Ronald Walker McCreath married Henrietta Dorothy Stokes.
They had a daughter, Barbara Celia McCreath, born 10 March 1926, Blackheath, London.
Barbara married John Howson. They had a son, John McCreath Howson. Later she married Ryland Moebus.
The following is a verbatim extract received from Barbara on 9 September 2000.
“My Dad. Firstly, a sea going marine engineer with the German Eider Dempster shipping line. My mother and I lived in Hamburg to be closer to my father.
When I was three Dad was offered the position of second engineer on the Governor of Singapore’s Steam Yacht. He assisted in taking the new vessel out to Singapore. He was then offered a position as marine engineer repairing ships in dry dock. This meant we could settle down together. He worked there until retirement at 56. He attained the position of deputy dockyard manager and controlled thirteen miles of docks. At one time he even repaired naval submarines before the naval base was built.
I was devoted to my Dad and went everywhere with him, even went down for submarine trials. He was always fondly referred to as “Mac” by everyone. We were most fortunate to escape Singapore two days before the fall to the Japanese. The governor gave Dad the onerous job of selecting the best of the marine engineers and get them out. They escaped with him on a ferry boat to Sumatra, then across the Sunday straits to Batavia (Jakarta) Java. Dad put them all on different available boats and finally escaped with his friend on the last boat. They reached Bombay and joined the Indian army.
My dad became a colonel, commanding engineering troops in Iraq, Iran, and Palestine. His main role was to build landing barges which took locomotives and ammunitions up the Euphrates River to Russia.
In the later part of the war he commanded a Gurkha regiment at Fort Gloucester, on the Hooglie River, near Calcutta. By then Mum and I had gone from Australia where we had escaped to from Singapore. We later traveled to Calcutta to live with Dad. When the British claimed Singapore and Malaya back, at the end of the war, we returned to Penang and Singapore to live.
He was also a qualified Lloyd’s surveyor for the insurance claims for ships repaired.”