Sibenik 1943

[red devil]

Today I received an email from a person whose late father served aboard a couple of ships in WW2, one the Lass of Richmond and the other being the hospital ship St Andrew. She says that, when the war was going on between Serbia and Croatia, her father received a bouquet of flowers and the note: "We remember Sibenik 1943". Apparently he was upset and refused to comment. The next year he again received more flowers and a card that gave his name as Ernesto and the intials "WW".

I have done some google checks on Sebenik and found that the Germans occupied the region in 1943 and that the Town Hall of Sebenik was bombed by allied aircraft in Dec 1943 but nothing else. Would anybody have any ideas about what could possibly have occurred in this place in 1943 that would warrant a seaman getting flowers 2 years running, so many years later.

The daughter of this man is trying to piece together why he should have received these flowers. It does not sound like mistaken identity due to the mans reaction?

[Graham Clayton]

I found this reference to a partisan brigade forming in the area after the Italian surrender:

http://www.vojska.net/eng/world-war-2/y ... lmatian/8/

Maybe there may have been some German reprisals against the brigade?

[red devil]

many people probably recall an incident and blame the bomber not the target. The town hall was probably a Nazi HQ, and a viable target. But, thats conjecture.

You can say the same about Dresden. It was a marshaling point for troops going to the eastern front. Stalin asked the Allies to bomb the railways to stop trains leaving Dresden for the Eastern Front. The Allies duly obliged. But the railway and troop trains were in the middle of town, so more than the railyards got hit.

Who is at fault? The Germans for starting the whole damn thing. But left whingers see it different.

[G. Trifkovic]

You can say the same about Dresden. It was a marshaling point for troops going to the eastern front. Stalin asked the Allies to bomb the railways to stop trains leaving Dresden for the Eastern Front. The Allies duly obliged. But the railway and troop trains were in the middle of town, so more than the railyards got hit.

Who is at fault? The Germans for starting the whole damn thing. But left whingers see it different.

Let's stay on topic.

Would anybody have any ideas about what could possibly have occurred in this place in 1943 that would warrant a seaman getting flowers 2 years running, so many years later.

My best guess would be is that the seaman in question was involved in evacuation of some kind, maybe of Italian personnel ("Ernesto") after the September capitulation. I, however, could not find any evidence in support of this possibility in several books/document collections pertaining to Dalmatia in this period of the war.

More information on the ships in question would be of great help: I couldn't find anything on "Lass of Richmond", and only one reference to "AH St. Andrew" (struck by mine off Pescara on 23 September 1944).

Cheers,

G.