Info required on 11th Armoured casualty 1944.

Hi,
My uncle Harry Taplin was killed in action 3rd Sept 1944 and is buried in Longueval, France. He was in the Royal Armoured Corps, 11th Armoured Division, HQ squadron. The day after he died the division captured Antwerp and I'm hoping someone can suggest how I can find out where he actually died. Presumably he was originally buried locally before being moved to the Longueval cemetery after the war. Thanks, Stephen Taplin.

 

Ive looked in my sources and can shed no light on the issue.

perhaps Drew can extract the war diary from the national archieves.

keep looking the answers out there somewhere.

 

Firstly - Here is your man on CWGC:

CWGC :: Certificate

Info on the cemetery where he is buried:
London Cemetery and Extension was used again in 1946 by the Army Graves Service for the reburial of Second World War casualties recovered from various temporary burial grounds, French military cemeteries, small communal cemeteries, churchyards and isolated graves, where permanent maintenance was not possible


That makes it a bit difficult to pin down where he died. My first thought, with the cemetery being in the Somme region of France, was he was evacuated wounded and died later as its a fair way from Antwerp.

Ref war diaries, I would start by checking this one out. Be warned North West Europe Brigade, Division and Corps files can be very, very thick.

WO 171/456 G (General) 11 Armoured Division 1944 Jan.- Dec.

I'm not overly convinced though that CWGC have got his unit correct-I would confirm this by applying for a copy of his service records.

I'll PM Idler - He may have a Divisional History.

Cheers
Andy

 

Just looked through the Roll Of Honour in Taurus Pursuant & can't find him.

I'm thinking he was in an RAC regiment HQ Squadron that was in 11 Div and CWGC have missed the regiment off.

Any chance you could list the RAC units Owen?

 

Neuville makes sense. Thats just NE of Lille on the Belgium border.

 

The skirmish appears to have been around Avelin, a few miles west of (before) Fretin, around midday on 3 Sep. Guns and tanks hiding in woods ambush a column of lorries. Unfortunately, they don't realise that 86 Fd Regt was just behind them. The rGunners went into action and broke the ambush, though Maj Corke (a BC) was killed when an ammunition lorry blew up as his jeep passed by.

After a couple of hours the Gunners move on, only to find that there is another group of German tanks. These are neutralised by a smokescreen and bypassed.

The snag is that this is the opposite side of Lille to Neuville

 

Ive looked in my sources and can shed no light on the issue.

perhaps Drew can extract the war diary from the national archieves.

keep looking the answers out there somewhere.
Thank you all very much indeed! I'll take a close look at these places on the map. Maybe one day I'll pay a visit to the Neuville/Avelin/Fretin area and pay my respects to the uncle I never knew.

 

I've just noticed that his grave is next to that of Trooper Hocking, who died alongside him on 3rd Sept. A nice touch I think.

 

Hi,

I'm hoping to get more information on my uncle Harry Taplin who died in action 3rd Sept 1944 on the France/Belgium border.

I've just sent a request to the National Archives at Kew for copies of excerpts from the war diaries in the 3 days leading up to his death. The 11th were in Amiens, Lens and Tournai before taking Antwerp on the 4th Sept.

If you have any other suggestions please let me know.

Steve Taplin

 

TNA are probably going to charge you something like £3.00 per page, and possibly a research fee on top of that.
Drew (above) or myself can help you out for a lot less and enable you to get more pages from the diary for less money.

Lee

 

The CWGC may be able to confirm the precise location from where he was recovered.
Have you contacted them?

As you know, Trooper Hocking is buried alongside, these are his companions, which may (or not) indicate the "soft" vehicle drivers.
Perhaps the Grenadier Guards were nearby or he was recovered from a completely different location, but drivers and Major Corke would seem to be casualties recovered from one location.
CORKE, JOHN GEORGE. Rank: Major. Service No: 64451. Date of Death: 03/09/1944. Age: 33.
Regiment/Service: Royal Artillery. 86 (The Hertfordshire Yeo.) Field Regt.
Grave Reference: Plot 13. Row C. Grave 1. Cemetery: LONDON CEMETERY AND EXTENSION, LONGUEVAL
Additional Information: Son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Percy Corke, of Cornhill, Banffshire; husband of Laura Gardiner Corke, of Cornhill.

