James Kilroy
This post has been greatly improved by the assistance and generous access to materials of (in alphabetical order) Andrew Carson, John Hughes and Harry MacAnespie. Thank you to you all.
James was born on 27th
September 1913 at 40 Hill Street, Maryhill.
This is now called Duncombe Street, and is to the left as you head down Maryhill Road, just before the canal goes over the main road:
His parents, Richard aged 24 and Jane (nee Bell) aged 21 had married in Maryhill the previous year.
Richard was a coal miner and worked for Summerlee Iron
Company (from the 1921 Census). Their only coal mine in the area was Blackhill, employing around 350 people.
The colliery is located at the bottom of the map. In modern terms Dobbie's Garden Centre is just off the top of the map on the left side. The road heading off on the right hand side goes to Mavis Valley Recycling Centre.
James had five (surviving) younger siblings:
Richard, William, Catherine, Jane, John.
Two other children, Samuel and Hugh, died as babies. This is a reminder that the infant mortality
rate was 7% of live births in Scotland in 1911, that is 1 baby in every 14 born alive. The rate was higher in
areas like Maryhill (attributed to overcrowding and low incomes).
Jane with her children, James (the oldest) on the left.
Just after James's 14th birthday, the family had moved to Aryle Street in Maryhill, later renamed Kilmun Street. His mother caught an ear infection. While easily treatable today, at the time the lack of anti-biotics meant that Jane developed a cerebral abscess and she died in the Western Infirmary. (Overuse of anti-biotics and the development of resistant infections could mean we go back to those days.) Richard was left to bring up five children and he remarried to Catherine Bell in 1929.
We don't know how James's interest in golf developed or when he started earning his living in this way but he worked at Balmore Club Club up to late 1934, when he was 21.
He must have shown some promise as he got the job of assistant to the professional, Willie Spark, at Lanark Golf Club. The professional's job was to help run the club and to teach others how to improve their game. They also took part in tournaments representing the club.
James had this job until April 1938
This cutting is from October 1937 (The Coatbridge Express) - James is renowned as being a clever player. Not quite so clever was the following incident, reported in January 1938:
In April 1938, James secured the job of professional at Douglas Park Golf Club in Bearsden (For non-golfers this is the one by Hillfoot Station).
Just over a year later, Britain was at war with Germany. James's immediate concern must have been for his younger brother Richard, who had been in the army for eight years and was sent to France. There were also implications for James's work and a deal seems to have been reached where James continued his role part-time but also started work for Barr and Stroud, the optical
equipment manufacturer (now the site of Morrison's at Anniesland).
During 1940 he continued to take part in golf tournaments in Scotland as the Douglas Park professional. In May 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France and his brother was caught up in the fighting as a private in 1st Battalion Queens Own Cameron Highlanders. (This thread carries a lot information about what Richard's battalion went through.)
Roughly 100 men of the battalion strength of 700 were evacuated from Dunkirk 1940, including Richard. But just over three weeks later, Richard was dead, killed in an accident in Britain while acting as a despatch rider.
On 8th August of that year a newspaper reported he had volunteered for RAF, been accepted and was awaiting his call-up; whether this was due to Richard's death, we do not know. (The same report said his father was now in the army as well, but as Richard would have been aged 49 this seems unlikely – maybe he was in the Home Guard?)
On 14th March 1941 the Kilroy family were at home at 19 Kilmun Street, thankful they had been spared in the blitz Clydebank and Glasgow the previous night. But the Luftwaffe returned in a smaller raid and a landmine, literally a mass of explosives on a parachute, fell on the east end of the street, which was destroyed as well as buildings in neighbouring Shiskine Street, Kilmun Lane and Kirn Street. CWGC lists 79 civilian dead, many of them children and family groups, including two children from another family at number 19 who had been staying with neighbours.
A view familiar to Bearsden motorists travelling into Glasgow - the first traffic lights in Maryhill. The trees on the far corner on the left mark the site of Kilmun Street. The Kilroys were saved by the fact their tenement flat was closer to Maryhill Road as the following maps show, first from 1938 and the second from 1949:
I imagine James thinking about his dead neighbours and their children every time he flew a mission.
