Patricia Helen Le Poer Trench was born on 5 April 1922 in Nairobi, Kenya, the younger daughter of Arthur Hugh Donald Le Poer Trench (1889-1965) and Hilda Mabel Le Poer Trench née Bradshaw (1883-1956). Her elder sister was Kathleen Muriel Le Poer Trench (1921-1999).
On 10 June 1922 she was baptised in Nairobi and the register shows her father to have been a senior coffee officer. In March 1924 she is recorded as arriving in Plymouth, Devon, with her parents and sister. They had travelled 2nd class aboard the S.S. Mantola of The British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd line, having departed from Kilindini, Kenya. The ship's manifest shows that her father was described as a government coffee advisor and that their proposed address in the UK was to be c/o Reverend C. Bradshaw, Homesfield Vicarage, Near Sheffield, Yorkshire. It also confirmed that they intended to return to Kenya.
On 21 November 1930 she departed from the Port of London on board the S.S. Modasa of The British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd line, with her mother and sister. The ship's manifest shows them travelling 1st class to Beira, Mozambique, that their UK address had remained as Holmesfield Vicarage, Sheffield, and that their intended future residence would be in Kenya.
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/188.
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 21 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, and on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
