Showing 136 results

Authority record
Soldier

Ernest William 'Erny' Moore; fl 1914-1920; soldier; Norwich, Norfolk

  • GB/153/NM/10192
  • Person
  • fl 1914-1920

Moore lived at 469 Earlham Road. He enlisted on 24 November 1918 for service with the Norfolk Regiment, but on arrival in Egypt transferred to the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. He reached the rank of S/Sgt and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 1919. He was discharged to the army reserve in January 1920.

Charlie Martin; ?-1916; soldier

  • GB/153/NM/10702
  • Person
  • ?-1916

Middlesex Regiment, then Rifleman 6075 2nd/17th BN London Regiment. He joined the Army September of 1914 and was killed 21 July 1916. He is buried in Ecoivres Military Cemetery.

Sidney Hazelton; fl 1914-1974; soldier; Hellesdon and Swainsthorpe, Norfolk

  • GB/153/NM/10927
  • Person
  • fl 1914-1974

Hazelton served in Italy during the First World War, but suffered from severe shell shock, after an attack when a group of his comrades were all killed, leaving him the sole survivor. He spent sixty years in hospital, mainly Hellesdon Hospital, but later he was moved to Swainsthorpe Hospital, where he died, aged 80.

Gordon Lee; fl 1939-1945; soldier; Libya, Modena, Italy, Marche, Italy, Audenshaw, Greater Manchester

  • GB/153/NM/10944
  • Person
  • fl 1939-1945

Gordon Lee, a trooper, 44th Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment, was taken prisoner in Libya in June 1942. Following a spell in a camp near Modena, he was transferred to Campo Concentramento 73 at Macerata in Marche, Italy. After the armistice between Italy and the allies, the Italian prison guards disappeared. Against the orders of the Senior British Officer in the camp, Lee and three friends left the camp on 17 September 1943. Within a few hours of their departure, the Germans had arrived at Macerata and most of the inmates were sent to work in Germany.
Lee and his friends planned to travel west towards the Apennines and then to turn southwards to meet the expected allied advance. Travelling through country areas, they were given food and shelter by many Italians. For nine months, they stayed in the remote village of Tresungo near Ascoli, where Erbe Petrucci, his family and other local people looked after them. The German retreat enabled Lee and his companions to leave the village and at Rieti, they met a Royal Engineers Unit. They were sent via Rome to a rest camp at Bari to await a passage home, but Lee returned to Tresungo to take gifts to his benefactors. He was sent to Naples and then Algiers, before finally sailing for Glasgow and returning home to Audenshaw, near Manchester.

John Orr Rex; 1923-2020; soldier; Wymondham, Norfolk

  • GB/153/NM/11330
  • Person
  • Born 21 Feb 1923, died 26 April 2020

John Rex was a member of the 937th Military Police Company, Detachment 'B', stationed at the 77th, later the 231st Station Hospital, near Morley Hall, Wymondham.

Reginald 'Mickey' Read; 1914-2008; soldier, postman; Fakenham, Norfolk

  • GB/153/NM/11369
  • Person
  • 1914-2008

Reginald Read (1914-2008). As a baby, Reginald 'Mickey' Read was found abandoned in Clapham and taken to the local Barnardo's Home. Aged four, he was adopted by a couple in Ely and in 1928, when his adopted-mother became ill, he was sent to the Gordon Boys' School in Woking, Surrey. In 1930, his adopted parents having both died, Reginald Read joined the army as a trumpeter and drummer in the Royal Tank Regiment. In 1934, he volunteered for service in India and was involved in rescue and relief work following the Quetta earthquake, 1935. In 1939, Read returned to England and married Vivienne Dent. During the Second World War he served as a tank commander in the North African Desert and was captured in 1941 and made a Prisoner of War in Stalag Luft IVB, Germany. As a bugle player, he often sounded domestic calls at the camp and sounded the 'Last Post' as prisoners' funerals. Some of these funerals were photographed using the secret camera he had at the camp. In April 1945, Read was liberated by the advancing Russian army and eventually returned home to Norfolk. On leaving the army he worked in the Fakenham Ordnance Depot, RAF West Raynham, RAF Sculthorpe and as a postman. Following Vivienne's death in 1987, Read re-established contact with David Taylor MBE, his former Troop Leader from the Tank Regiment, following Taylor's letter in 'Tank' magazine concerning the battle in which they were both captured and made Prisoners of War. There are further notes on Reginald Read's life, from which this brief biography has been adapted, in the records. The Italian cargo ship Sebastiano Veniero (also known as the SS Janson or Jason) was carrying about 2,000 British and Commonwealth prisoners of war off the coast of Greece and was under a German Naval escort when the vessel was torpedoed by the British submarine 'Porpoise' on 9 December 1941 (information from Wreck Site http://www.wrecksite.eu accessed 8 January 2014).

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