Service no.

80403

Unit

“B” Battery, 63rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

Died

17 August 1916, of wounds, aged 20

Grave ref.

B. 27. 21.

Family

Son of John and Harriet Bingham, 4 Jubilee Terrace, Ditton

Enlisted on a short service attestation and served with the Royal Field Artillery. The medal roll records him as dead on 17 August 1916.

Service no.

G/5157

Unit

6th Battalion, The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)

To France

23 June 1915

Died

30 September 1915

Family

Son of William Blundell, bricklayer, and Ann Blundell of Ditton

In the 1911 census Reginald, then 17 and single, was living in Ditton with his parents and his sister Ethel. His war gratuity was paid to his mother. Entitled to the 1914–15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

Service no.

920012

Unit

145th Battery, Royal Field Artillery

Born

23 July 1890, Forest Row, Sussex

Missing

27 May 1918

Died

5 August 1918, aged 28, a prisoner of war

Buried

Niederzwehren Cemetery, Kassel, Germany. Grave VIII. F. 3.

Family

Son of James Brown, of 7 Annington Terrace, Ditton. His sister, Miss M. Brown of “Fairview”, 50 St Margaret’s Street, Rochester, made enquiries for him through the Red Cross

Inscription

“In loving memory of one of the best loved and missed by us all”

Thomas was reported missing on 27 May 1918, the day the German army opened its offensive on the Aisne, where several British divisions had been sent to rest; he was most likely captured that day. His sister wrote to the Red Cross to find out what had happened to him, and their card records that the camp commandant’s first report was “too vague”. He was held at the camp at Cassel in Germany. The German death list sent to the Red Cross records that he died of dysentery in the camp hospital at Niederzwehren on 5 August 1918, three months before the Armistice. He was buried in the camp cemetery, and after the war the Commonwealth War Graves Commission kept Niederzwehren as the resting place for prisoners who died across that part of Germany. His father lived in Annington Terrace, the same row as Frederick Lucas’s family.

The German list gives his unit as the 1st Battery, R.F.A.; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission gives the 145th Battery. The Red Cross card (P.A. 38275, 7 October 1918) also gives the 1st Battery. The place of his capture is not recorded.

Unit

Adjutant, 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers

Born

3 April 1892, Portsmouth

Died

30 October 1914, killed in action at Zandvoorde, near Ypres, aged 22

Honours

Mentioned in Despatches

Family

Third son of Col. William Toke Dooner of Ditton Place

Educated at the King’s School, Rochester, and Tonbridge School, where he was a fine shot and won a German prize, he passed third into Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1911. He became Adjutant of the 1st Battalion in July 1914 and went with it to Belgium in October. At Zandvoorde he was killed crossing fire-swept ground to rejoin his commanding officer. At the time of his death he was the youngest adjutant in the Regular Army. A memorial tablet to him and his brother John hangs in Ditton church.

Unit

Royal Field Artillery; General Staff Officer, 34th Division

Honours

D.S.O.

Died

31 July 1918, killed at Grand Rozoy, near Soissons

Family

Second son of Col. and Mrs William Toke Dooner; husband of Florence Olive Joan Dooner, 23 Montpelier Street, Knightsbridge

Elder brother of Captain A.E.C.T. Dooner. The two brothers are remembered together on a marble tablet in Ditton church. In November 1914 he signed John Scott’s application for a commission.

Service no.

G/39560

Unit

1st Battalion, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment)

Born

Dunton Green, Kent

Lived

Frindsbury, Kent; enlisted at Chatham

Died

25 September 1917, killed in action in France and Flanders, aged 28

Recorded as Matthew James Hicks in the official records; the memorial reverses his forenames.

Service no.

SS/18155

Unit

“A” Company (Aldershot), Army Service Corps

Died

3 November 1916, aged 47

Buried

Ditton (St Peter) Churchyard, north-west part

Family

Son of William and Eliza Lucas of Yalding; husband of Susannah Lucas, 1 Annington Terrace, Bell Lane, Ditton

Inscription

“Peace perfect peace”

Frederick was one of the older men on the memorial, serving in his late forties. He died in England and was brought home to be buried in Ditton churchyard.

The memorial gives his unit as 27 Labour Company. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him with the Army Service Corps, which ran labour companies before the Labour Corps was formed in 1917.

Service no.

G/9516

Unit

8th Battalion, The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)

Born

Lingfield, Surrey; enlisted at Maidstone

Died

20 February 1916, killed in action in France and Flanders

Service no.

