AERIA – Mrs. V.L. Aeria, Giang Bee survivor picked up by HMS Tapah, 17. 2.42 (“HMS Tapah” ships list); Children Leonard and Barbara. “…Mrs. Aeria V. L. was interned in Palembang…” (NIRC); this was Mrs. Vera.L. Aeria, Giang Bee survivor picked up by HMS Tapah 2.42. Children Leonard and Barbara. Muntok & Palembang, Sumatra internee). It appears that this was the family of Major William Athelstan Aeria, D Company, SSVF. (JM). Mr W. A. Aeria was in the SSVF from 1918 and was a Changi POW during the war where he assisted in establishing the Bureau of Record & Enquiry. (SFP 2.1.48). In 1974 the newspaper ‘New Nation’ reported members of the Aeria family meeting Vera Aeria and her son Melville W. Aeria, aged 52 years, off the plane from Sydney, Australia where they then lived (New Nation, 12.9.74. Melville was clearly one of Vera’s much older child, born 1922 and a Lance Sergeant in the 1st Btn. SSVF, leading up to the invasion by the Japanese. He became a POW. He died in Ryde, NSW, Australia in 2005.
• AERIA – Barbara Aeria, daughter of Vera Aeria and William Aeria must have been born in early 1930s.She appears to have been about five years of age at the time of the ‘Giang Bee’ sinking from her post war newspaper reports. She appears in post war newspapers as a child dancing and later as a young woman in 1952 as a professional dance entertainer.
• AERIA – Leonard Aeria, child of Vera Aeria (above) was of unknown age.