ismail, City of Paris, Varsova, Ekma & Ellenga), escorted by the heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins and the destroyers HMS Petard and HMS Paladin.
In the early afternoon of Saturday 12 February 1944, a Japanese submarine sank the Khedive Ismail with two torpedoes. No fewer than 1,297 people, including 77 women, lost their lives in the two minutes it took for the Khedive Ismail to sink. Only 208 men and 6 women survived. The sinking was the third worst Allied shipping disaster of World War II and the single worst loss of female service personnel in the history of the Commonwealth of Nations. The https://www.royalmarineshistory.com/post/sinking-of-the-troopship-khedive-ismail website gives more details of the action.
Her body was never recovered and as she has no known grave she is commemorated on Column 95 of the East Africa Memorial Kenya in the Nairobi War Cemetery, Ngong Road, Nairobi, Kenya, and on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website.