Loughborough Roll of Honour

Sergeant 615966 Eric Alfred Main

Royal Air Force

Died on 3rd November 1941, Aged 21.

Commemorated Runnymede Memorial

His parents were Bert and Mabel Main, and Eric was born in Loughborough in 1920. Bert Main had served in WW1 in the Leicestershire Yeomanry, where his horse was the famous Songster, Loughborough’s own ‘war horse’ who became something of a character around Loughborough after the war. Bert later served as a lieutenant in the Home Guard.

Eric Main went to Limehurst School, then worked for a short time at Brush. He was a popular young man with many friends. He volunteered for the RAF in 1938, aged 18, starting as a mechanic then volunteering for flying duties. He served in France and was evacuated at Dunkirk in 1940.

Serving in Bomber Command, he was shot down by an Italian fighter during a delivery flight from Gibraltar to Malta. He was flying a Wellington for the Overseas Aircraft Delivery Unit.

Major 160707 Peter Edward Mason
Royal Army Ordnance Corps Died on 21st November 1943, Aged 26. Buried Beirut War Cemetery, 7. A. 11.
Peter Mason was born in Retford on 28th October 1917 to Noel Mason and his wife Edith (née Hudson). He had an older brother, Walter, and a younger brother, Richard. Their father was a senior bank clerk in Retford, and the family home was 89 London Road, Retford. Noel Mason died in 1937 and by 1939 the family had moved to 152 Herrick Road, Loughborough. Peter had qualified as an accountant at the age of 21, and his two brothers, following their father’s profession, were bank clerks. He had a keen interest in sport, as well as amateur dramatics. A month after the outbreak of war, Peter Mason volunteered for the services, gaining his commission in 1940. He served overseas and promotion was rapid, to staff major in April 1942. In the Spring of 1941 Peter married Kathleen Russell and they went to live on Forest Road. Their son John was born the following year but very sadly, Peter never got to see the child. His death was accidental, although there are no available details.
Photo courtesy of Asia War Graves.com

Stoker 1st Class P/KX 96085 James Acquilla Kilgour-Miller
H.M.S. Hood, Royal Navy Died on 24th May 1941, Aged 21. Commemorated Portsmouth Naval Memorial (His brother John W. Kilgour-Miller also fell see below)
James Kilgour-Miller senior and his wife Dorothy lost two sons serving in the Royal Navy in WW2. James, their eldest, was born on 24th July 1919. James Miller senior was a Scot, who had a fish and chip business, and the family, which also included another boy and two daughters, were living at 8 Northampton Street Cambridge in 1921. All the children, however, had been born in Loughborough, where the family lived in Byron Street. James, like his brothers, attended Limehurst School. The young James Kilgour-Miller lost his life serving in HMS Hood. The sinking of this ship, and the huge number of losses, made it one of the most shocking events of the war. Hood had been a symbol of British naval might, until 2014 the biggest ship ever built. In May 1941, she and the battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck which was en route to the Atlantic to attack convoys. On 24th May, in the Strait of Denmark, Hood was struck by several German shells and exploded. Of the 1,418 crew, only three men, Ordinary Signalman Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Robert Tilburn and Midshipman William John Dundas, survived; they were rescued about two hours after the sinking by the destroyer Electra. Electra spotted substantial debris, but no bodies. The loss of Hood had a profound effect on the British people. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to "sink the Bismarck!", and they fulfilled his command on 26th – 27th May.

Petty Officer Stoker P/KX 94922 John William Kilgour-Miller
H.M.S. Bluebell., Royal Navy Died on 7th February 1945, Aged 24. Commemorated Portsmouth Naval Memorial (His brother James A. Kilgour-Miller also fell see above)
James Kilgour-Miller senior and his wife Dorothy lost two sons serving in the Royal Navy in WW2. John was their second son, born in 1920. James Miller senior was a Scot, who had a fish and chip business, and the family, which also included another boy two daughters, were living at 8 Northampton Street Cambridge in 1921. All the children, however, had been born in Loughborough. John, like his brothers, attended Limehurst School. John Miller joined the Navy in 1939; prior to that he had worked at Clemerson’s, a department store in Loughborough’s Market Place. On 20th June 1942 he married Queenie Carroll, and the couple had a daughter who was 16 months old at the time of John’s death. They lived at 99 Russell Street in Loughborough. In 1945 John Kilgour-Miller was serving in HMS Bluebell, a corvette. It was hunting for U-boats off the north-west coast of Russia, in the Kola Inlet. The ship was towing another, HMS Denbigh Castle, which had been damaged by U-boat attack while escorting a convoy. At 17.30 hours it was Bluebell’s turn to be attacked, hit by a torpedo from U-711. She sank in less than 30 seconds, as the torpedo denoted her depth charges. Only one man from the crew of 91 survived.

