I recently came across an obituary for Mary June Wilkinson Pettyfer from the Victoria Times Colonist. Mary June Wilkinson was born in Exeter, England, in 1933 and died on 5 July 2023 in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. Mary June, along with her parents, Gerald Hugh Wilkinson and Lorna Mary Davies Wilkinson, and together with her brother, Rupert Hugh Wilkinson, were interned in Santo Tomás Internment Camp (STIC) during the course of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

Mary June is copiously mentioned in her brother’s book, Surviving a Japanese Internment Camp: Life and Liberation at Santo Tomás, Manila, in World War II, 2013.

After liberation, Mary June traveled with her mother and brother on the S.S. Admiral E.W. Eberle leaving Manila on 10 April 1945, arriving in San Pedro, California, on 2 May 1945. They later sailed from New York City on the S.S. Queen Mary, arriving in Southampton, England, on 25 October 1945.

Read the entire obituary online at the Victoria Times Colonist website.

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