South Yorkshire Times, July 29th, 1944
Met in India
While on leave from the R.A.F. these four South Yorkshire boys have met in a rest camp in India. They are left to right Cpl. Cowling (South Elmsall), Cpl. Winchcombe (Rawmarsh), L./Ac. F. S. Hargreaves and Cpl. J. Donnelly (West Melton).
Jimmy Donnelly, who lives at Orchard Place, West Melton, and Frederick Stanley Hargreaves, only son of Mrs. and the late Warrant Sergeant F.S. Hargreaves, 5, Melton View, Wath, were friends in “civvy street”. Both were members of Wath Mechanics’ Institute.
L./Ac. Hargreaves, who sent the picture to his mother, said he had also spent seven days leave with another old pal, Ken Kelly. “Jimmy Donnelly is the seventh Wath boy I have met since I have been overseas,” he says, but does not give the names of the others.
L./Ac. Hargreaves, who will be 23 in August, has five sisters, one of them on the staff of Adwick Road Wartime Nursery, Mexborough. It is a coincidence that another sister, Tess, is a sister at Rotherham Municipal Hospital where sister Winchcombe of Rawmarsh, (sister of Corporal Winchcombe) is also on the staff. When L./Ac. Hargreaves received a letter from Tess telling him that Sister Winchcombe’s brother was also with the R.A.F. in India, the two had already met.
His birthday In August will be the third he has spent overseas. Before going to India, he served in the Middle East. Since going to India, he has visited his father’s grave. Warrant Sergt. Hargreaves, who died on September 3rd 1942 when he had been in India for a year after serving in Egypt. A territorial, he was called up from his employment at Manvers Main Colliery a month before the outbreak of war. At the time of his death he was 49.