Category: WWI, WWII & War Memorial

Ernest John Squires, the son of a real life Kelly blaster, was born at 5 Lower Brookfield. He showed great academic promise, gaining entrance to Newton Abbot Grammar School but his consuming ambition was to join the Royal Navy which he achieved aged sixteen in 1936.

In 1941, Ernie was crew on HMS Stanley, one of the many US destroyers Britain had received in exchange for bases in the West Indies. That December, it was part of an escort group spearheaded by Commander F.J. Walker, an anti-submarine specialist eager to deploy tactics which he felt would give them the upper hand – tactics, indeed, which would subsequently become standard practice.

When the convoy set sail, it comprised 31 vessels, a huge armada which would have spread out across some 30 square miles of open sea. They were shadowed, from the outset, by a pack of U-Boats.

During their journey, there were many encounters and many successes. But there were losses on our side too, including HMS Stanley which was struck by a torpedo causing a massive explosion killing all but 25 crew. Ernie was not one of the lucky ones. He is commemorated on the Naval Memorial on Plymouth Hoe.

A more detailed biography can be found in the Lustleigh Society’s new book “Home Front to Front Line” which recounts various aspect of the village during WW2 and is available from The Dairy, the Archives and at Lustleigh Society events.

On Friday 19^th December 2025, Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

Frank Charles Bunclark was born in Lustleigh in 1915, the son of William John and Alice Ellen Bunclark. He joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and, after training, was posted as a Sergeant (Observer) to 61 Squadron, Bomber Command, stationed at RAF Syerston, near Newark in Nottinghamshire. On returning from a mine-laying mission, one November evening in 1942, his crew found their base closed due to fog and were diverted to Exeter; flying into an unusual airfield, his pilot misjudged the approach and crashed, killing all seven aircrew.

What makes this story all the more poignant is that only two months previously Sgt Bunclark had been recommended for the Distinguished Flying Medal along with four other members of his crew and, with them, had been due to attend the investiture by His Majesty the King on 24^th November, barely two weeks after their untimely death.

There was a large attendance at his funeral in Lustleigh where his body was carried shoulder-high by six airmen from an RAF Squadron at Exeter. He was laid to rest in the Extension Churchyard where his grave is marked with the iconic Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s headstone of white Portland stone.

 On Tuesday 11^th November 2025, Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

A more detailed biography is included in the Lustleigh Society’s new book ‘Home Front to Front Line’ available from The Dairy, The Archives and at Lustleigh Society events.

Gareth Fitzalan Howard Drayson is the second name on the list of WW2 dead on Lustleigh War Memorial. He was killed at Arnhem and lies buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission War Cemetery at Oosterbeek, just west of Arnhem in the Netherlands. Some parishioners may remember his sister, Vivian, known more usually as ‘Pope’, who died in 2001.

In the early years of the war the family home was Thorne, since renamed Robin Hill, on Knowle Road. Garry studied medicine at Edinburgh University and was commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Lieutenant in March 1941, being promoted to Captain one year later. Volunteering for service as a parachutist, he won the coveted maroon beret and in due course posted as the Regimental Medical Officer to 10^th (Sussex) Battalion, the Parachute Regiment where it seems he was nick-named Gremlin. 

On 18^th September 1944, his battalion joined Operation Market Garden, the biggest airborne operation of the Second World War, the aim of which was to capture a series of bridges over the Lower Rhine and facilitate the advance of ground forces across the river and into Germany.

Unfortunately for Garry, the area where he was deployed met fierce resistance from the enemy and more than once they were forced back, all the time with Captain Drayson close to the front line providing first-aid to the wounded. But the day after landing in Holland, he lost his own life, one of 92 killed out of 582 men of 10 Para who set out on the mission.

Chris Wilson

On Friday 19^th September 2025, Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

A more detailed biography can be found in the Lustleigh Society’s new book “Home Front to Front Line” along with chapters detailing various other aspects of village life during WW2.

Wing Commander R.C. Hancock was the pilot of a Percival Proctor which crashed and burned out on take-off at Roborough airfield, Plymouth, at 5.30pm on the evening of Monday, 9^th June 1941. Suffering multiple injuries, he died of wounds in the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth the following day.

Christened ‘Richard Claude’ but always known as ‘Dick’, he was the unmarried brother of sisters, Iris and Beryl, married to Arthur and Jack Gould of Lower Hisley and Long Close respectively. The family remember Dick as something of a dare-devil; one anecdote recalls how, ‘to prove himself’, he flew under Clifton suspension bridge.

Born in Warwickshire and educated at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, he became an RAF cadet but, it appears, gained his pilot’s licence privately before emigrating and joining the Royal New Zealand Territorial Air Force. A few years’ later, he was back in England and back with the RAF.