99888

Unit

167th Company, Labour Corps

Born

22 January 1879

Died

6 July 1919, after discharge, aged 40

Home

6 Pleasant Row, Ditton

Born

Aylesford

Buried

Aylesford (St Peter) Churchyard. Grave 16.

A labourer, Arthur enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in November 1915 and served with the Drake Battalion at Blandford. In February 1917 he was transferred to a Labour Company of the Devonshire Regiment and then to 167 Company, Labour Corps. He was discharged as invalided in August 1917 and issued the Silver War Badge. He died in 1919. His widow, by then Mrs A. Wooding, wrote to the authorities in December 1920 to report his death. His mother was Mrs Eliza Fidge of Camberwell.

Our earlier search did not find him in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records. The Kent Fallen record for Aylesford gives a grave reference in Aylesford churchyard, which suggests the Commission may commemorate him after all; this is still to be checked. He is not named on the Aylesford memorial.

Service no.

CH/16271

Unit

Chatham Division, Royal Marine Light Infantry

Born

28 April 1894, Lamberhurst, Kent

Died

21 October 1918, of disease

Buried

Ditton Churchyard (5th on New Ground)

Family

Mother: Mrs M. Palmer, Fern Cottages, Bell Lane, Ditton

He is buried in the village, in Ditton churchyard. Record: National Archives D7807262.

Service no.

3265

Unit

Rifle Brigade (9th Battalion in the casualty records)

Born

West Farleigh, Kent

Lived

Ditton; enlisted at Maidstone

Died

25 August 1916, of wounds, in France and Flanders

A farm labourer when he attested.

The memorial gives the 4th Battalion; the casualty record gives the 9th.

Service no.

91164

Unit

6th Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery

Born

Ditton, about 1887; enlisted at Cardiff

Died

31 December 1916, in Mesopotamia (then part of the Ottoman Empire, now Iraq)

Buried

Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq. Grave XXI. H. 21.

Family

Son of Annie Pullen, a widow, of Ditton Street

In the 1901 census Alfred T. Pullen, aged 14, was living in Ditton Street with his widowed mother Annie and his brothers John and Albert. He was born in Ditton and was already at work as a boy in the paper mill. Two doors away lived Philip and Martha Woodger, the parents of Walter Woodger, who is named on the same memorial for the Second World War.

The memorial gives his initials as A.C.; the census, the Army records and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission all give Alfred Thomas, or A.T. The C on the memorial is probably a mistake, made when the names were passed on by word of mouth.

Service no.

G/648

Unit

6th Battalion, later the Depot, The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)

Born

Kemsing, near Sevenoaks

To France

1 June 1915

Died

24 June 1917, aged 27

Buried

Ditton (St Peter) Churchyard, north-west part

Family

Son of Alfred and Mary Ann Read, of 1 Alma Place, Bell Lane, Ditton

Inscription

“Beloved, if God so loved us we ought also to love one another. 1 John IV. 11.”

William went to France with the 6th Battalion in June 1915 and was entitled to the 1914–15 Star. By 1917 he was back in England with the regimental depot, and he died there in June 1917. His medal card notes him as discharged on 21 June 1917, just three days before his death. He was brought home to Ditton and buried in the churchyard.

Born

21 December 1893, Ditton

Unit

1st Battalion, The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)

Honours

Military Cross

To France

7 October 1915; joined the 1st Battalion on 12 October

Died

28 June 1918, killed in action near Merville, France, aged 24

Commemorated

Ploegsteert Memorial, Belgium. Panel 8. He has no known grave.

Family

Eldest son of Thomas Scott, farmer, and Mary Wotherspoon Scott, of Ditton Court; his mother later lived at “Aldon”, West Malling

John was born in Ditton and grew up at Ditton Court, where his Scottish-born father farmed. In 1911 the family there included his sisters Mary, Margaret and Kathleen and his younger brother Thomas, while John was a boarder at Eastbourne College, which he attended from 1909 to 1911. After three years in the Eastbourne College Officers’ Training Corps he applied for a commission in November 1914, and he was commissioned into the Royal West Kent Regiment at the end of that month. His character reference and his recommendation for a commission were both signed by J. G. Dooner: John Graham Dooner of Ditton Place, who is also named on this memorial. He landed in France on 7 October 1915 and joined the 1st Battalion in the field five days later. He won the Military Cross for the night of 22–23 July 1916 near High Wood on the Somme: when his battalion’s attack met heavy machine-gun and shell fire, his platoon was the only part of the assault to stay in the German trench, and he held it against attacks from the front and both flanks for four hours. He was acting captain commanding a company that autumn. In December 1917 he went with the battalion to Italy, returning to France in April 1918. He had a fortnight’s leave in England from 6 to 20 June 1918, and was killed near Merville on 28 June, eight days after it ended. His mother was told by telegram at Mill Hall on 2 July. At his death his address was Mill Hall, Aylesford, and as he left no will, administration of his estate, valued at £5,784 13s 6d, was granted to his mother, by then a widow, on 26 November 1918.

