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Men Lost and wounded from Ormskirk and surrounding areas 1939-45
David Neale Stride and Jack Crompton of Melling
Twenty year old Lieutenant David Neale Stride and 22 year old Trooper Jack Crompton of Melling, were ambushed by the Germans at Zuid Willemsvaart in the neighbourhood of Keldonk.
Lieutenant Stride was on the east flank of the attack with 4 Platoon on that bright sunny day. He was intent on destroying the hostile enemy in his area, which was located at a half-destroyed bridge over the canal at Zuid-Willemsvaart. They took up a defensive position for the enemy had already built a strong position on the other side of the canal to the north. The following morning Saturday 23 September Stride and Crompton left their vehicle and strolled down to the edge of the canal. They saw some American troops from the 101st Airborne Division on the other side of the canal. These troops were waving at them in desperation but before Stride and Crompton could realised the urgency of the situation and react, they received the answer to this dilemma in the form of machine gun bursts from some nearby houses. They were both immediately hit and went down.
Hank Verbraker, a local Dutchmen was in the area and witnessed the entire action. Stride and Crompton were picked up from where they had fallen by an armoured vehicle and were taken to the house of Jan Stoop in Mariahaut. Jan Stoop answered the door at 0700 hours as Stride was in the throws of dying and Crompton who had been fatally wounded in the head also died as they reached the Stoop house.
The two soldiers were buried side by side in the Roman Catholic graveyard at Lieshout (Mariahaut) in a separate plot behind the Pastor’s House and it was maintained by the villagers.
John’s father was the Engineer at the Melling Waterworks and john himself had attended Ormskirk Grammar School and is on the 1939-1945 school memorial.
John Richard Caunce
Bombardier John Richard Caunce born 3rd Dec 1914 married Nancy McNally in the autumn of 1939, they settled down to married life at 25 Grimshaw Lane, John joined the Royal Artillery in February 1939 as an anti-aircraft gunner.
On the 15th January 1942 John was on active duty on the British Motor Tanker Diala, At 23.17 hours on 15 January 1942 the unescorted Diala (Master Herbert John Adler Peters) was torpedoed and damaged by U-553 (Thurmann) about 300 miles east-southeast of Cape Race in 44°50N/46°50W. The vessel was proceeding at maximal speed (12 knots) after convoy ON-52 was dispersed on 11 January. The bow was blown off and the superstructure was extensively damaged. The tanker was abandoned by most of the crew in lifeboats and on rafts but remained afloat and drifted northeast in a heavy gale. The master, six crew members and one gunner who had remained aboard were eventually taken off by the British steam merchant Telesfora de Larrinaga and landed at New York on 29 January. However, none of the lifeboats or rafts were ever found: 49 crew members and nine gunners were lost.
Twelve survivors from the Athelcrown, which had been sunk by U-82 (Rollmann) on 22 January, boarded the abandoned and drifting wreck of the Diala. They remained on board for eight days before they were rescued by the Swedish motor tanker Saturnus. On 19 March, the drifting wreck was last seen by Allied ships in position 47°N/37°W, after attempts to tow her were unsuccessful. The wreck of the Diala was finally sunk by U-587 on 23 March.
Before the war John Richard had worked at the Messrs Ball & Co. Iron Foundry Church Street. His wife Nancy had worked as a sorter and telegraphist at the Main Post Office. John’s father Henry Caunce was a produce buyer for Dickinson’s Produce Merchants from Hardacre Street. John was Henry and Elizabeth Caunce’s sixth child of 4 sons and 5 daughters.
John was lost at sea on the 15th of January 1942 aged 27. His baby boy Alexander Victor Caunce was born on the 27th April 1942. Alexander qualified as a nurse at the Chichester School of Nursing in 1966.
John has no known grave and is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial and in the Ormskirk Parish Church Memorial Chapel as Victor Caunce and on the Comrades roll of Honour in the Coronation Park. His family also commemorated him on the family gravestone in Ormskirk Parish Church graveyard.
Lieutenant Henry Lancelot Freeman
Lieutenant Henry Lancelot Freeman was born in Ormskirk on the 9th of December 1913. His father was William Lancelot Freeman, Estate Agent, Auctioneer and Valuer of Peter Freeman and Son, 13, Railway Road, Ormskirk. His mother was Marjory Louise, nee Jones, the daughter of Henry Jones of the Rigby-Jones Rope & Twine Manufacturer, Wigan Road. The Jones family lived at Claremont, Ruff Lane, the Freeman family lived at The Beeches, Ruff Lane, later moving to 51, St Helens Road.
Henry’s father was the Chairman of Ormskirk Urban District Council for 2 years during WW2 and also served as a JP for 20 years. Henry was his eldest son.
Joining the Royal Artillery in 1940, Henry was promoted to Lieutenant and was serving with the 76 Anti-Tank Regiment in Algiers in 1944 when he fell ill with dysentery, which was another enemy the men had to fight due to the extremely difficult conditions they had to endure.
A very well-liked and respected man in business, working with his father, Henry had attended Ormskirk Grammar School and been an excellent sportsman. He was one of the best Rugby players for Ormskirk Rugby Club. Henry had been serving overseas for 18 months and had married just before being deployed.
