6350974 Private Charles William NORRIS, 1st Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Reg): 4/2/44

Remembering Today

Casualty
Private NORRIS, CHARLES WILLIAM
Service Number 6350974
Died 04/02/1944
Aged 27
1st Bn. Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment)
Son of Alfred Cecil and Lilian Norris, of New Cross, London; husband of Dorothy Norris, of New Cross.
INSCRIPTION: GONE FROM OUR HOME BUT NOT FROM OUR HEARTS. YOUR DUTY NOBLY DONE. AT REST
Buried at ANZIO WAR CEMETERY
Location: Italy
Number of casualties: 1038
Cemetery/memorial reference: I, U, 2.

 

Battle of Anzio - Wikipedia

 

UK, Army Roll of Honour, 1939-1945
Name: Charles Norris
Given Initials: C W
Rank: Private
Death Date: 4 Feb 1944
Number: 6350974
Birth Place: London N
Residence: London N
Branch at Enlistment: Infantry
Theatre of War: Italy
Regiment at Death: Duke of Wellington's Regiment (West Riding)
Branch at Death: Infantry

TD

 

Name: Alfred Cecil Norris
Marriage Age: 24
Birth Date: abt 1889
Marriage Date: 2 Mar 1913
Marriage Place: Christ Church, Camberwell, Southwark, England
Father: Stephen Thomas Norris
Spouse: Lilian Grove

Rollins Street, Deptford, 1937:



1939 REGISTER TRANSCRIPTION
44 Rollins Street, Deptford, London
NAME DOB OCCUPATION
Alfred C Norris 13 Apr 1889 Fitter Lifts Escalators
Lilian Norris 01 May 1889 Unpaid Household Duties
Charles W Norris 10 Jun 1915 Food Manufacturers Bye Products
Herbert F Norris 29 Dec 1917 Paper Packer
Bertie R Norris 20 Feb 1921 Heavy Labourer Paper M?
Lilian E I Best (Norris) 08 Apr 1923 Packer Of Ebonite
Sorry, this record is officially closed.
Eric J Norris 02 Nov 1929 At School


Marriages Mar 1941
Norris Charles W Gatty Camberwell 1d 1261
Gatty Dorothy Norris Camberwell 1d 1261

1 son, born 1943.



Wounded:


KIA:

 

His brother was also KIA:



First name(s) Herbert Francis
Last name Norris
Birth year 1918
Age 26
Death year 1944
Death date 19 Oct 1944
Number 6915601
Rank Corporal
Unit 8th (2nd Bn. The London Rifle Brigade) Bn
Regiment Rifle Brigade
Grave reference III. D. 5.
Cemetery or Memorial Venray War Cemetery
Burial country Netherlands
Additional information Son of Alfred Cecil and Lilian Norris; husband of Rose N. Norris, of New Cross, London.

 

Clive, may I take this opportunity to thank you for remembering Private Norris. I have discovered just this week that he was married to my cousin (who I never knew), Dorothy Gatty, which led me to your post.

Dorothy’s own brother, George Gatty, was also killed, at Argenta Gap in April 1945. I recently also “discovered” George, again a cousin I never knew or even knew I had. I speak of him here:

6099827 L/Cpl George James GATTY, 1st Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment): KIA 13 April 1945

Thanks too to all of you who contributed here. I have not yet looked any further into Charles’ family history so did not know of his brother Herbert, nor that Charles had been wounded in 1943 with the 1st West Kents (presumably at Peter’s Corner/Cactus Farm).

I wonder if he transferred to the Duke of Wellington’s Regt immediately after recovering from his wounds as clearly he was not with the West Kents when he was killed. His records will reveal all, of course, but I have a few other family records to obtain first. I may well drop a line to the Duke of Wellington’s RA as I see they have a research facility.

Anyway, thank you all for this thread.

Martin

 

Martin.

I have worked out the whole story of how LCpl Gatty was killed on 13 Apr 45. The battalion was tasked with capturing two bridges on the Fosse Marina as part of the break into the Argenta Gap.

One Company was very, very badly mauled on landing from the Lake in Buffaloes whilst trying so capture the Fosse Marina bridge and hamlet of Cassa Di Bando and the other was beaten up as it secured and then held on to the bridge further to the south.

A bad day for 1 Buffs. Most of the soldiers and almost all the junior officers came from 99 LAA Regt RA when they were disbanded to fill the empty infantry ranks across Eighth Army.

Regards

Frank

 

Thank you for looking into it for me Frank, that’s very good of you. I have read this account on the BBC People’s War collection and wondered if George was killed in the very action described here:

BBC - WW2 People's War - Action on Lake Comacchio, 13 April 1945

 

Well, well, I would never have known about any such code, Owen, so kudos indeed to Geoff. Certainly very worthy and moving threads.

 

Hello Martin,

This has come as great interest to myself and I believe we are distant relations.
I am the Great Grandaughter of Charles William Norris and Dorothy Gatty (Norris/Goulding). My Grandad is Alan Charles Norris (born 18/01/1943).
We sadly lost my Grandad 4 years ago and since then we have been intrigued to find out more about the Norris/Gatty family history as he didn’t know much himself.
I know this post was posted a while ago but wasn’t sure if you had any further detail?

many thanks,

Paige Norris

 

Hello Paige, what a nice surprise and welcome to the forum.

We must indeed be distant cousins, although I’m not sure how that all works. You know, 1st cousins three times removed etc, never been able to work that out!