In 1941 he married Agnes Hilda Pack (born 1919, died 2015) on 2nd August at New Kilpatrick Church. James gave his occupation as golf professional but at that time an aircraftsman in the RAF (the most junior rank). His address was Aitkenhead Cottage, Milngavie Road, Bearsden (misspelled as Aikenhead Cottage). Agnes was a shorthand typist living at 23 Oronsay Gardens, Bearsden, off of Rannoch Drive. She was originally from Edinburgh and her parents were popular senior members of Douglas Park Golf Club, being Club Master and Mistress from 1924 to 1938.
The witnesses were Robert A
Williamson, 8 Annandale St, Edinburgh and Catherine Margaret Watt, 3 Roman
Road.
Aitkenhead Cottage is now 144 Milngavie Road and very close to Douglas
Park Golf Club:
The row of properties opposite is currently home to the restaurant Beat 6, Romy's fish and chips and Retties estate agency (among others). He would have been a lodger here as the cottage was owned and occupied at the time by Katie Macdonald
James's service record is currently not available but in the years 1942-3 he must have been promoted to leading aircraftsman and then flight sergeant because in the London Gazette of 1944 it was announced he had been promoted to Pilot Officer (the most junior officer rank) on 22nd July. Six months later, the London Gazette announced on 22nd January 1945 he became a Flying Officer (akin to Lieutenant in army). This seems to have been 'standard practice': one authoritative source says “All other things being equal, an aircrew Pilot Officer would automatically be promoted one rank to Flying Officer exactly six months following date of his initial commissioning …”
James's role was as a bomb-aimer (also called a bombardier) - over the target he would like through an optical sight and direct the pilot so that the aiming point was reached and then to release the bombs.
By March 1945 he was
flying with 31 South African Air Force Squadron; such postings were not
uncommon and mixed crews were often found.
James standing in the centre.
31 Squadron was based at Celone airfield in Italy, just north of Foggia
Celone is the red circle in the bottom right.
On the 7th March 1945, eleven Liberator bombers took off around 5.15pm to bomb railway yards to the west of Udine which can be found on the map above at the very top, just to the right of centre. They were a target because the railway from Vienna and Germany ran through here so they were a supply and communication route to the German forces fighting in Italy.
Ten of the eleven planes reached the target area around 8.30pm. Cloud cover meant spotting the target markers (dropped by pathfinders) was difficult and most planes dropped according to the glow of the markers through the cloud. The ten planes of the squadron dropped 30 tons of bombs and 6 tons of incendiaries.
This is a painting called the Marshalling Yard at Udine by Edward Bawden, painted later in 1945:
The planes returned to base
around 11.30pm, but James’s plane was not among them. It was known they had reached the target but it seemed they had been shot down by an enemy aircraft over the Adriatic
with the loss of all on board.
Six days later, the Daily Record reported:
Bobby Locke was one of the all-time greats of golf, so meting him would have been quite a moment for James - although whether they flew in any sorties 'together' is open to question as it seems Locke was not flying with combat units while the war was on.
Pilots
Lieutenant Leon Senior,
26, married, from Johannesburg (see below)
Lieutenant Ralph
Perkins, 23, SON OF SYDNEY AND ALICE E. PERKINS, OF
JOHANNESBURG, TRANSVAAL, SOUTH AFRICA
Navigator
Lieutenant A Warmback,
24, SON OF WILLIAM AND VERA WARMBACK, OF JOHANNESBURG,
TRANSVAAL, SOUTH AFRICA
Air gunner top
turret
Sergeant Frederick
Charles Danvers, 19, SON OF FREDERICK AND LILIAN
DANVERS, OF NORTH KENSINGTON, LONDON
Air gunners
WO Class II Shirley
Lislenborgh Segal, 18, SON OF LOUIS AND JOHANNA M.
SEGAL, OF VELDRIFT, CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA
WO Class II Kenneth
Hugh Dixon Taylor, 19, SON OF SYDNEY B. AND CLARE T.
