大象传媒

This is the story of my Dad鈥檚 death, killed in action, as told by my mother throughout our childhood. Of course we don鈥檛 know if it is exactly true but the main details agree with those in the Book of Remembrance in the Inns of Court Regimental Chapel in London. His name was Edward John Trevett and he was 38 years old when he was killed, on Good Friday in 1945.

My Dad was called up at the end of 1940 and joined the Inns of Court Regiment because before the War he had worked as a solicitor鈥檚 clerk in the Inns of Court in London. The Regiment had been a Cavalry Regiment right up to the start of World War I when it went into tanks. There was a story that early in the War the regiment had been in Scotland working on the early development of amphibious tanks and my Mum was told by another member of the unit that something had gone wrong and if it hadn鈥檛 been for my Dad鈥檚 quick action they all would have drowned.

We do not know a great deal about what happened from D Day onwards because my Mother destroyed his letters, fearing they would be too painful for we children to read, But we assume that the Regiment went over to Normandy on or just after the 6th June. In my Mum鈥檚 papers there is a Regimental Christmas card for 1944 showing battle honours all through Normandy, Belgium, Holland and on into Germany. He was killed just six weeks before the end of the War and the story is this:

Daddy, who was a Lance Corporal, and a young Lieutenant, Kenneth Hill, were in an armoured car at the front of the troops pushing forward into Germany, through the Reichswald Forest. They were regularly reporting on their position back to HQ and were being told 鈥淲ell done lads, but push on, push on鈥�. Suddenly they realised that they had over-run the German lines and so they evacuated the armoured car and took cover. But they then realised that they had left maps with markings showing the British Forces position in the car, and had also not changed the radio frequency. So the two of then went back to the car where they were surprised by German troops and both shot dead. We believe that Daddy at least died instantly because we have the photo of my Mum he carried in his chest pocket and it was torn by a bullet. Both he and Ken Hill are buried in the Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery in the Reichswald Forest.

This story of my Dad鈥檚 death came from the Colonel of the Regiment who came with his wife to visit my Mum on VE Day. It was he who said that they should have had a medal, but 鈥淵ou know how it is 鈥� too many brave deeds, too few medals.鈥�

My mother had another visit that spring, from the parents of Lieutenant Hill. He was very young, had recently graduated from Sandhurst and was their only child. My Mum said his parents were devastated to discover that the soldier who died with him had a wife and three young children and worried that she would blame the deaths on their son鈥檚 youth and inexperience. But that was not in my mum鈥檚 nature 鈥� for more than fortyfive years she always planted two crosses each year in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster, one for Eddy and one for Ken and in later years I have done it for her. She died in 2003 at the age of 91 and I still plant the two crosses, now in the tiny Garden of Remembrance in the market Square in Salisbury, each November.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.