He is also named on the Aylesford war memorial and in St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Aylesford, and on the Eastbourne College Roll of Honour. Most of these details come from Janet and Richard Mason’s research page on him. His officer’s file at The National Archives (WO 339/2724) gives the dates of his commission, service and leave, and the settling of his estate.

Service no.

K.12613 (Ch)

Ship

H.M.S. Pathfinder, Royal Navy

Born

27 March 1893, Maidstone

Joined

20 September 1911, for 12 years; previously a labourer

Died

5 September 1914, killed by enemy action. Body not recovered.

Family

Mother: Edith Standing, 6 Khartoum Terrace, Ditton

He served at H.M.S. Pembroke and the Commonwealth before joining Pathfinder. Lost with his ship in the first weeks of the war, he is among the earliest Ditton names.

Service no.

1193

Unit

Royal Army Medical Corps

Born

Snodland, Kent; enlisted at Chatham

Died

14 March 1915, in France and Flanders

Medals

British War Medal and Victory Medal

His effects were paid to his father John, and later to his mother Elizabeth.

Unit

Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, attached Royal Flying Corps, 11 Squadron

Died

22 April 1917, of wounds, in German hands

The memorial says attached R.A.F. In April 1917 he was flying with the Royal Flying Corps; it became part of the new Royal Air Force a year later.

Service no.

202259 (earlier 5515)

Unit

1/5th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment)

Attested

10 April 1916, aged 34; an engineer of Hill Top Farm, Bluebell Hill, Rochester

Died

Killed in action in France, 1918 (date to be confirmed from the effects register)

Medals

British War Medal and Victory Medal

Served with the 1/5th and 2/5th Battalions. His effects were paid to William J. Trodd.

Service no.

681990

Unit

81st Battery, 5th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (Territorial Force)

Born

Ditton, Kent; enlisted at Aylesford

Died

24 August 1918, of wounds, in France

Buried

Bac-du-Sud British Cemetery, Bailleulval, France. Grave III. E. 6.

Service no.

24863

Unit

1st and 5th Battalions, Grenadier Guards

Died

5 March 1919, at home in Kent, of pneumonia

Medals

British War Medal and Victory Medal

Family

Effects and war gratuity paid to his mother, Mary E. Williamson

Service no.

831

Unit

15th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

To France

21 November 1915

Died

14 December 1915, killed in action

Medals

1914–15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal

Killed less than a month after landing in France. His name is on one of the two panels added beneath the main inscription.

Unit

Middlesex Regiment

Possible match

George W. Chapman, G/80695, Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment)

Not yet confirmed. The medal card shows him as a private, not a corporal, and gives no date of death. His name is on one of the two added panels.

Service no.

T/16309

Unit

6 Sub-Park, 2 Corps Ammunition Park, Royal Army Service Corps

Died

27 May 1940, aged 37

Buried

Nieuwpoort Communal Cemetery, Belgium. Plot III, Grave 3.

Family

Son of Arthur Livingstone and Alice Mary Braybrooke; husband of Violet Jean Braybrooke, of Ditton

Inscription

“He lives and in my heart I know we’ll meet again some where, some day”

Arthur had served before, in the Royal Marines from 1917 to 1919, so he was a veteran of both wars. He died on the Belgian coast near Nieuwpoort during the British Expeditionary Force’s retreat towards Dunkirk, the day after the evacuation began.

Service no.

6348865

Unit

4th Battalion, The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)

Died

4 September 1942, aged 26

Buried

El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt. Joint grave XX. B. 17–18.

Family

Son of William James and Ella P. Burgess; husband of Mary Gladys Burgess, of Ditton

Inscription

“A smiling face a heart of gold the dearest husband the world could hold”

James died in the Western Desert during the Battle of Alam Halfa, two months before the Second Battle of El Alamein. He shares a joint grave with a comrade.

