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By Beryl E. Escott

By Paddy Hayes

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Optymystic" data-source="post: 27627" data-attributes="member: 208">Kenneth HorsfieldWe can demonstrate from the citation, signed by Franck, that Kenneth died in the demolition area Military Establishment 54, which was the air packing station at Brindisi, not Bari which was the SOM (Special Ops Mediterranean HQ). ME 54 was a factory employing hundreds of people to pack the containers for dropping by parachute. It was a replica of STS 61 at Saffron Walden where Kenneth had been employed up to his departure in 1942. I believe that Kenneth was first shipped to Derna (SOE force 133) and thence to Brindisi specifically for his container packing nous. I have no reference to support his secondment to SAS while in Egypt though other sources have him in SAS and one of the photos clearly displays wings on his shoulder. My specific interests are first the description of the incident in which he was killed, which was used as a source by Bonner in Volunteer Infantry of Ashton under Lyne published in 2005. Captain Bonner is unable to tell me where he got it from but it presumably existed recently. Two days spent in the National Archive have failed to reveal it. My second interest is in what must have been a fairly substantial funeral which followed with a Jugoslav choir. Three people had died in the explosion, others were injured and ME 54 employed large numbers of Jugoslavs as they were then known.</blockquote>