Private 5256351 Natie Miller
2nd Bn., 7th Bn. Worcestershire Regiment Died on 8th February 1945, Age 29. Buried Taukkyan War Cemetery, Myanmar, 19. J. 20.
Natie Miller was born to a Jewish family in north London in 1916 and also lived in east London. At present there is little information about his family. We know that they moved to Loughborough from London in 1942, and that there was another son, Percy. Their address was 12 Havelock Street, Loughborough. However, in 1950, his mother, Mrs S Miller, applied to have his service medals sent to her at 30 Cannon Street Road, Stepney. It seems that Natie joined the army in 1940 and was killed in action in Burma (Mayanmar). His brother Percy served in India.
Photo courtesy of Asia War Graves.com

A. L. Mullholland

Sapper 5667414 Roy Clayton Alford Mullis
Royal Engineers Died on 8th January 1945, Aged 39. Buried Bodmin Cemetery, Cornwall, Sec. T. Grave 267.
Roy Mullis was the eldest of eight children born to John and Bessie Mullis. He was born in Bodmin, Cornwall, in 1906, but by 1911 the family had moved to Yeovil. John Mullis worked as a labourer. In 1921 Roy Mullis was an inmate of Wiltshire Farm School for Boys, a reformatory. He was 15 and described as ‘out of work errand boy’. This institution had been a grim place in the 19th century, but by the 1920s had greatly improved and offered industrial training, sports, PE, swimming and a bugle band. Each boy had a garden to cultivate. A Somerset newspaper report of March 1925 mentions a boxing tournament of the Yeovil Territorials, when Private Roy Mullis won his bout in two rounds. It’s possible that Roy signed up with the Territorials after leaving the reform school, perhaps to keep him out of trouble. He would have been 19 at the time of the boxing match. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers on 3rd June 1926. Roy married Loughborough girl Enid May Osborne in Yeovil in 1930 and they had three children: Ronald (b 1932), Bryan (b 1939) and Pamela (b 1945). He was discharged from the army on 14th November 1941 under Para 390 (xvi) 1940 King's Regulations; i.e. he was no longer physically fit enough to serve. His death in Loughborough, more than three years later, must have been to some injury or illness contracted during his army service.

Sapper 2088109 Stuart Murray

Royal Engineers, 377 Btty., 44 Leicestershire Regiment) AA Battalion.

Died on 27th May 1940, Aged 36.

Buried Spalding Cemetery, Plot J, Grave 1936.

Stuart Murray was born in Inverness-shire in 1904. In 1932 he married Hilda Warrington in Loughborough, and they had four children including Alan, born 1935.

Stuart Murray served in an anti-aircraft/searchlight battery based at Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. In 1942 it became RAF Woodhall Spa and was in the heart of ‘bomber county’ in Lincolnshire, where there were numerous air force bases.

At the time of his death, he and Hilda, along with two of their chidren, were staying in Spalding at 23 Havelock Street, with a Mrs Tucker. Stuart was killed while riding a motorbike with Hilda riding pillion, when it collided with an army lorry at Spalding Common.

Sergeant 955027 Claude Ronald Nash

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Died on 24th April 1941, Aged 22.

Commemorated Runnymede Memorial.

Claude Nash was born in Loughborough on 3rd March 1919, to parents Claude and Lilian. He had a younger brother, Leonard. They lived at 89 Mead End Lane in 1921, and later moved to 61 Herbert Street.

Claude went to Loughborough Grammar School and after leaving in 1935, worked at Hawley & Johnson, a dyer company. By 1939 he was a foreman.

The Leicester Chronicle reported him missing on 10th May 1941. In fact, his death had occurred before that. His Blenheim aircraft failed to return from a night navigational exercise on 24th April and was deemed lost without trace over the North Sea. Two other airmen died along with Claude Nash

Corporal 4858063 Albert Edward Neal
1st Bn., Lincolnshire Regiment Died on 3rd February 1945, Aged 23. Buried Taukkyan War Cemetery, Coll. grave 10. A. 21-24.
Albert Neal was born in Westhampnett, Sussex, and baptised in Lavant on 18th December 1921. He was the only son of Albertlbert Neal and his wife Lucy (née Ide) Lucy, who also had a daughter, Betty May. In 1939 he and Lucy were living in Lavant House, Garendon Road, Loughborough, Albert working as a gardener but registered as 48480 in the 5th Leicesters. Military service was a family tradition. Albert Neal senior served in both world wars and was in the Territorials for 30 years. He served in the Norwegian campaign and was awarded eight medals, including the Norwegian Military Cross with sword, and was mentioned in dispatches. Albert Neal junior worked in the offices of the Granite Company in Mountsorrel, joined the Territorials when he was 14, and was mobilised at the start of the war when he was 17. Following his father, Albert enlisted in the 5th Bn Leicestershire Regiment (TA) on 20th April 1939. He served with them in the Norway Campaign in April/May 1940, and he was awarded a Mention in Despatches and the Norwegian Military Cross with Sword. Early in 1941 Albert junior married Phyllis May Bull in Loughborough. He transferred to The Lincolnshire Regiment on 30th March 1943, serving in Burma, where he was wounded twice but returned to duty. He was killed in Burma on 3rd February 1945.
Photo courtesy of Asia War Graves.com

