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I'm trying to follow up a story my late father-in-law told me. He was Indonesian (Javanese), conscripted by the occupying Japanese and at one point assigned to crew a rice cargo boat. In the Bali Strait (ie strait between Java and Bali) he and fellow crew members spotted an American submarine approaching them. The submarine was submerging but just enough of it was out of the water that it collided with their boat, cutting it in half and sinking it. My father-in-law clung to some wreckage and eventually washed ashore on the Java side of the strait. He thought the rest of the crew drowned.

What I would like to do is identify which submarine this was and what it was doing. The US Navy have helpfully allowed war patrol logs to be published online (https://maritime.org/doc/subreports.php), I guess more succinct than the real ship logs but perhaps easier to publish without worrying about classification. That shows that many US submarines operated first out of Brisbane, on the east coast, and then from Fremantle and Exmouth on the west coast of Australia, heading north to do mischief among Japanese shipping, as well as miscellaneous other tasks like landing commandoes and evacuations. They would have had to pass through the various straits through Indonesia - ie Lombok Strait (between Bali and Lombok), Sunda Strait (Java and Sumatra) or further east past Timor or Papua. You can go via the Bali Strait, however that wouldn’t be preferred for submarines because it’s quite shallow. I’ve taken the ferry across that strait a couple of times, the water does not look deep at all, I rather fancy if a submarine had been in the vicinity at the time I may well have spotted it. So not ideal submarine passage waters - but certainly possible if you had some good reason to go that way.

My father-in-law said the submarine was American, however I do wonder how well he could identify it under the circumstances. There was a small number of Dutch and Australian submarines also operating in a similar way to the American submarines. Unfortunately I can no longer ask him.

Does anyone have any suggestions at all for how I could make more progress on this? I know it’s not an easy case :-), but any clue no matter how small would be appreciated!

A bit late to be replying, but anyway... I can't answer why Septimus was in jail in 1851, but I did come across an account on Ancestry about an affray in 1877 that has an interesting connection. Together with my great-(n)-uncle Anthony Jacques, one Septimus Bland assaulted a police sergeant and several others at Quarry Street, in front of Jowsey's beerhouse, Shildon. I don't have a paid membership to Ancestry, and probably can't provide a link to it that would work, and I think it a bad idea to just copy and paste the whole thing here in deference to the no-doubt crack team of lawyers Ancestry employs, but hopefully I've given enough info that you could find it yourself if you do have access to Ancestry.

On the 1881 Census I note that a Septimus Bland (born 1812) and another (born 1857, year before my relative Anthony Jacques) were living together in Whitworth, which is also in the same area. I speculate that Septimus the elder is the one you're looking for, while the younger is the one getting into trouble in 1877. Presumably having legal problems ran in the family (or was a consequence of poverty etc).

I'll look forward to the Scavenger Hunt, thanks, JustKia.

Moston, if you were interested in more info about Betty Wimbush 1849, Patrick Connaughton and descendants I can certainly provide quite a lot for many (but not all) branches, just let me know. I was just in Canada the other day, could have had a look for some Davies's if I'd known  .

Tim

I've now checked. Betty's marriage cert (from the church, not the GRO - I inherited the original) from her wedding of 21 Nov 1880 says she resides at 27 Great Ducie St, Manchester.

The 1881 census says that Martin Knight resides at 27 Great Ducie St, Manchester. Looks to me like the case is well enough proven, in case anyone had any doubt that Martin Wimbush and Martin Knight were one and the same person.

What I called a "short-form" birth cert for Betty actually really just looks like an acknowledgement of registration - ie I guess that when her parents registered the birth, they got that to prove that they had performed their legal duty to register.

Witnesses at the wedding were John Connaughton and Alice Davies - presumably the latter was Betty's niece, Mary's daughter.

Tim