TWO SONS MISSING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 28, 2 January 1942, Page 2

TWO SONS MISSING

SOLDIER AND SAILOR. Advice was received Ibis -week by Mr and Mrs F. O'Connell. of 50 Savage Crescent, that two of their three tons serving overseas with the Forces, Sergeant'" James Henry O'Connell ana Acting-Engineroom Artificer Leslie 0O'Connell, of the Royal . Navy, are reported missing in operations against the enemy. Sergeant O'Connell is .the eldest son and was born in Hastings i„ 1913 and educated at the Y\ aipukttra ii I Convent. Since leaving school he had & a member of the Territorial Force and at the outbreak of the war was called up to enter camp as an "n'ti-ncter. a position he held until le-inii" New Zealand lor overseas lb month's ago. He was a keen member of both the Dannovirkc Golf and Badminton Clubs. Born in Hastings in. 1917 Acting-Engineroom Artificer O'Connell, after receiving his education at the Waipukurau Convent entered the panel beating trade and tor some time was employed at "Wellington At the outbreak or war he was engaged in work at the Deronport Naval Base in Auckland and it was from there he joined the Navy. He left New Zealand J 4 months' ago on board the llangitikci and after its fateful engagement with enemy raider* in November of 1940 he was stated to be missing, only to-be reported "safe and well and arrived at ins destination" fifteen days later- in England he worked al the Chatham Naval Barracks, but he > atcr siUV s ?'" vice on a destroyer and more recent I v was transferred to a cruiser, in which he took part in several successful engagements with the enemy including the shelling of Bardia in the present Libyan offensive. Only recently he passed his engineroom artificer s tourtn class examination. The youngest son of Mr and Mrs O'Connell, l<rancis, is a petty-officer in the Royal New Zealand Navy.