Corporal 7261967 Andrew Claude Needham
Royal Army Medical Corps Died on 13th December 1940, Aged 29. Buried Loughborough Cemetery, 381/8
Andrew was born to parents Andrew Needham and Florence (née Adcock) in 1911/1912. He was one of a large family; in 1921 there were seven children ranging in age from 3 to 19. They lived in Loughborough at 28 Morley Street and Andrew senior worked at hosiery firm Cottons. He had served in WW1, in the RAMC and Leicestershire Regiment amongst other units. By 1939 the Needham parents were living alone at 52 Baxter Gate. Andrew Needham senior died on 11th January 1940, just a few weeks after his son. At present it has not been possible to discover more about the younger Andrew Claude Needham or his service in the RAMC.

Warrant Officer 659072 Frank Needham
Pilot Royal Air Force. Died on 19th February 1945, Aged 24. Buried Whitwick Cemetery, A. N.C. Grave 250.
Frank was born in Whitwick on 27th August 1921 to Albert Edward and Ursula Needham. His father was a miner at Whitwick Colliery and the family lived at 136 Church Lane Coalville. At the time there were no other children in the family. In 1939, Frank was living with his parents at the same address, working as a photographic artist. In 1943 he married local girl Gwendoline Waterfield, who worked as an elastic weaver. At the time of Frank’s death they were living at 28b Silver Street, Whitwick, her parents’ home. Frank’s death in the RAF was due to an accident. He was working as a flight instructor and took off from RAF Church Lawford near Rugby, with student pilot Sgt Eric Kershaw. The weather was foggy, making for poor visibility (just 1,800 feet) and the Oxford aircraft struck an elm tree and crashed near Thurlaston Grange, Warwickshire. Both Frank and Eric were killed.

Private 4859571 Stanley Newby
2nd Bn., Leicestershire Regiment Died on 8th February 1945, Age 29. Buried Tobruk War Cemetery, Libya, 8. F. 3.
Stanley was born in April 1920 to William Newby and Alice (née Heighton). In 1921 they were living with Alice’s parents and 96 Russell Street, Loughborough, and William was employed as a soap packer at the Zenobia Perfume Factory, a big employer at the time. By 1939 Alice was widowed and was living at 59 Oxford Street with younger sons Douglas and Amos. Stanley enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment in 1939 and was killed in action in Libya.

Private 4858410 Ronald Charles Nobes
1st Bn., Leicestershire Regiment Died on 12th December 1941, Aged 22. Commemorated Singapore Memorial, Column 66.
Born 1919 in Portsmouth, Ronald was the son of Charles Nobes and and Louisa (née Pratt). Both families came from Hampshire. The 1921 Census showed Louisa living at 60 North Street Portsea, with daughter Olive, aged 5 and 1-year-old Ronald. Her unmarried brother Ernest lived with them too. There is no mention of Charles Nobes. He certainly served in WW1 in the Hampshire Regiment and in 1921 may still have been a serving soldier and away from home. Another boy, Edward, was born in Long Whatton in 1924 so the family must have moved to the Loughborough area by then. Ronald Nobes enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment on 21st June 1937. In 1938 he was involved in an accident which made news in the Leicester Mercury. He and his father, who was described as a ‘bandsman’ were cycling home from the 5th Leicesters’ ceremonial parade, Charles Nobes and Ronald both attired in their scarlet uniforms. They collided with a car, and while Charles sustained a minor cut to his head, Ronald was not hurt. Lord and Lady Crawshaw, who were passing, gave the two men a lift to hospital and also went to the family home to explain to Mrs Nobes what had happened. The 1939 Register showed the family living in Chapel Yard, Castle Donington. By now William was working as a self-employed painter and decorator although also noted as a bandsman in the 1/5th Leicesters. Ronald, also listed as bandsman in the 1/5th Leicesters, was a rate typing clerk in engineering. Louisa’s brother Ernest was also still living with them; he was now a hospital nurse. Ronald Nobes served in the Leicestershire Regiment from the outbreak of WW2 and was killed in action in Malaya.
Photo courtesy of Asia War Graves.com