WW2 100 - 17 April 1940 - ‘God bless him’ wrote his mother: Lance Corporal Milne Vickery Meads (1917-1940), Royal Army Ordnance Corps
Continued from 10 April 1940: Leading Stoker Frederick William Richards D/K 57749, Royal Navy, HMS Hunter
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-in-corner-of-foreign-field-that.html
The grave of Milne Vickery Meads
Image credit: westberkshirewarmemorials.org.uk
Every
so often, while researching the lives of these war dead of WW2, but not being
as expert as I should be in matters of genealogy, I find myself faced with issues
which seem to hide the truth. In the case of Milne Vickery Meads, there were at
least four.
The first and obvious one was that he is not listed on Budleigh’s War memorial. And yet the Commonwealth War Graves Commission describes his mother, Laura Sophia Meads, as ‘of Budleigh Salterton’. However she does not seem to have a grave in our St Peter’s Burial Ground. And, unusually, the CWGC omits any mention of a father.
Images of the Berkshire village of Compton: Newbury Lane, as it was; in a gently sloping valley surrounded by fields of barley; The church of St Mary and St Nicholas
Images credit: Andrew
Smith, Pam Brophy
But the CWGC usually gives a Service Number. Milne’s was 5334493. Throwing this into Google along with his name led me to a rather wonderful website at www.memorialtranscripts.co.uk.
The website is run by Malcolm who has the fine
ambition of transcribing ‘every war memorial in the UK’. Wonderful because there, among the eight names
of war dead from the tiny village of Compton in West Berkshire, was Milne’s
name and the correct military details of his rank and date of death, 17 April
1940. The surname was given as Mead, rather than Meads. Another issue?
Compton’s war memorial showing Milne’s name
So
now I could focus on Compton, and search for an image of its war memorial,
which I found on another wonderful website at www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk, with
excellent photos by David Larkin. And there was Milne’s name, clearly written
as Mead. Oh well, at least he did have a memorial in Britain.
And so to Facebook!
As an administrator of two local Facebook groups I know how useful this social media thing is, and how the pride of group members in their communities makes them want to help online visitors like myself. Within seconds I was welcomed as a new member of the Compton Berkshire private Facebook group. Bizarrely I recognised among the members’ names some individuals who knew friends of mine, including somebody who knew both one of my ex-pupils and one of my brothers. The global village...!
And not long after being welcomed I was ‘introduced’ to the village’s WW2 expert Patrick Warn, who phoned me in reply to an email that I’d sent him.
Patrick Warn’s Book of Remembrance for Compton’s war dead of WW2
Patrick
is a 78-year-old enthusiastic local history researcher from Compton. With an ex-Army
background and proficient in IT and genealogy, he had been asked by his local
Royal British Legion branch to write up the names on Compton War Memorial. He
set to work and produced a Book of Remembrance, pictured above. It was supposed
to be blessed and dedicated at the church, but Covid has caused the ceremony to
be postponed. Meanwhile, Patrick promised to help and within a matter of hours was
kind enough to send me everything he knew.
East Garston, as it used to be. Image credit: East Garston Parish Council
Milne Vickery Meads was born in Maryleborne Middlesex on 26
August 1916 to Laura Sophia Meads, a 25-year-old single mother. Laura herself
was born in East Garston, a village about seven miles from Hungerford and three
miles from Lambourn, all in Berkshire. In the 1891 Census, Laura, two months
old, is recorded as living with her mother, Mary Jane Meads, and her
grandmother, her mother’s aunty Henia Ruston. Henia was living on independent
means, so the family were not on Poor Relief. In the 1901 Census, Laura was
living with her other grandmother, Fanny Buckshall in Kent. Her mother Mary Jane had died in 1896, and it
is assumed that her grandmother had also died, so she was cared for by the
Buckshall family.
Number 46, Clarges Street is home to the Fox Club, a townhouse hotel and members’ club. Could this have been where Laura worked? Image credit: Wikipedia
We move on another ten years to the 1911 census. Laura who is
now 20 years old is working as a servant in a hotel in Clarges Street, Mayfair in
central London. We know that Milne, born
on 11 August 1916, was baptised a week or so later at St Mary’s Church in
Bryanston Square, Westminster. But there is no record of a father.
The former Rosemullion Hotel in Budleigh Salterton, now
converted to flats. Image credit as posted on Budleigh – Past and Present
Facebook site by Melvyn Hill
It is now September 1939, war has been declared, and the
Government carries out a census to find out people who might be enemies of the
state. The survey carried out on 29 September is known as the 1939
Register. Laura, now 48 years old and still unmarried, is recorded at the
Rosemullion Hotel, Budleigh Salterton, working as a chambermaid! A connection which
means that she lived in our area for at least 16 years, long enough for me to
include Milne in my record.
The Rosemullion Hotel in its heyday: left, The Smoke Room and Green Lounge; right, The Lounge-Ballroom and Drawing Room. Image credit: Nick Loman Collection
This photo of staff at the Rosemullion Hotel is in the collection of Fairlynch Museum.
Only two have been identified: Miss Lucy Sanders,
sister of Mrs Franklin, front row left.
Mary Jane Trevett back row first on left married Albert Edward James Teed
in September 1920. Could one or more of
them have known Laura Sophia Meads during her time at the hotel? Could Laura even be in the photo?