TAYLOR, OF KINGWILLIAMSTOWN, CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA
WO Class II Bertie
Wicks, 21, SON OF GEORGE AND LOUISA A. M. WICKS, OF
STUTTERHEIM, CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA
The crew are commemorated on the Malta
memorial to those with no known grave, the exceptions being Taylor (Padua War Cemetery) and James who has a headstone in Forli War
Cemetery
The inscription reads: “He cannot die/ Who lives in the hearts/ Of those he leaves behind”
It seems strange that the plane was lost with all on board but James has a grave when others are on a memorial plaque in Malta. Then I found the following passage in a book called “New Heavens” by Boris Senior, younger brother of the pilot of James's plane. Boris was a fighter pilot in the SAAF in Italy
and was shot down in a raid close to Venice about a week later.
MY BIG
BROTHER LEON
The day after my return to the squadron someone said to me, “Sorry to
hear about your brother.” Shocked, I learned he had gone missing a week before
I was shot down while flying his B-24 Liberator back from a raid on the
marshalling yards of Udine in northern Italy. We had had no contact, apart from
a very occasional postcard. He was stationed far back in southern Italy at
Foggia in a South African Air Force wing while my RAF fighter squadron was near
the front line.
A poignant letter from him was waiting for me, telling me that he had
got hold of a Primus stove for me. Primus stoves were sought by all of us and
were virtually unobtainable. My efforts to find out more details of what had
happened to Leon were in vain, and after a few days I was ordered to return
immediately to South Africa. When my sister Selma had entered my mother’s
bedroom in the morning to break the news, she gave one look and asked, “Which
one?” She behaved with the dignity that was part of her makeup. In despair and
sorrow over Leon’s death, my parents arranged for me to return home. They did
not know at the time that they had nearly received two telegrams in one week
announcing the loss of both their sons.
Leon never returned, and the only clue we have ever had about him was
that the body of his bombardier was found in the sea just north of Venice, near
where I landed in the sea. After completing his bombing raid, Leon had sent a
coded radio message that he had accomplished his mission but nothing more was heard
from him. I have subsequently seen a report that he was coned by searchlights
and went down in flames after being hit by heavy anti-aircraft fire over the
target.
Leon was six years older than me, and as my older brother was my role
model. He was of medium height, a handsome young man, refined like his mother
and somewhat reserved. With his big blue eyes and shy smile, women were
immediately drawn to him, but being fastidious in his choice of everything, he
was never involved in a string of shallow romances. Like other members of our
family, he was an individualist. I remember him in high school, and he never
ran with the herd socially. He was quiet and courteous with everyone, and I
never heard him raise his voice. He could easily have completed his military
service as a flight instructor in South Africa far from the perils of the air
war in Europe but insisted on joining an operational bomber squadron in Italy.
One of my two sons bears his name, which has been in my father’s family for
many generations.
My family and Leon’s young wife, though still not giving up hope, seemed
to have come to terms with the news of Leon’s missing in action. I witnessed
only one heart-rending scene. When I passed Leon’s room, I saw through the open
door that Leon’s wife was collecting his clothes to put away. I watched her for
a moment and saw her clasp his uniform jacket and hug it closely to her. That
small act in the silent bedroom has been with me ever since.
When I returned to Johannesburg after the Venice raid, I waited in South
Africa for news of Leon, for I had agreed to my parents’ wish not to return to
operational flying until we heard about him. It was a difficult time for all of
us. Until we heard that the body of one of his crew was found in the sea near
Venice, we had kept hopes of his being a prisoner of war. As time passed we
lost hope. In the meantime, the war ended in Europe. Understanding that I had
to assume a more responsible role in the family, I sought my release from
active service as soon as possible.
All that remains for us of my brother Leon, apart from our memories, is
his name on a memorial column in Malta, which has the names of all the missing
airmen of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean theater of war. Later, Dad
financed the building of a community hall in the village of Kfar Shmaryahu in
Israel on a hill that was renamed “Ramat Leon.” He also established a permanent
scholarship in Leon’s name for South Africans at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
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