SUTCLIFFE, HARRY. Rank: Driver. Service No: T/141486. Date of Death: 04/09/1944.
Regiment/Service: Royal Army Service Corps.
Grave Reference: Plot 13. Row C. Grave 2. Cemetery: LONDON CEMETERY AND EXTENSION, LONGUEVAL

HOCKING, JOHN SAMUEL. Rank: Trooper. Service No: 3912645. Date of Death: 03/09/1944. Age: 24.
Regiment/Service: Royal Armoured Corps. H.Q. Sqdn., 11th Armd. Div.
Grave Reference: Plot 13. Row C. Grave 4. Cemetery: LONDON CEMETERY AND EXTENSION, LONGUEVAL
Additional Information: Son of John and Florence Hocking; husband of Nelly Doreen Hocking, of Sebastopol, Momnouthshire.

BULL, WILLIAM ERNEST. Rank: Driver. Service No: T/253922. Date of Death: 04/09/1944. Age: 23.
Regiment/Service: Royal Army Service Corps. 552 Armd. Bde. Car Coy.
Grave Reference: Plot 13. Row C. Grave 5. Cemetery: LONDON CEMETERY AND EXTENSION, LONGUEVAL

HOUGH, FREDERICK HENRY. Rank: Lance Serjeant. Service No: 2622168. Date of Death: 03/09/1944. Age: 22.
Regiment/Service: Grenadier Guards. 2nd Bn.
Grave Reference: Plot 13. Row C. Grave 6. Cemetery: LONDON CEMETERY AND EXTENSION, LONGUEVAL
Additional Information: Son of Elijah Hough, and of Frances E. Hough, of Keele, Staffordshire.

 

Owen - thank you for merging my quotes. If any of the guys on here would like to quote me for the research I'm after, I'd be happy to chew it over. I'm actually going to London for 2 days at the end of the month (first time I've been for a long time) so I could go to Kew myself but I don't want to spend ages in there if I can get the info for a few quid.
Kevin - thank you very much for your post. It's very interesting to see all the listed casualties and just a pity it doesn't mention the location. I haven't asked the CWGC but maybe it's worth a try.
Thanks again for all your help.

 

PS. I've sent an e-mail to the CWGC to ask if they can tell me the location of Harry Taplin's death. They replied just to say they've received my question, so I don't know how long it'll take for them to give me an answer. Watch this space.

 

Jaguar 7x7 ( ) You might want to point CWGC to the info on this thread, so it saves them some time in researching (and cross checking with the neighbouring burials) AND shows how we reached this point, feeling we've got close enough to justify asking them.
Good luck, they are as helpful where they have info in sharing it, when asked nicely!

 

Thanks Kevin

 

I tried to post this 4 times, to no avail, so I've attached it this time.

I hope you can read it.


I've had a reply from the CWGC and there are a few things I can add to this now. They tell me Harry was originally buried at Avelin. His body was re-interred at Longueval in Dec 1946.


So I think he may have been killed in the skirmish after they'd passed through Fretin (less than 5km from Avelin). "The enemy was engaged and dispersed by tanks of the divisional HQ protective troup..." Owen's post taken from Taurus Pursuant.


Idler has mentioned that Major Corke was killed when an ammunition lorry blew up. Perhaps Harry was killed in the same explosion. The one thing I don't understand is the reference to Neuville, because that's over 30km north of Avelin on the other side of Lille. Could that be a mistake? Because the reference to L/Cprl Goodyear's death at Neuville was 3 days later.


I haven't got an answer from the National Archives yet.

One other thing, a photo of Harry in his army uniform shows he has 'Fear Naught' badges on his beret and lapel. On his shoulder/sleeve is a metal badge that says RTC. I'm guessing that's Royal Tank Corps?

Hope you can help with my queries.