Did she have friends in Budleigh, I wondered. It would
have been while she was working at the Rosemullion Hotel that she would have
received news of Milne’s death on 17 April. Did her friends and her employers
learn what had happened? The hotel’s owner at this time was Robert Esmond Lee, a
former army captain - and incidentally, father of the future Hollywood film
star Belinda Lee, a beautiful five-year-old child at this time, whom Laura
would have met in the hotel. Did Captain Lee and his wife Stella comfort Laura
for her loss?
If the news of Milne’s death on active service did become known in the town there is every reason for thinking that his name should have been inscribed on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial at the end of the war. A small consolation for his mother. Someone, somewhere in our town, still living today, remembers hearing about the sad news... perhaps...
Budleigh Salterton Cottage Hospital in 2009, before its transformation
as The Hub
The final record we find for Laura is her death. She died as a
spinster on 18 February 1955, aged only 64, at the Cottage Hospital here in
Budleigh, now known as The Hub. In her will she left £519-10s-3d to a John
Charles Edward Meads whose job was a messenger. This amount of money was quite
substantial in 1955 and it would be worth today £14,367.65. Who can this John
Meads be? Was he another son, brother to Milne? Patrick was unable to locate this person.
There are too many John Charles Edward Meads to pinpoint the exact one.
At the Central Ordnance Depot, Chilwell, where Milne trained for the RAOC. The photo shows women workers with shells in 1917. On 1 July 1918, at 7.10pm, a catastrophic explosion tore through the National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell.The blast killed 134 workers and injured 250 – the biggest loss of life from a single accidental explosion during the First World War. Could Milne have lost his life in a similar accident in France in 1940? Collection of Imperial War Museums
Patrick gave this story about Milne’s mother to try to identify why Milne Vickery Meads is on the Compton War Memorial. He admitted that he had not succeeded, but he carried on with Milne’s story. He was unable to find Milne Meads in the 1939 register, so imagined he was in the Army. Looking at his Army number, Patrick deduced that Milne joined up as soon as war was declared. He chose to join the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) and was sent to the Central Ordnance Depot at Chilwell, Nottingham for his basic military training and in the handling of munitions.
Cap badge of the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards
After
his initial training was complete he was sent to a small RAOC unit that was
attached to the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, a Cavalry Regiment.
In
1938, as part of the preparation for the Second World War, the Regiment had
been mechanised and in the following year, the Regiment joined the newly formed
Royal Armoured Corps (RAC).
Training
in a Vickers Light Tank Mk.VIA; a Mk VI undergoing maintenance in France,
1940. Imperial War Museums Collection
On 3 September 1939, two days after the German Army had invaded Poland, the United Kingdom, France and their Allies declared war on Germany. Equipped with the Vickers Light Tank Mk.VI, the regiment, commanded initially by Lieutenant Colonel John Anstice, acted as the reconnaissance regiment of the 4th Infantry Division of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that was deployed to the continent shortly after the war broke out.
The Light Tank Mk VI was the sixth in the line of light tanks built by Vickers-Armstrong for the British Army during the interwar period. The company had achieved a degree of standardization with their previous five models, and the Mark VI was identical in all but a few respects. The Mk VI possessed a crew of three consisting of a driver, gunner and commander, who also doubled as the radio operator. The tank was protected between 4 millimetres and 14 millimetres of armour, which could resist rifle and machine gun bullets, and its armament consisted of one water-cooled .303 inch and one .50 inch Vickers machine gun.
Men of 4th Royal Tank Regiment practising with
their .38 revolvers in a farmyard near Arras, 6 October 1939. Collection of Imperial War Museums
Milne Meads, now a Lance Corporal arrived at his RAOC unit in January 1940 on the French-Belgium border. Things were very quiet on the Western Front because this was the period of the ‘Phoney War’ which lasted from September 1939 to May 1940.
The British Army in France, early 1940. Collection of Imperial War Museums
Apart
from a few skirmishes there was no fighting going on between the Allied Forces
and German Forces. Patrick was unable to find any record of any fighting taking
place on the day Lance Corporal Milne Meads was killed in action. That day has
been confirmed as 17 April 1940 and the date is engraved on his tomb stone in
the Cité
Bonjean Military Cemetery Armentières, in France where his
body rests. The grave is at Plot 11, Row B, Grave Number 1. Three weeks later the Battle for France began.
Apart from his mother being born near Lambourn, Patrick could not find any other connection to Compton and the reason why his name is on Compton’s War Memorial.
And the final issue of how Milne met his end has not yet been resolved. I suggested to Patrick that it may have been as the result of an accident. Possibly even involving the ordnance and explosives that he would have been handling as an RAOC member.
This post has been as much about my search as about Milne Vickery Meads – but it has shown that the facts and resources are out there, and that there are interested and curious researchers keen to get at the truth and to reveal more about the people who gave their lives for our freedom. Thank you again, Patrick Warn from Compton, for your immense help.
The Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentières, in Northern France, where Milne is buried. Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The next post is for Signalman Joseph Harry V. Dale (Service Number 2325762), Royal Corps of Signals, who was killed in action at Dunkirk between 27 May and 2 June 1940
You can read about him
at https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-27-may-2-june-1940-with-no-known.html
These ‘orphans’ are listed on Budleigh Salterton War
Memorial, but have not been identified. Their first names,
date of death and service numbers are not known.
They are recorded on the Devon Heritage website as
'Not yet confirmed’
If you know anything which would help to identify them,
please contact Michael Downes on 01395 446407.
F.E. Newcombe
P. Pritchard
F.J. Watts
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