Dear All In the War Diary for 62 Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, an Other Rank from 245 Battery is recorded as having been killed in Antwerp on the 29th November 1944 (The unit was in Holland at the time). This was as a result of a V2 Rocket attack. Having used Geoff's Search engine and even having asked him to check as well, there is absolutely no trace of anyone from that unit on the CWGC database having died on or around that date. I have also looked at the war diaries for both the Regt and it's battery and cannot find any mention of a name. Can anyone suggest any other avenues of research as I'm determined to track down a possible non-commemoration. Are there any war diaries relating to casualties of V2 Rocket attacks. I'd be surprised if there was not one somewhere.
Robert ,No Casualty lists but a log of V2 operations targets etc here V2ROCKET.COM - Timeline of V2 Attacks
I have no knowledge of the manner in which such War Diary s are kept. Is it usual for such casualties to be unnamed. I would imagine any such soldier would have been recorded somewhere as being absent from his Regiment for what ever reason. Could this entry be the result of a case of mistaken identity. Some one in Antwerp reporting to the Regiment that they had a body but wrongly Identified it as belonging to them.The error was then never corrected. I can recall, when I was a serving police officer, of two cases of mistaken identity involving badly disfigured road accident victims. The identity was wrongly assumed by documents found at the scene. There is a good mystery here but the route it takes could be totally different to the one expected .
Most Other Ranks are not named in the War Diary. I was expecting a name in this particular unit's case as they have been very good at recording them.
Robert ,No Casualty lists but a log of V2 operations targets etc here V2ROCKET.COM - Timeline of V2 Attacks Thanks for that website Jim. No rocket recorded for the 29th November. Previous rockets fell 2 days earlier killing and injuring a substantial number of civilians and over 20 soldiers killed who appear to be helping where another rocket fell close by the same day.
When the rocket fell on 27 November, it recorded 26 Military as having been killed. There are 26 buried at Schoonselhof, a suburb of Antwerp with that same date. It may be entirely possible that the casualty of 245 Battery, 62 AT was attached from another unit. The war diary of 62 AT may have found out on the 29th November that one of their troops was killed and recorded it as such. Will probably never find out, truth be known.
