Help Help Help.. Me and Di have drawn a blank so far

I read a Grenadier Guards related account today that happened at Dunkirk which resulted in the death of two men on the 1st June 1940 just off the beaches.

One was a Brigadier with no further details, the nature of his death would mean he would be on a memorial rather than a grave.

The other one in the account is said to be a Corporal Martin of the Grenadier Guards again he would have no known grave.

The account is given by a Sergeant Bridges of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards after the war. I think this may have been as late as the 70's so memories fade and all that and the details may not be 100%, however it is known Sgt. Bridges gets on the destroyer HMS Ivanhoe and within a few hours he is back in the sea after Ivanhoe is bombed and seriously damaged, he jumps ship with some of the crew assuming she is going to sink (which doesn't happen). This attack definately happened on the 1st June 1940 which gives the date of death for the two men.

Me and Diane are trying to identify the Corporal and the Brigadier so as to post a full account of what happened to them but at this moment in time we are unable to trace either.

Cheers for any help.
Andy

 

Found a death notice for a Brigadier Geoffrey Ernest Mansergh MC in The Times June 6th 1940. Lived near Farnham and looks to have been a General Staff officer, but reported as KIA. No exact date, just "in June".

An appreciation by a correspondent signing himself "JSY" in The Times of June 10th gives quite a bit of detail about the man's career, mainly in the Royal Signals - he was on A & Q duties (whatever that means) at corps level in the 1st Div BEF. The last sentence may be telling:

"His son, a subaltern in the Royal Signals, who came back safe the day before his father was killed, last saw him at Dunkirk directing the embarcation [sic] of the wounded."

Can provide copies of these as pdfs if required.

edit: Mansergh is apparently mentioned in Richard Collier's book "Sands of Dunkirk"

 

Here is a Cpl Martin who died on the same date and in right area but not GG:

Name: MARTIN, WILLIAM Initials: W Nationality: United Kingdom Rank: Corporal Regiment/Service: Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment) Unit Text: 2/5th Bn. Age: 21 Date of Death: 01/06/1940 Service No: 4860092 Additional information: Son of Alfred and Annie Martin, of Leicester. Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead Grave/Memorial Reference: 5. H. 1. Cemetery: CALAIS CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY, LEUBRINGHEN
Tom.

 

Many thanks all,

Vitesse, as Diane says could you post the pdf and scan from 'Sands of Dunkirk' if nothing else for my Signals info. The Brig's CBE doesn't appear on my list of awards so I am interested in him.

Adam, yep saw him and he is as close as we've found albeit slightly wrong name and wrong battalion.

Tom, He would 99% be on a memorial and unlikely to be at Calais.

I think confirmation (if possible) that a Cpl Martin exsisted in Grenadier Guards would be the best bet. We think either Sgt Bridges has over time forgotten his name, survived (extremely unlikely) he is missing from CWGC or sadly the Sgt is being economic with the truth.

Many thanks for everyones efforts so far.
Andy

 

Did a bit more hunting: not sure if it's the same son, but I found an engagement notice for Patrick ES Mansergh. If it is the same one, then by 1942 he had risen from subaltern to Major (marriage notice The Times Jul 29th 1942). Times notices of this time would normally specify "elder", "younger", "eldest" etc if there was more than one child, so presumably Patrick had no brothers: doesn't rule out sisters though.

 

I was reading the thread and it took me a while to work out why the surname Mansergh sounded familiar.

Major-General E. C. Mansergh, was the British commander of (mainly) Indian troops in the post-war battles in Sourabaya.

I wonder if that is the aforementioned Ernest C. Mansergh from the CWGC notice for Brigadier GEOFFREY ERNEST MANSERGH, C.B.E., Royal Corps of Signals

 

Ref Mansergh there is only one showing online at Kew and I think that is his son.

The National Archives | DocumentsOnline | Image Details

Only checking to see if his CB or MC was with the BEF. I think this could be the man but I guess the Brigadier could have been as low as a Major and acting up. I wonder how he managed to get to Maidstone though as my account has him dying in the sea.

