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Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
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St John’s Gospel, Ch.15 v.13
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| Albert Henry Anson was born in London in 1882. He worked as a barman until the outbreak of the First World War when he joined the London Regiment of the First Surrey Rifles. During the war his wife moved to live in Bosham. Rifleman Albert Anson fought in the trenches in the Thiepval area. He died on the Somme aged 34 on 8 th October 1916 during the final weeks of the battle of the Somme . His name is recorded on the Thiepval memorial. |
| William Luckhurst was born in 1896. During the First World War he served with the Yorkshire Regiment as a Second Lieutenant. During the Spring of 1917 he was leading a group of men preparing for the Arras offensive. 35,000 men lost their lives during April and May 1917 in the Arras sector. William Luckhurst died aged 21 on 24 th April 1917 and is buried at the Arras cemetery. |
| Charles Lucking was born in Portsmouth in 1881and joined the Royal Marines aged 14. During the first World war Sergeant Lucking was serving on the battlecruiser HMS Lion. On 31 st May, 1916 , at the start of the battle of Jutland , HMS Lion took a direct hit midships on the Q turret. The ship was saved due to the dying act of Royal Marines who flooded the magazines. Sergeant Lucking died aged 33 and was buried at sea. He is remembered on the Portsmouth war memorial. |
| Samuel Lucking was born in 1886. He joined the Royal Marines in 1900 aged 14 as a boy bugler. By the outbreak of the First World War Private Lucking was serving on board HMS Bulwark as part of the Royal Marine Light Infantry. HMS Bulwark was part of the 5 th Battle Squadron carrying out patrol duty in the Channel. On 26 th November, 1914 , while loading ammunition at Sheerness in the Thames Estuary she was destroyed by a huge explosion. Only 12 men survived from a crew of 750. Samuel Lucking died aged 28 and is remembered on the Portsmouth war memorial. |
| Henry Pedder was born in 1888 and joined the Royal Navy at an early age serving in submarines. At the beginning of the First World War Leading Seaman Peddar was serving on submarine E13. During the night of 19 th August 1915 she attempted to pass through the narrow waters of the sound between the neutral countries of Denmark and Sweden on her way to reinforce submarine forces in the Baltic. Due to a compass failure she ran aground in Danish territorial waters and was spotted by a German torpedo boat and was fired upon. Sadly 15 members of the crew lost their lives including Henry Pedder aged 27. A Danish vessel intervened and 14 crew were taken prisoner in Denmark . The body of Henry Pedder and those of his fellow crewmen were repatriated after the war and are buried in the Haslar RN cemetery in Gosport . |
| Bertram Alfred Porter served as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Fusiliers. He was stationed in France and in 1917 was part of the force preparing for the Arras offensive. He died on the 3 rd of May 1917 and is remembered on the Arras memorial. |
| H Thomson Whybrow was a Captain in the Machine Gun Corps. At the outbreak of the First World War, Tanzania was the centre of German East Africa . Captain Whybrow was part of the Commonwealth forces that invaded from April 1915. It was a long and difficult campaign, centred on the attempt to capture Moshi in the southern foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro . Moshi was finally seized in March of 1916. Captain Whybrow died on 21 st March 1916 and is buried at Moshi cemetery. |
| J Sterling Yates : John Tamar Sterling Yates was born in 1867 on a ship in Canadian Territorial waters and thus was Canadian citizen. His Irish parents were in fact emigrating to the USA. He came to England in 1900 and worked as a blacksmith at Funtington. In 1905 he married Nellie Redman of Bosham. In 1912 his sister visited him from America. Sadly she returned on the Titanic and died when the ship sank. He joined the Royal Sussex Regiment at the start of the First World War aged 47. He probably served as a blacksmith. He was wounded in France and was repatriated to a hospital in Ashford in Kent, where he died of his wounds. |
| Reginald Charles Bettis Bowden was born during the First World War and lived in Chidham with his parents Thomas and Edith. He joined the Royal Navy and at the outbreak of the Second World War was serving aboard HMS Royal Oak a dreadnought battleship. On 13 th October 1939 when the war was only 6 weeks old HMS Royal Oak was sunk at Scapa Flow in Orkney by torpedoes from a German U boat. 833 men lost their lives including Able Seaman Bowden aged 24. |
| Henry James Hayes was born in 1909. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was serving as a Leading Seaman on board HMS Exmouth. On 21st January 1940 the ship was escorting a merchant vessel to Scapa Flow . In the early hours of the morning of 21 st January, 1940 HMS Exmouth was hit by a torpedo from a German uboat. She was hit in the magazine and sunk almost immediately with all hands. The position of the wreck was only discovered in 2001. Leading Seaman Hayes died aged 31 and is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. He lived in Hambrook with his wife Dorothy. |
| Eustace Arthur Peter Hillard was born in 1910. He served in the Royal Marines and at the outbreak of the Second World War was a Second Lieutenant. He died on 26 th August 1940 when the German airforce bombed Fort Cumberland at Eastney and is buried in Funtington Churchyard. |