In 1940 he was elevated to Wing Commander and posted to command No. 16 Squadron, primarily stationed at Weston Zoyland, just east of Bridgwater, but with several detachments scattered among airfields including Okehampton, Roborough, St Just and Bolt Head in the West Country and Tilshead on Salisbury Plain. It was during his ‘commute’ between these units that Dick suffered his fatal accident. His funeral took place at Lustleigh and he was laid to rest in the extension churchyard.

On Tuesday 10^th June 2025, Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

A more detailed biography will be included in a book to be published by the Lustleigh Society later this year recounting various aspect of the village during WW2.

The Battle of the River Plate, which took place in the South Atlantic in 1939, was the first naval battle of the Second World War. During its engagement with the Graf Spee, the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter suffered severe damage; luckily, Reginald James Laxton escaped unscathed. Fortune, however, did not shine on his younger brother.

Brian Eric Prentice Laxton enlisted in Devonport on 26^th July 1937. After spells of training and serving on different ships, he joined HMS Jaguar a week after our country had declared war on Germany. The following year, his ship was assisting in the Dunkirk evacuation. During the operation, she was attacked by German dive-bombers and, after several near misses, one bomb exploded close to the port side, killing 12 and wounding 30 men. On arrival back in Dover, Brian was taken to Shorncliffe Military Hospital in Kent, but his wounds were too severe and he died the following day.

His body was returned to Lustleigh for a funeral during which his coffin was draped in the Union Jack and the whole village turned out to show its sympathy.

On Friday 30^th May 2025, Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

A more detailed biography will be included in a book to be published by the Lustleigh Society later this year recounting various aspect of the village during WW2.

Frank Horrell was a Lustleigh man through and through. Having lost his mother shortly before his second birthday, he was brought up by his aunt, Sarah Squires, of Rock Villa, and threw himself into all manner of village life. As a teenager, he attended the funeral of his friend, Brian Laxton, another WW2 casualty, before himself signing up and joining the Royal Corps of Signals.

In early 1942, he found himself part of the Allied troops trying to secure Java and prevent it falling into the hands of the Japanese. It was a futile attempt and in just over a month after his arrival, the Allies forces had laid down their arms in surrender.

Frank became a POW and was transported to Borneo. Following news that he was missing, it would have been a relief to his family when they were told he was in captivity; unbeknown to them was the sheer brutality that the Japanese inflicted upon their prisoners. Precisely what treatment befell Frank is unknown, but in 1945 he contracted Malaria and died four weeks later. His grave is to be found at the Lebuan War Cemetery on a small island in Brunei Bay, off the coast of north-west Borneo.

On Sunday 30^th March 2025, Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

A more detailed biography will be included in a book to be published by the Lustleigh Society later this year recounting various aspect of the village during WW2.

With a father achieving high rank in the army and an elder brother in the Royal Navy, a life in the armed services was in the blood of Edward Wollaston Kitson. His own naval career began in 1903 and he served aboard many ships during World War 1 in waters around Australia and New Zealand, as part of the Dover Monitor Squadron challenging German shore artillery in occupied Belgium and on convoy escort duties.

During the inter-war years, he served in various parts of the world but retired in 1934, but only after moving to Lustleigh a few years earlier. Although he came out of retirement before the outbreak of WW2, as tensions were building in Europe, it is believed that he was initially given a land-based role and spent the next couple of years campaigning to get back to sea which he achieved in 1941.

At the end of 1943, poor health saw Edward transferred from ship to shore. He was admitted to Horton Hospital in Epsom and died there from illness on 18^th February 1944, aged 55. The character of the man was echoed in an obituary in The Times which said that “Edward was a man who attracted affection and respect from his superiors, contemporaries and subordinates; his quiet and unselfish efficiency commanded respect, and his sincerity, innate goodness, and sense of humour affection from all hands.”

On Tuesday 18^th February 2025, the Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

The Parish Magazine of February 1944 reported “The sympathy of the whole village goes out to Mrs McLeroth in the death of her son Hope – not in battle, but on active service. A very promising career in the Navy has been cut short, but he had already done some years of service at sea – 3 years in the “Revenge”. He came home recently and only a few days before his death he joined the “Glasgow” for a course. During an exercise at sea, he fell from a height and received serious head injuries, from which he died next day in hospital. He was buried with full Naval honours in Plymouth Cemetery, and will be remembered with Brian Laxton and Ernest Squires, who also gave their lives at sea.

Hope was one of twins. While his brother Peter entered the Merchant Navy, Hope signed up with the Royal Navy aged just 15. Early in the war, he was transporting some of Britain’s gold reserves to Canada. Later, he took Poland’s Prime Minister in exile across the Atlantic for talks with President Roosevelt.

In January 1944, he visited his mother at Wrey Villa, possibly for the first time since the passing of his father some 20 months earlier; maybe also the first time since his mother had moved to the village from North London. He departed for Devonport on 20^th January 1944 with tragedy striking the very next day.

On Wednesday 22^nd January 2025, the Lustleigh Bell Ringers will sound a half-muffled peel in his honour.

Chris Wilson