William Brockhill

This photo was taken around June 1944 in Sussex and is of officers and men of an unspecified RAOC unit.  The men in this story are either in this phot or looked very like them.

William Brockhill was born on 22^nd August 1907, 6.10pm, at 27 Broomhill Terrace in the Thornwood area of the west end (as you drive from Crow Road onto the junction with the Clydeside Expressway it is just off to the left).

His father, Fred (Frederick George Brockhill), was a leather merchant, specialising in Chamois.  Fred  had married William's mother, Margaret Hastie Wardrop, two years earlier.  William had one brother, Eric George, born as he approached his ninth birthday.

William attended Glasgow Academy and was active in the Scouts.  However, his father died when he was fifteen.

After school he worked in a bank and in 1936 (dated 17th October), the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald contained the following news:

Frustratingly the article does not give an address and I have not been able to find a reference - maybe someone who knows Westerton history can help?

Just under a year later, on 7^th September 1937, William married Annie Winnifred Dowling at Partick Methodist Church.  

The church is at the western end of Dumbarton Road, now permanently closed (on left of photo, showing train bridge into Partick Station and Glasgow Uni tower in the distance).

He had been living at 24 Dowanside Road (just off Byres Road) but by the 1940 valuation Roll, William and Annie were living at 81 Henderland Road, Westerton.

William joined the army early in the war because on 24th June 1940 (three weeks after Dunkirk) he was made a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC).  

By 1944 he had the rank of Major in the 17th Vehicle Company RAOC.

British, American and Canadian troops landed in Normandy in France on 6th June 1944, the essential first step to driving out the German forces, but they immediately entered into what has been referred to as "the battle of the build-up".  This refers to the race between the Allies and the Germans to rush units and supplies to the front in sufficient strength to defeat the other side.  The RAOC were responsible for the supply and maintenance of weapons and equipment.

I am in the debt of contributors to the WW2 Talk page for information from the unit's war diary.  From this we know it was planned that a "recce party" (or advanced party) would land in France two days after D-Day, presumably to find as safe a site as possible for the main unit when they came ashore.  William was in this party with three other officers and four 'other ranks' (privates, corporals, sergeants) from his company.  They caught the 08.50 train from Billinghurst in Sussex to the marshalling area (possibly Portsmouth/Southampton, although the rest of the company embarked at Tilbury).

With other RAOC troops, they embarked on LCI(L) 105, or Landing Craft Infantry (Large), a type of ship specially designed for amphibious landings and capable of carrying up to 200 passengers.  

This is not the ship William was in (which was number 105, evidently this is 108) but it gives an idea of what it would have been like. (Excellent source, with more photos).

LCI(L)105 sailed on 7th June and in the early morning of the 8th it was in sight of the French coast; the planned destination was Juno Beach.  The LCI(L) was essentially flat-bottomed so many men would have felt sea-sick.  

The invasion fleet was a major target for the German air force and navy but in general thorough preparation and vigilance frustrated their efforts.  Probably from a base in Cherbourg the German Navy's 9th Flotilla had sent out S-boats (photo below) under the cover of darkness (source).  One of the boats saw its opportunity and at 5 am LCI(L)105 was hit by a torpedo.

A sergeant led the other ranks out of Number 1 Hold at the front of the ship.  He noticed that there was no trace of the aft hold, number 4 - it had been blown off or destroyed.  This was where the officers from all units on board had spent the night.

This cross-section (of a later version of the LCI(L)) shows what happened.  The main troop transport spaces are in the holds to the right of centre in the plan.  However, on the left, at what I would call the back of the boat, there is another hold for troops, just where the stairway is depicted - this would have been the hold where the officers were travelling.  The torpedo destroyed all of this section.

This website has a video of a guided tour of a restored LCI(L) and may be of interest (after clicking link, scroll to foot of the page to find it).  Note this is a later version of the LCI(L) - the version William was on did not have the clam doors for landing direct on the beach.  It's also possible it had benches (like a ferry) rather than bunks.

One officer survived but William and three other officers from his unit were lost without trace: Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Holman, Captain Raymond Bryan and Lieutenant William Goodwin.  The surviving officer was Colonel Gore.

From CWGC records nine other officers who died in the same incident: Captain Donald Forrest, Major Murdock Gould, Lieutenant Gordon Graham, Major Frank Gristwood, Major Robert Johnson, Lieutenant-Colonel William King, Captain John Morgan, Major Charles Peirson, Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Taunton, Captain Arthur Thompson.

In addition the following Royal Navy crew were killed:

There is a memorial plaque to the RAOC officers in the former St Barbara's Church on the site of the Hilsea Barracks in Portsmouth (this was the home of RAOC from 1921 until around 1943 when it was passed to the US Army as part of the build-up for the invasion, source):

The original image is very small - does anyone have a higher resolution version, please?

The dedication reads, "REMEMBER THESE YOUR BROTHERS WHO PASSED OUT OF THE SIGHT OF MEN BY THE PATH OF DUTY AND SELF SCRIFICE GIVING UP THEIR LIVES THAT OTHERS MIGHT LIVE IN FREEDOM."

While this post is mainly about William Brockhill, I have taken the chance to summarise what else is available about the other 13 officers.

Raymond Douglas Bryan, 35, originally from Leicester grandson of a doctor (link) and son of a doctor as well (with a practice at 72 Wimpole Street in London) but living in Surrey in 1939, occupation shipping clerk, married to Joan Mary Saxon Wells.

Donald Forrest, born on 28th January 1916 in Cowdenbeath, the son of a master draper.  In peacetime he was an insurance inspector.  Married Margaret Isabella (Ella) Kirk in March 1942 at Culross Abbey, Fife.  

At this time he was a Second Lieutenant in the RAOC.