Sergeant Pilot Gilbert Marsh
Sergeant Pilot Gilbert Marsh was shot and wounded whilst on a flying mission over Germany in the summer of 1943. Gilbert’s mother lived at 8 Hillcrest Drive, Ormskirk along with his brother William Ernest. William Ernest had joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and when Gilbert was shot and wounded, William had already flown over 14,000 operational hours. Gilbert had been brought to Ely Hospital, Cambridgeshire to recover from his wounds. Brother William was killed in action in 1944.
Sgt John Marsh, a Wireless operator and Gunner aged 22, son of Thomas & Bertha Marsh of Skelmersdale died in August 20th1943 on War Operations in Dumfries. He is buried in St Paul’s Skelmersdale Churchyard. His brothers Tom and Jim were serving in the R.A.F. and another brother Donald was a POW at the time of John’s death.
Driver John Halsall
Driver John Halsall born 8th August 1916, of the Royal Engineers 142 Field Park Sqdn, was a POW in late 1942. From August 1942 the 142 Field Park Squadron served with the 50th Northumbrian Infantry Division. As a Driver in the 142 Field Park Squadron, John would have been transporting bridging equipment and possibly temporary lighting equipment, before the war he had been a gardener. As a Prisoner of War, taken by the German Forces before the D Day landings John will have been used for labouring jobs at the camp, which was LPG 24. At home in Dicconson’s Lane, Downholland, John’s mother, father, older brother and three sisters had word in January 1944 that John had died in the camp. John had in fact been shot in the head on the 18th of December 1943. The Register for Foreigners and German Perscutees 1939-1947 is a set of records that John’s family would never have known about. He was killed at Leipzig, Stadtkreis , Saxony, Germany and he was buried in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Cemetery, Berlin, Germany. John’s family held a memorial service for him on Saturday March 4th, 1944, at 2.30pm in Halsall Parish Church. John’s eldest sister Grace lived until she was 87 in 1992, his older sister Esther died in 1974 aged 67, neither married and were buried with their parents, mother Margaret nee Leatherbarrow died 1963 and Father John died 1964. They are all in the grave where John’s name was placed on a memorial stone in St Thomas’s Churchyard, Lydiate.
Geoffrey Berkeley Turnock
A tragic accident in Wales whilst on duty took the life of Ormskirk man Lieutenant Geoffrey Berkeley Turnock. Born 10th December 1911 Geoffrey lived at 5 Church Street after they married, Geoffrey’s parents Thomas Berkeley Turnock and Gertrude nee Clayton, had a drapery business in Southport.
In 1941 Geoffrey joined the Royal Artillery and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, he was posted to the Officer Cadet Training Unit at The Pump House Hotel, Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire, Wales as an Instructor. During a training exercise with Officer Cadets on October 6th, 1942, he was accidentally killed with a rifle grenade, he was 30 years old.
Geoffrey had married Dorothy Blanche Baker in 1937, and they lived at 5 Church Street, where Blanche managed a Drapery Business.
Geoffrey was buried in the Duke Street Cemetery Southport after a very well attended funeral at the Leyland Road Methodist Church. Included amongst the wreaths from the O.C.T.U., of which there were 4 different ones from the various units, there was one from the Ormskirk Tennis Club and several local Freemason’s Lodges.
Geoffrey was a member of the Ormskirk Rugby Club as well as the Tennis Club.
Geoffrey is remembered on the Ormskirk Parish Church Memorial, and the Comrades Memorial 1939-1945 in the Coronation Park.
His widow remarried in 1945.
David Ellis Price
Fusilier David Ellis Price was born in Melling in 1917, his father, Welshman Ellis Price, a bricklayer, had been living and raising his family in Melling and Maghull since leaving Bettws Gwerfil Goch in Merionethshire as a young man. David was killed in Burma in June 1944 aged 27 on active service with the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers. The family lived at 16 Melling Lane Maghull, David attended the Ormskirk Grammar School, and he is remembered on the Old School memorial in the Ormskirk School Wigan Road. He is buried in the Taukkyan War Cemetery, Myanmar.
George McLoughlin
Guardsman George McLoughlin was born in 1907 in Elm Place, Bickerstaffe, a small lane known in the district as the Street of Heroes. So many men were lost from that small street in the Great War. George married Jessie Lycett in Ormskirk, and they set up home in Ravenscroft Avenue, Ormskirk. In August 1944 word arrived that George had been killed in Normandy. Shortly afterwards a letter George had sent to the St Annes Church magazine was printed, overlapping the news of his death. In the letter George says he is in France, he has met some French people, but he cannot understand what they are saying and that ‘There is nothing like the old hometown, give me Ormskirk any time.’ George is buried in the St Charles de Percy British Cemetery, in the same place they fell with two of his comrades, dying at the same time as George.
George was a very promising cricketer for Ormskirk CC before he left to join the Irish Guards, as was his brother Tommy. His brother Peter was a POW in Germany but had escaped and was safe in Switzerland at the time of George’s death.
Before the war George worked as a brick setter, he joined the Army in 1940 and he and Jessie had 4 small children, 3 girls the eldest just 8 years old, including Freda and Margaret and a six –month- old baby boy, named George for his father.
George died during the advance towards St Charles dePercy during Operation Bluecoat. Many of his 3rd Battalion comrades were killed during that battle in Normandy.
Copyright Dot Broady Hawkes
First published Ormskirk Advertiser