Florence Fairburn Moojen was born on 31 March 1903 in Streatham, the second of the three daughters of Henry Edwin Moojen (1851-1908) and Emma Moojen née Fairburn (1868-1947). On 25 March 1903 she was baptised at St Leonard's Church, Streatham, where the baptismal register shows that the family were living at 4 Mitcham Lane, Streatham, and that her father was a solicitor.
In the 1911 census she is shown as living in an eight roomed house called Oldlands in Gold Street, Cobham, near Gravesend, Kent, with her widowed mother, two sisters: Grace Kitty Moojen (1899-1987), Ada Mary Moojen (1904-1992), together with two servants described as a female general domestic servant and a female mother's help. Her mother is described as being of independent means.
On 4 April 1937 she landed in Plymouth, Devon having travelled saloon class aboard the S.S. Mantola of The British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd line. The ship's manifest shows her as a nurse, aged 34 years, having embarked at Beira, Mozambique, and giving her proposed address in the UK as c/o Captain E. W. H. Blake, RN, of The Brake, Yelverton, South Devon. It also showed Kenya as being her country of last permanent residence and that England would be her country of future permanent residence.
She gained the rank of Serjeant in the Women's Territorial Service (East Africa), formally of the Women's Transport Service (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), service number K/253.
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.
She died, aged 41 years. As she has no known grave she is commemorated on Column 76 of the East Africa Memorial Kenya in the Nairobi War Cemetery, Ngong Road, Nairobi, Kenya, on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website that incorrectly gives her age as 36 years and on the Cobham war memorial, Kent.
Probate records confirm her address to have been Oldlands, Cobham, Kent and that when administration of her estate was granted to her mother on 4 September 1945 her effects totalled £1,270-4s-8d.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
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