Photo of Donald from this excellent website.

William George Goodwin - I have had no luck tracing this man.  CWGC provides no information and other than finding that he graduated from cadet to 2nd Lieutenant in the RAOC in July 1943 I can find nothing else about him.

John Murdock Gould - born 26th June 1915 in Kendal, Westmoreland, known in the family as Jack.  In the 1921 Census he was living with his maternal grandparents in Kendal.  Married Marie Chippindale in April 1939 in Shipley, Yorkshire, but at the time of the Register five months later his work had taken him to London (living at 51b Earls Court Road, London, occupation shoe shop inspector) - both Jack and his father were in the management of K Shoes.  At the time, Marie was living with her parents at 11a Hallfield Drive, Baildon.  He became a 2nd Lieutenant in December 1940.  

His daughter, Anne, was born four months after his death.  Many thanks to her husband, Peter, for supplying the photo of Jack and further information.

Gordon Leslie Graham - born 10th September 1917 in Ilford, Essex, son of a general labourer and the youngest of ten children (his father and mother were 48 and 47 at the time of his birth).  By 1939 he was working as a bank clerk and living at home. In 1940 he married Gwendoline Masie Drane and they had one son.

Frank Luttman Gristwood - born in 1911 in Norwich, son of a retail clothes buyer at Green's Outfitters, Haymarket. Seemingly the youngest of 17 children, ten of whom died in their first year. Married Mary Turnbull in Durham in 1935.  1939 Register living in Durham, manger of Woolworths branch and a senior ARP warden.  In 1943 he married again to Eva (Eve) N Paula Burger in Melton Mowbray.

Joseph Guest Holman - excellent biography (link).  I have taken the liberty of copying the photo:

His father won the Military Cross in France in World War One for steadiness and continuing his duties after being stunned by a near-miss from an artillery shell exploding.  He was also gassed.  As a result of his accumulating injuries he was sent back to England where he worked on food distribution for the war effort and awarded the MBE.  After the war his work took him to London where he met another woman and divorced Joseph's mother, an event sufficiently unusual to make the local newspapers.

Robert Johnson - excellent biography here, I have taken the liberty of copying and pasting the photo

William (Bill) Edward Wellington King - born 18th June 1908 in Rawalpindi (probably in today's Pakistan, then in India - this is the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, which may explain Wellington as a middle name).  His father was a telegraph operator in the service of the government (later a major in the army).  

In the early 1930s he started military training in Canada, joining the Manchester Regiment of the British Army in 1936. In 1938 he married Catherine Grimes in Newton Heath, Manchester.  William seems to have left the army at this stage because a year later they were living in a flat at 5 Pakenham Road, Edgbaston in Birmingham where his occupation was 'assistant staff manager in a department store'.  They had at least one child, William.

John Edward Morgan - This man has been difficult to find.  We know for certain he was married to Mary Ann Morgan and they lived at 9 Kensington Park Mews.  I speculate they might have been from Northern Ireland but have no strong evidence (just a lack of alternatives).

Charles Harold Pierson - born on 12th September 1910 in Yarm in the Tees Valley, son of a farm labourer.  Married Gertrude Butler in 1932; she was ten years his senior. (This was Gertrude's 2nd marriage; her first husband, Norman F Colling, a chauffeur, also had a motorbike and decided to take part in a time trial event at Saltburn Sands in front of 30,000 spectators but his tyre burst causing him to crash with fatal injuries - this was in 1926, three years after the wedding).  They had one son, Harold, in 1935.  In the 1939 Register, Charles's occupation is 'commercial traveller motor parts, technical drawing', but he was also a reservist in the police force.  Poor Gertrude - aged 44 she was a widow for the second time.

Bernard Taunton - born in May 1912 in Coventry, son of a well-known local baker.  Attended Bablake School and was captain of the rugby team from 1928 (aged 16!) to 1930.  Awarded a scholarship to Alfred Herbert Ltd, a major engineering company making machine tools.  He passed exams in mechanical engineering at Coventry technical College and 1933 and finished his apprenticeship in 1935.  He also found time to be in the chorus of a local opera production.  He then worked for the English Steel Corporation in Sheffield  Married Norah Mary Jackson on 31st March 1938 in Coventry.  Joined the army at about the same time, became a commissioned officer in 1940.  Transferred to RAOC and was in charge of Stores and Issue Control at an army depot.  

Norah kept the family home at 111 Bagington Road, Coventry.  CWGC refers to living in Weymouth, may refer to Norah's 2nd marriage.

Arthur William Thompson - Arthur was the only one of these men with a recorded grave so his body must have been found.  I cannot find much about him - he was born in Belfast, son of an accountant and after attending the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, became an accountant himself.

The RN crewmen were:

Gordon Brown, born 9th June 1923 in Dundee, died the day before his 21st birthday

Albert Henry Harvey, born 17th January 1920 in East Ham, London

John William Osborn, born 28th March 1912 in Bermondsey, London. Worked as a baker's roundsman before joining up

Samuel Thomas Pitt, born 13th September 1921 in King's Norton, Birmingham

Thomas William Taylor, born 19 December 1913 in West Derby, Liverpool.  Married to Doris Sherratt in 1942.  Thomas really needs a page of his own: he was a boxer (nickname "Seaman Tom", click here for link):

Robert Henry Thomas, born 27 June 1923 in Holyhead, Wales

Norman Whitham, born 2nd January 1925 in Ecclesfield, Sheffield.

Final notes on William Brockhill's family

William's wife, Winnifred, died 17^th January 1950 of diabetes mellitus and coronary thrombosis, aged 49, at Canniesburn Auxiliary Hospital, within sight of their Henderland Road home.

William's mother may have died in 1965 in Southport, having been a widow for over 40 years.