Budleigh Past and Present

Continued from 5 October 1944. PRIVATE LEONARD THOMAS LEY (1913-44) 1st Battalion, the King's Own Royal Regiment (the Lancaster Regiment). https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/04/ww2-75-5-october-1944-grave-on-adriatic.html         Budleigh Salterton War Memorial at the junction of Coastguard Road and Salting Hill My research into Albert Watkins’ wartime service raised many questions. For some time I saw him as one of the War Memorial’s ‘orphans’: his name was listed simply as A.G. Watkins, and gave no helpful clues as where he might have died. Others had found the same problem: the Devon Heritage website gave his death as ‘Not yet confirmed’.   A few helpful details suddenly emerged when Budleigh resident Kevin Curran kindly sent me the copy of a news item published in the Exmouth Journal , dated 11 November 1944. The item reported ‘the death on active service of Pte. Albert Watkins, The Devonshire Regiment, whose death took place ...

Continued from 26 Feb 1944 ‘He died that others might have a future’: FLIGHT SERGEANT ALLAN EDWARD DEARLOVE DAVEY (1922-44) RAAF, RAF 90 Squadron     https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/02/ww2-75-26-february-1944-he-died-that.html     L-r: WW1 veteran James Jethro Critchard’s military grave and the name of his son Reginald, a victim of WW2, on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial at the junction of Coastguard Road and Salting Hill Every picture tells a story: this one tells a double family tragedy, showing the grave of James Jethro Critchard in St Peter’s Burial Ground, Budleigh Salterton, next to the name of his son Reginald Leonard on the town’s War Memorial. Reginald Leonard never knew his father. Evidently a victim of WW1, James Jethro is listed as one of the casualties of the 1914-18 conflict by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which notes him as Stoker 1 st Class in the Royal Navy. However, his name does not appear in the WW1 lis...