The war memorial at Morton, 4 miles south of Oswestry, Shropshire, has two WW2 names on it. The first is of 1187036 Sergeant (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner) Alwyne Robert Bowen, 115 Squadron Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve ; died 26.7.1942, aged 21. Son of Robert and Margaret Ellen Bowen, of Pant, Shropshire. The second name I can't identify. It appears to read :- Pte F.G. Kendrick 9th Field Brigade R. A. I could be mistaken on the man's initials (could be E./P. C.) and the number of the Field Company, but it's definitely Kendrick, and not Hendrick. Can anyone help identify him, please?
1187036 Sergeant (Wireless Operator/Air Gunner) Alwyne Robert Bowen, 115 Squadron Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 25/26 July 1942 115 Squadron Wellington III Z1606 KO-J Op. Duisburg Took off from Marham at 2357 hours. Crashed near Krefeld, where the crew were first buried. Since 1945 their remains have been taken to the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery. Crew. P/O. D O. Felt RCAF + P/O. J W. Scott + Sgt. A R. Bowen + Sgt. C S. Weston + Sgt. C W. Bourke + Source - RAF Bomber Command Losses Vol.3 - W R. Chorley. During the course of 1942 RAF Bomber Command visited Duisdurg on 37 occasions. 1685 aircraft were dispatched with 1514 attacking the target (Industry, Transport, Oil) 2313 tons of HE along with 1150 tons of Incendiaries were dropped. 62 aircraft were missing or lost.
Berenice Having trouble with Kendrick which I thought was going to be straightforward with a surname like that. There are a number of Frederick Kendricks (and they could all be the same one) born in or around Oswestry from 1904 ish to 1912 ish, many of them seem to have emigrated to USA or Canada, others died after WW2 so that crosses them off the list - perhaps the church has more info?? TD
I've just phoned the senior churchwarden at Morton church and she says that they've tried in the past to find out who F. Kendrick was. She asked me to call back later to give her time to speak to people, so I'll ring again early next month.
I wonder if the Shropshire Family History have any further information. They have quoted various references against the record of inscription. Monumental Inscriptions | Shropshire Family History Society The microfiche can be purchased. Di
Anyone find an answer to this query about F? P? C Kendrick? I’m going to poke around and see if I can find anything. I’m a Kendrick….and my Grandfather and many others were born in Morton. So far I don’t see this Particular Kendrick. Ray
No !! But .... This site has a better photo and clearly shows: Pte F C KENDRICK 8th Field Brigade R A Morton Obelisk WWI and WWII The CWGC has only 1 entry for a Kendrick in the R A. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2824577/andrew-kendrick/ The CWGC has no entry for a F C Kendrick and just 5 for F Kendrick: Search Results | CWGC This site has a name Kendrick J for the Morton memorial Morton Obelisk WWI and WWII as does the IWM St Philip and St James Church, Morton - WW1 Presumably these refer to Jesse Kendrick https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/644796/jesse-kendrick/ Perhaps an error somewhere, also I note the rank as Private and not Gunner which might be assumed?
A Royal Artillery "Brigade" would place the casualty prior to 1938. They became Field Regiments during that year. Did an inter-war casualty get on there somehow ? The other possibility perhaps is that he had been a pre-war territorial who died of wounds / illness / injuries after discharge and CWGC missed him...If based on family info, outdated unit details could have been passed on. Local war memorials had no official sanction and required no IWGC authority.
Having been to Mor(e)ton quite a long time ago, this pricked my interest. My first look echoed the pieces offered by Tony56 and Rich Payne above, but I did come across: which commemorates Sgt A Bowen RAF and 5 others, but not Pte Kendrick. This panel was originally in a Pant chapel, the village of Pant seemingly straddling two parishes, Llanymynech and Moreton, with the shared Memorial Hall itself in Moreton. Evidently, three of these men were killed in action while serving with Bomber Command and three were members of the Pant Home Guard, who died during or shortly after World War II. Details are at: Second World War Memorial - Pant Memorial Hall I wondered why the tablet was worded quite as it is, but the Home Guard must have had reason. It may not help the Kendrick quest particularly - perhaps adding to the mystery - but hopefully gives something to the wider picture.
I recently made contact with Ray Kendrick on Ancestry, as we discovered that Ray is a third cousin of my wife, whose ancestry I have recently started researching. She is a Kendrick, born in Oswestry in 1972, and was always told by her parents that it was uncle Freddie's name on this memorial. Uncle Freddie was her father's eldest brother, born in Wem in about 1908. He was about 20 years older than her father, and obviously she never knew him, but was often told the story of how Freddie had been very badly injured at Dunkirk, returned to Oswestry to be nursed by his mother in the front room of their house, a room that he never left for the remainder of his life. My wife always believed that this was many years later, but having researched his details recently, it appears that he died in Q3 of 1942, so about 2 years after Dunkirk. We were also slightly surprised to see that in the 1911 census he is listed as 'Charles Frederick', so it might be that he was not FC Kendrick at all, but actually CF Kendrick. Perhaps those who added his name to the memorial only knew him as Frederick Charles; that might explain why it has been difficult to find his military records. Or the 1911 census might just have had the names the wrong way around, which did happen. It is also possible that this is a different person altogether, but we think that unlikely. Unfortunately we have no photographs of Freddie, but my wife's parents had a DVD of a documentary about Dunkirk, in which it is said that he appears. When they died we found the DVD in an envelope with a note on it describing where he appears. I have just taken a clip of the relevant brief section and uploaded it to YouTube, here: . The full video is Dunkirk: The Battle for France (1989) by Castle Communications, directed by Michael Campbell (Dunkirk: The Battle for France (Video 1989) - IMDb), and this clip appears at 00:34:53. We have no way of verifying that this is indeed Freddie, but obviously my wife's father knew him well, so we also think it likely that this is indeed him. Here is a still from the video Snapshot - 1 by Lee Hill posted Nov 12, 2022 at 12:48 PM I hope that is of some use; I thought I ought to pass on that information, especially this weekend!
