To celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the Postal Museum has launched a website commemorating employees who died in both World Wars – and wants their families to get in touch.
Over a period of three years in the 1950s General Post Office (GPO) employee James Trezies researched the 12,830 postal employees who died in both World Wars.
He created a hand-written memorial on cream wove paper, which has now been digitised on the GPO War Heroes website with the support of The Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance and BT Archives.
Members of the public can search the records online for the names of family members and submit details about their lives through a simple form.
The museum team will review these submissions and add them to the website.
One of the latest stories uncovered is that of Percy Walter Minns.
Percy had served in the Royal Navy before joining the GPO and re-enlisted at the start of the Second World War.
He died on 17 September 1939 when his ship, HMS Courageous, was torpedoed by a German U-boat.
Chris Taft, Head of Collections at The Postal Museum, said: “We’ve now added Percy’s story to the GPO War Heroes website, and we hope that others will follow and share their own stories of relatives, so these online memorial books become a valuable resource for family history researchers and the future generations alike.”
Rosemary Collins is the staff writer of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
