George Godfrey Lang

Service Number ~ 63824 Unit ~ New Zealand Infantry, 24 Battalion WW2 POW ~ Unknown Prisoner of War Camp POW Deaths (R25405152) Private Lang died Saturday 22nd Aug 1942 while being transported as a prisoner of war on (S.S. Nino Bixio) Son of James Dudrick Lang, and of Mary Sophia Lang (nee Augustine), of New Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand. 118 New Zealand prisoners of war died when The Nino Bixio was hit while transporting Allied POWs from Libya to Italy. With another unmarked prison ship, the Sestriere, it had left Benghazi for Brindisi on 16 August, escorted by two destroyers and two torpedo boats. Crammed aboard the Nino Bixio were almost 3000 POWs captured in North Africa, including more than 160 New Zealanders. Their deaths, combined with the 44 men lost on the Jantzen in December 1941, amounted to nearly a third of New Zealand's POW fatalities during the Second World War.