However, in my brief spell on Ancestry, I happened upon one George James Gatty and from that a family tree (not a “Gatty” tree) created by a lady who had been researching her family for 20 years. This same lady, and I can’t recall her name now, sorry, explained to me that George was her first cousin once removed, because Sarah Matilda Weeks, his mother, was her great aunt. Am I correct in assuming, therefore, that Sarah was your great great grandmother?

As you doubtless know, Sarah was married to Walter George Gatty, who I also presume, therefore to be your great great grandfather? Now, I believe Walter was the son of James Edward Gatty, who was the brother of my own great great grandfather, Thomas Shepherd Gibson Gatty. So, according to that same very kind lady, Walter George was my first cousin three times removed.

I guess that makes me a first cousin FOUR times removed to George and, therefore, to Dorothy too. George must be your great uncle, of course and I don’t think he ever married…

So I’m guessing we are first cousins five or six times removed but, as I say, I never understand how all that “removed” stuff works!!

I know very little about Dorothy and Charles, apologies, my membership of Ancestry was just a year and, as you can imagine, most of my research was focused on my immediate family and I confess it was very much centred on the two world wars. Whilst I saw that Charles was married to Dorothy and was sadly killed in action, I never had the chance to look into him at all, or Dorothy.

Now you are here Paige and have “resurrected” this thread, you may find that you start to get help and information about your great grandfather’s regiment and, perhaps, him too - you have already seen some interesting snippets above. Frank, member minden1759, would doubtless be able to tell you a lot about Charles’s and the Duke of Wellington’s time at Anzio. He has been a great help to me with both my grandfather’s and George’s time in Italy.

I never even knew about the existence of this side of the family at all until I got that Ancestry membership and, even then, I actually only discovered George James, and consequently Dorothy, because I ran my family name through the CWGC site and he was one of the only six names that came up across both wars. I tried to look into him as much as I could, and, in fact, I currently have a service records request for him pending at the National Archives, but gawd knows when that will turn up, there are heavy delays on service records.

As you must know, George was killed in Italy in April 1945. It must have been an absolutely awful time for Dorothy, to lose her husband and then her brother.

I think George also had a sister named Marjorie? I say this as in his army will he leaves everything to her. I have a copy of that will if you would like to see it.

I presume you may have read my thread on him on this site, the link to which is listed above. If you’ve not already done so, why not put “Gatty” into the search function and you will, hopefully, see all of my threads on the name - my own grandfather, another cousin of ours, William Ernest Gatty…

Sadly, I have no photographs of George James Gatty - if you do, I would love to see them.

 

Paige.

LCpl Gatty was killed in the ill-fated assault by 1 Buffs on a pumping station at Fosse Marina in the Argenta Gap on 13 Apr 45.

If you would like the full story - which is very interesting but pretty grim, do say. I have stood at the pumping station and realised that the operation was bonkers.

Regards

Frank

 

Hello Martin,

Thank you so much for getting back to me. All very interesting. I too worked it out that we would be first cousins five times removed.

Walter Gatty and Sarah Weeks are indeed my Great Great Grandparents.

We know a fair bit with regards to Charles William Norris’s time in the war as before we lost my grandad (Alan Charles Norris) he looked into it. We do also have all the medals of when he was in the war.

Dorothy and George Gatty did have a sister called Majorie Gatty (I actually knew her very well too) and we in fact have the official will of George leaving everything to Majorie in our possession. The three of them did also have 4 further sisters (7 of them in total) that of which we as a family all knew (a couple did pass before I got the chance to meet them personally).

We do in fact have pictures of George Gatty and all the others.

I would be more than happy to share them with you however, they are currently stored with my Nan (widow of Alan Charles Norris).

I don’t know if there is a way of passing on a email but I would be more than happy to give you information on all of George Gattys other siblings and photos too.

Thank you for the picture. We too hold one of the grave!

 

You can message on here but I believe you have to have made five posts before you can do so. I will try to send you a message anyway, see what happens. If it fails, just make another three posts, they don’t need to be long ones, and you should be fine.

Amazing and so poignant that you have George’s will - I obtained a copy from the government site when I was looking at his story.

 

Hi Martin and Paige,

I am currently researching soldiers from Greater London for the Stiching Adoptiegraven CWGC Venray War cemetery so we can put together their stories and maybe even put faces to their names.
Herbert Francis Norris is one of those young men and I came across your wonderful thread. I would love to find out anything else you know.

Take care,

Hayley.

 

Hi Hayley, welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about Herbert, sorry. All I know of him is what member harkness posted above, that was the first time I’d seen his name.

To be honest, I only know of his brother Charles because he was married to a distant cousin, as you will no doubt have read above.

Paige would possibly know more about Herbert, of course, but she has not been active on here since November.

With any luck, she will respond to your request.

If there are any other names for whom you would like photos and stories, you should post them on here, but I would suggest you start separate threads for those you want to know about, so they don’t get “lost” in this thread.

I’d suggest posting such requests under either of the following topics:

Searching for Someone & Military Genealogy

War Cemeteries & War Memorial Research

 

Hi Martin and Paige,

I am currently researching soldiers from Greater London for the StiVenray War cemetery so we can put together their stories and put faces to their names.
Herbert Francis Norris is one of those young men and I came across your wonderful thread. I would love to find out anything else you know.

Take care,

Hayley.

 

Thank you so much for your response. And for the helpful links!