The memorial gives his rank as Corporal; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as a Lance Corporal.

Service no.

1334686

Service

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Died

6 May 1943, aged 21

Buried

Ditton (St Peter) Churchyard, north-east corner

Family

Son of Robert William and Florence May Bryant, of Ditton

Inscription

“Till the day breaks”

The youngest of the Second World War names identified so far. He is buried at home in Ditton churchyard.

The memorial gives Flight Sergeant, R.A.F.; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as a Sergeant in the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve. How he died is still to be found; his squadron’s records or a local newspaper report may tell.

Service no.

959381

Service

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Died

29 September 1946, aged 33

Buried

Ditton (St Peter) Churchyard, north-east corner

Family

Son of Owen and Eliza Jane Fitness; husband of Florence Joyce Fitness, of Ditton

Inscription

“The dearly loved husband of Joyce Fitness. Love’s last gift, remembrance”

Frederick died more than a year after the war ended, while still serving. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission counts as war dead those who died in service up to 31 December 1947. He lies in the north-east corner of Ditton churchyard, near William Bryant.

Service no.

812278

Service

Royal Air Force (Auxiliary Air Force), 159 Squadron; air gunner

Born

1912, Sevenoaks, Kent

Aircraft

Liberator II AL566, flying from St Jean, Palestine

Died

15 July 1942, aged about 30, shot down over Benghazi, Libya

Commemorated

Alamein Memorial, Egypt. Column 249. He has no known grave.

Home

15 Fernleigh Estate, Bell Lane, Ditton

Family

Husband of Kathleen Priscilla Hodge; son of Harry Hodge, brewer’s labourer, and Emily Hodge (née Drury), of Maidstone

John was born in Sevenoaks in the spring of 1912. By 1921 the family was living in Lower Stone Street, Maidstone, where his father worked as a labourer at the Isherwood, Foster & Stacey brewery; John, then nine, had an older sister Emily and a younger brother and sister, Frank and Florence. In the war he served as an air gunner with 159 Squadron, a Liberator bomber squadron based at St Jean in Palestine. On 15 July 1942 his aircraft, Liberator AL566, was lost during a raid on Benghazi harbour, the main German and Italian supply port in Libya. It was shot down into the sea near the target, probably by a fighter, though possibly by the German submarine U-561. Of the seven men aboard, Sergeant H.E. Birk of the Royal Australian Air Force was recorded as killed. The other six, including John, were posted missing, believed killed: Sergeant M.C. Fell (RNZAF), Pilot Officer J.C. Pottie (RAAF), Warrant Officer W.S. Miller, Pilot Officer H. Leisk (RAAF) and Pilot Officer G. Mallaby (RAAF). As none of them was found, John is named on the Alamein Memorial. At the time of his death he and his wife Kathleen were living at 15 Fernleigh Estate, Bell Lane, Ditton, which is why he is remembered on the village memorial. Administration of his estate was granted to her as his widow.

The memorial gives R.A.F.V.R.; the CWGC records the Auxiliary Air Force. His Ditton address and his wife’s name come from the National Probate Calendar (administration granted at Llandudno, 1 June). His parents were still in Maidstone in 1939, at 72 Shears Crescent.

Service no.

2046500

Unit

631 Regiment, Royal Artillery; formerly Royal Engineers

Died

15 January 1946, aged 41

Buried

Ditton (St Peter) Churchyard, north-east corner

Family

Son of Philip and Martha Anne Woodger, of Ditton; husband of Catherine Amelia Woodger, of Ditton

Inscription

“Only for a while, dear not good-bye. ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’”

A Ditton man born and married, Walter first served in the Royal Engineers before moving to the Royal Artillery. Like Frederick Fitness, he died after the war had ended while still in service, and he lies near him and William Bryant in the north-east corner of the churchyard.

Service no.

P/JX 273952

Ship

H.M.S. Lawford, Royal Navy

Died

8 June 1944, aged 37

Commemorated

Portsmouth Naval Memorial. Panel 83, Column 3. He has no known grave.

Family

Son of William and E.A. Woolley; husband of Edith Mary Woolley, of Ditton

H.M.S. Lawford was a frigate serving as a headquarters ship off the Normandy beaches. She was sunk by German air attack on 8 June 1944, two days after D-Day, and Albert was lost with her. As with George Standing of H.M.S. Pathfinder thirty years earlier, the sea is his grave.