| Sydney William Lockyer was born in 1892. After leaving school he served in the Royal Navy. In 1942 he was Chief Stoker on board the Boom Defence Vessel Sparsholt. He died on 13 th March, 1942 aged 50. He was survived by his wife Margaret who lived in Emsworth. |
| William Leonard Eliot Reynolds was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He died on 17 th October, 1939 . He is commemorated on the Brookwood Memorial in the Brookwood military cemetery in Surrey . The Brookwood memorial commemorates those who have no known grave, whose death could not be commemorated on any campaign memorial. Among them are those who died in the campaign in Norway , raids on Dieppe and at St Nazaire and those operating as special agents who died as prisoners whilst working with allied underground movements. |
| More about Lt Col Reynolds |
| Leslie James Simpson was born in 1913. He joined the Royal Horse Artillery and became a Battery Sergeant Major serving in the North Africa campaign. During this campaign Tripoli was an important Axis base until it was taken by Montgomery ’s forces in 1943. Warrant Officer Simpson died on 22 nd July 1943 aged 30. He is buried in the Tripoli war cemetery. |
| Edward William Swatton was a Pilot Officer attached to 408 Squadron Royal Canadian Airforce. He is buried in Frederikshaven cemetery in Denmark . Denmark was occupied by the Germans during World War 2 and allied planes were active in Danish skies with special operations, raids on specific targets and supplying the Danish resistance. Many airmen were killed in these operations. Edward Swatton died on 19th July, 1942 aged 29. He lived with his wife Catherine in West Ashling . more here |
| Thanks to Carol Vigor for the research |
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In Memoriam – Lt Col W. E. L. REYNOLDS An entry in St. Mary’s Church Visitor’s Book in May 2009 was intriguing. The comment was ‘a lovely surprise to see my grandfather Reynolds mentioned on the World War 2 memorial’. During our Remembrance Sunday service, short biographies of those named on both memorials are read to the congregation. All that we knew of ‘Reynolds’ was that he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps, that he died in 1939 and was mentioned on the Brookwood War Memorial in Surrey. The note in the Visitor’s Book was too good and opportunity to miss, so I sent a letter to our visitor giving only the name, Joanna Edwards, and the town, Shaftesbury. The Post Office excelled themselves! Only 24 hours after posting, an e-mail popped up in my computer from Joanna Edwards with some fascinating information. William Leonard Eliot Reynolds was born on 4 April 1889 in Weymouth , was educated at King’s School, Canterbury and in 1910 he started his medical training at Guy’s Hospital, London taking his MRCS and LRCP in 1915. He at once entered the Royal Army Medical Corps Special Reserve, taking a regular commission on 1 January 1917. He served during the First World War, sometime in France, winning the Military Cross. In due course he married Joan Steele in London and was posted to Northern India , now Pakistan. In the mid 1930s his wife and children, Mark, Elizabeth and Christopher, returned to England to find a family home and they moved into Belfry Cottage in Chidham. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the now, Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds, Tubby to his Army friends, was returning to England as Deputy Assistant Director General, Army Medical Services, War Office, when the ship in which he was travelling, the SS Yorkshire, was torpedoed by a German submarine, the U37, some 200 miles west of Cape Finisterre. There were 278 people on board of whom 160 were ships complement and the remainder were passengers, chiefly servicemen and their families returning to England from the East. 58 people lost their lives. Lt Col Reynolds had placed a small suitcase with his papers and medals in a lifeboat before re-entering the stricken ship for the third time. He was lost. His little water-soaked case was returned to his family and his papers and medals were given to the Royal Army Medical Corps Museum . A fascinating letter, written by an Army Officer and printed in Time Magazine 8 January 1940, gives a first-hand account of the sinking of the SS Yorkshire. A copy of this letter, along with other copied documents, including an extract from the German Navy War Log for October 1939, is in the Parish Scrapbook in St. Mary’s Church vestry. Lt Col Reynolds’ widow, Joan, moved in due course, from Belfry Cottage, she lived into her nineties and died in Chichester. Christopher died in 2000, Mark has four children and six grandchildren – one of whom, Louisa, plans to join the RAMC – a career decision made without any knowledge of her great grandfather’s profession. The source of our information, Joanna, daughter of Elizabeth nee Reynolds, married in Funtington and has two children, one of whom is training to be a doctor. At the end of her correspondence, Joanna Edwards writes: “Thank you very much indeed for your interest and for mentioning his ( Lt Col Reynold’s ) name so regularly in church year after year. We all find it very moving.” We, in turn, are most grateful to Joanna Edwards and all the family for sharing so much information about Lt Col William Leonard Eliot Reynolds, MC, RAMC. Thanks to Nina Bates |