 

I wonder how he managed to get to Maidstone though as my account has him dying in the sea.

I don't think that the Medway is tidal quite as high as Maidstone, is it ?

You haven't given any indication of where the incident took place. Is it possible that the body was washed to the UK side and then returned to the family or is there also the possibility that if rank badges were visible, an RN ship may have recovered the body from further out ?

 

Done a bit more digging on the incident and can narrow it done somewhat regarding when and where.

HMS Ivanhoe was attacked and hit at 8am, 1.6.40 off Dunkirk Harbour and troops were transferred to amongst others HMS Speedwell which is what Sgt. Bridges arrived back to England on, on the same day.

The two men me and Di are trying to trace were with Bridges and died shortly before the attack. Bridges says he was boarding a destroyer that was stuck on a sand bank and then it was attacked and hit which made him take to the sea to be rescued by HMS Speedwell. From Bridges account it can only be HMS Ivanhoe that he initially borded and having picked up a 1,000 men earlier at La Panne and then made her way to Dunkirk I would say she was off the east side of the eastern Mole especially if she was beached for a short while prior to being attacked.

If Mansergh is the Brigadier I would suspect his body was recovered and taken back to the UK due to him being of a high rank? I can't think of any other reason how he would have ended up in England as he would have died close to the shore.

Dunno if that helps?

A

 

A
you possibly have this

Re HMS Ivanhoe
HMS Ivanhoe, destroyer




June1st

Embarked troops for return to Dover and on return passage came under air attack.
Sustained casualties and major damage and fatal casualties including 21 of ships company.
(Note : Five soldiers were also killed.)
Extensive damage flooding of two boiler rooms disabled ship until damage control enable
return to Dover using third boiler room.
Troops embarked in HM Destroyer HAVANT
(Note : HMS HAVANT came under air attack later and had to be sunk because of serious
damage from tow direct hits. Some of survivors for ship were embarked by HM
Fleet Minesweeper SALTASH but some were killed.)
Passage to Dover
2nd Repair arranged at Sheerness
Taken in hand for repair by HM Dockyard, Sheerness.

 

Cheers Clive, I have the RN's official history for Op Dynamo and that is basically it although the above account leaves Speedwell and the Yacht Grive out of the account regarding taking survivors off. The damage to Ivanhoe was sustained after a bomb from a (Poss) Ju87 dropped down one of her funnels.


I think me and Di are as happy as can be regarding Sgt Bridges and the Brigadier-It appears to be Corporal Martin Grenadier Guards that is being harder to track down.

Cheers all
Andy

 

If this is the General Mansergh who commanded at Surabaya in 1946, then he seems too old to have been the son of the Brigadier killed at Dunkirk:

Biography of General Sir Eric Carden Robert Mansergh

 

The first file below is a brief obituary of Brig. Mansergh from The Times (near the top of the second column from the right):

The second is a brief tribute to him from the same paper a few days later (again second column from the right but this time near the bottom).

 

Cheers Gibbo,

Owen, me and Di discussed the 'wrong name' possibility this morning and thought Martin may have been his first name.

I don't suppose you know whether a soldier with the surname (Martin) joined the GG. I wondered if there is a nominal roll of men that served, not just those who died?

Cheers
Andy

 

Sorry Gibbo - I threw in a red herring........

I was wondering if the Ernest C. Mansergh identified as the father on the CWGC entry for the Brigadier killed at Dunkirk was Major-General E. C. Mansergh from Sourabaya.

I didn’t know what the E.C. stood for, or if he was a really old General with a relatively young Brigadier as a son.

Thanks for the biography of the general, I now know his full name plus his year of birth and I checked the CWGC entry for the age of the Dunkirk casualty.

It would be more likely that Geoffrey and Eric were brothers or somesuch. The Surabaya General was born in 1900 and the Dunkirk casualty was born in 1893


Apropos of not much else, General Sir Eric Carden Robert Mansergh preferrred to be known as Robert – as per this 1951 IWM photo “Lieutenant General Sir Robert Mansergh, Commander of British Troops in Hong Kong”