Villagers incredible hunt to uncover lost pasts of their fallen WW2 soldiers

The villagers of Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire, led by local historian Barbara Berry, have dug deep into the archives to uncover details of 57 men from the village who died during the Second World War

A village which lost 57 men in the Second World War has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down each victim’s story ahead of Remembrance Day.

Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire was badly hit during the war, losing dozens of men, many of them miners from now-defunct local pits. But now, thanks to the incredible efforts of the local heritage society, the village knows exactly what happened to nearly all of them.

Local historian Barbara Berry has led the campaign to honour the men. Their names are now being placed on crosses in the churchyard of the local St Edmund’s church. The detail she has found during her research is incredible – but stories like the ones she discovered will be replicated and recalled in every town and village tomorrow as Britain marks Remembrance Sunday.

As well as battle deaths there were heart-breaking suicides, fatal accidents and killer diseases. Barbara said: “I work with the local Heritage Link group and was asked to find the full names of the 57 men from Mansfield Woodhouse who died in the Second World War so they could be put on wooden crosses.

“I investigated and found my first story on a RAF website about a man called Stan Broadhurst who died in a friendly fire incident. He was returning from the very first bombing raid featuring the brand new Halifax bomber. This sparked my interest and formed a bond between me and the 57 names on the memorial.”

“My search became a labour of love but it has been hindered by the fact that relatives who actually knew the men are now quite elderly or are dying out. It’s taken a lot of time, determination and love to track down the stories that I’ve amassed and the help from those relatives who have been in touch has been invaluable.”

The first villager to die was William Richards, 19. He was aboard HMS Royal Oak when the veteran First World War battleship was torpedoed in October 1939 in Scapa Flow, Orkney, with the loss of 835 men and boys.

The youngest was Fred Wilkinson, 17, in HMS Hood, another Great War capital ship, sunk by the German battleship Bismarck in the Denmark Strait in May 1941. A shell detonated her stern magazine and she sank in three minutes with the loss of 1,415 of her 1,418 crew.

Oldest was James Eason, 38, who had fought in the trenches of the First World War. Jack Wain was captured in France and taken as a PoW to Poland where he died in an underground accident. Vernon Bosworth was among more than 1,000 killed in Algiers when a shell slipped from a ship and exploded. In 1944 brothers Jesse and Hedley Skilling met up behind front lines for the first time in two years.

They were among 1,100 inside the Rex Cinema in Antwerp, Belgium, when it was hit by a Nazi V-2 rocket during a screening of Gary Cooper classic The Plainsman.

In all 567 died, including 296 Allied servicemen. Ken Parkes was aboard the SS Scillin, an Italian ship transporting 800 British PoWs from North Africa to Italy. It was sunk by a British submarine whose commander was unaware prisoners were locked below deck

Only 24 survived and the UK kept the cause of the sinking a secret until 1996. Fred Moxon was killed when HMS Harvester, which had rescued many survivors of U-boat sinkings, was sunk on an Atlantic convoy.

Four Mansfield Woodhouse men died in Libya and another four in Tunisia. Two were killed during the fall of Singapore. One died of heat exhaustion and pneumonia while at sea, one of wounds in Malaya.

There was a suicide, car crashes and tuberculosis. Today 14 of the men lie in the local cemetery – including airman Stan Broadhurst. When Stan was shot down, he and his comrade helped wounded crewmates from the crashed plane but left it too late for themselves to escape.

Two men died aboard the cruise ship Lancastria which was evacuating British nationals and troops from France in 1940. Up to 7,000 drowned, the largest single-ship loss of life in British history.

Three others died in plane crashes while training to become pilots. Two men were lost on bombing raids over Denmark. One, Brian James, was the son of the local headmaster. One of the Lancasters in his formation was damaged. Turning to return to base, it crashed into James’ plane killing both crews.

Robert Brewin and Henry Owens died as Japanese prisoners of war. Richard Mitchell, on his way home on leave, was killed with two friends in a car accident. Eight died in the Italian campaign. Escaped PoW Frank Sargent joined Italian resistance fighters only to die in an avalanche. Leslie Walters, successfully demobbed, had suffered a perforated eardrum at Tobruk and never spoke of the excruciating pain in his ear.

He was rushed to hospital with of meningitis and died at 24. Of the others, two were knocked down and killed during the blackout, two died in a plane accident, one took his own life, two died of illness and one in an accident. Richard Mitchell was another car crash victim.

Barbara said: “Before the war many of the men worked down the local pits, particularly the Mansfield and Sherwood collieries.”

The Mansfield Colliery, once among the biggest in the Britain with an output of 5,000 tons a day, closed in 1988. Sherwood Colliery shut in 1992. A housing estate now stands on the site.

A wooden church plaque honouring the Mansfield Woodhouse men reads: “In memory of those who gave their lives in World War Two 1939-45.” The epitaph says: “Give rest O Lord to thy servants and let light perpetual shine upon them. Amen.”

Barbara said: “The only memorial to these men is in the local church, St Edmund’s, which sadly has to be kept locked to prevent vandalism. A proposed memorial in 1949 was meant to feature two brass plaques with the names of all 57 men but due to apathy and a lack of money this never transpired.

“Memorials are meant to perpetuate names and allow us to remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. But all that is on the plaque is an initial and a surname. By going through the microfiche records of local newspapers I have been able to piece together many of their stories but details of three local heroes remain elusive.”

They are B. Ball, A. Mallatratt and T. Straw. Barbara said: “These are the only details I have of them. There are no regiments mentioned or any other details and I have found no trace of them in local papers. It would be lovely to find their stories as well.”

Barbara, 67, was born in the village as was her mother Enid. Her dad Edward fought at Dunkirk. She said: “I look at war memorials and their purpose in remembering those who died. They don’t generally do their job. Deaths were mostly spoken about in whispers and even the children of casualties were not always offered an explanation as to what had happened to their fathers and grandfathers.

“They would remember only the few details they were given or overheard. They were often too young to remember their fathers clearly. The next generation would know even less and as family members and personal friends die out and memories fade.

“There are some remarkable stories out there. It’s incredibly emotional when I am able to find out something new.”