There are five servicemen who have memorials in the churchyard of St Johns church. On behalf of residents, poppies have been placed on the graves by the Residents Association to remember them.
More information about each of these servicemen is included below, plus another who has a memorial in the Westwood Club.
Sergeant William Briggs Sergeant Gordon Campain Pilot Officer John Douglas Gordon Aircraftsmen William Lambert Trooper Sydney Lawrance Craftsman Thomas Mills
If you have any further knowledge on these servicemen or information on other casualties of war, please feel free to post it here or get in touch via: westwoodheathhistory@gmail.com
The residents of Westwood Heath are from many diverse backgrounds, and the History Group would be very interested to learn about any recollections you may have of family members who have served in the armed forces.
Sergeant William Briggs d 24 August 1940 aged 21
William Briggs is commemorated within St Johns churchyard. He was killed when the 53 Squadron Bristol Blenheim, similar to the one shown above, crashed on the return from an operational flight as part of Coastal Command. The airplane hit two houses in Dover and all three of the crew were killed as well as the occupants of one of the houses. The cause of the crash was never established, though someone who saw the plane come down suggested it may have hit a barrage balloon cable.
Sergeant Gordon Campain d 13 January 1943 aged 21
Gordon Campain is commemorated within the churchyard of St Johns Church on Westwood Heath road. He was flying in a Wellington Bomber which crashed near Chipping Warden after an engine failure. The Wellington was a two-engine bomber, see picture above, so the loss of one engine was quite a significant failure. The bomber was part of 12th Operational Training Unit (OTU), which was a major Bomber Command training unit based at Chipping Warden at that time. Campain had been injured in a previous Wellington bomber crash just three weeks previously.
On the day of the fatal crash Sergeant Campain was flying with Squadron Leader Douglas Foreman, who was a very experienced bomber pilot and had been decorated in 1941 with the Distinguished Flying Cross for his previous gallantry. It was common practice for front line pilots to be rostered in OTUs at the end of their tours of duty to pass on their hard-won experience to the younger pilots. It is worth remembering that all of Bomber Commands air crew were volunteers – no one was forced to fly bombing flights, and so many lost their lives in the process.
A short piece was printed in the Coventry Evening Telegraph Monday 18th January 1943.
Coventry Evening Telegraph, 18th January 1943
Pilot Officer John Douglas Gordon d 8 June 1942 aged 27
John Douglas Gordon has a grave in St Johns church, where he is buried with other members of his family. He is part of the Leigh Gordon family, who have well known associations with the area.
P/O Gordon was part of 165 Squadron based at Ayr in Scotland at the time and was flying Spitfire fighters. The image included here is of one of 165 Squadron Spitfires at Gravesend, an airfield that they moved to after being based in Ayr.
On the evening of the accident he was flying with a colleague on a training flight on air drill and cloud flying. The squadron Operations Record Book notes that he commenced a spiral dive through cloud from around 8,000ft. The speed of descent became so rapid that the other pilot pulled out of the dive and he did not see P/O Gordon again. Gordon crashed and was killed instantly. First reports seemed to indicate that the aircraft disintegrated when nearing the ground. The Record Book continues ‘By this unfortunate accident … the Squadron has lost a very able and popular officer and his loss is mourned by all personnel’.
Aircraftsman W.A.T. Lambert d 13 January 1943 aged 21
William Lambert has a grave in St Johns Churchyard. He died whilst being trained to build and maintain engines for Wellington bombers at a site in Blackpool. The cause of death is listed as sinusitis and meningeal infection, which would be known as sepsis these days. It is a sad coincidence that his date of death is the same as Sergeant Gordon Campain, also buried in the churchyard.
He was a former pupil of Balsall Street School and was remembered in a news roundup by the school in The Coventry Standard newspaper of 3 July 1943, some time after his death.
Trooper Sydney Lawrance d 18 April 1943 aged 24
Trooper Sydney Lawrance is mentioned on a memorial that is in the Westwood Club, and that is shown here. The memorial was presented by Mr & Mrs L Lawrance in 1946. From the available records they were Sydney’s parents and lived on Westwood Heath Road not far from the club.
Tpr Lawrance was part of the 3rd Kings Own Hussars (KOH) and served in the North African campaign. The Curator of the Queens Royal Hussars Museum gave some background to the regiment’s activities during the time immediately before his death:
‘The 3rd KOH suffered horrendous casualties at El Alamein - 21 officers and 98 other ranks killed wounded or missing. The Regiment took time to recover and in April 1943 this process was still very much underway. There is no specific mention of the death of Tpr Lawrance on 18th April which makes me suspect that he either died of wounds received at Alamein or from a later tragedy which occurred on 4th February 1943. On this day, a party of men from the 3rd were involved in a train crash, 5 officers and 2 men were killed and a further 4 injured.’
El Alamein was the turning point of the North African campaign and the joint German and Italian armies were pushed back from Egypt to Tunisia along the north coast of Africa. It has been said that this was the turning point of World War II: Up to that point the German forces had not been defeated, after then they would not win another significant battle.
Following the battle, the regiment were sent to Lebanon to rest and recuperate. It is here that Tpr Lawrance is buried, in Sidon Military Cemetery, pictured above. As the Curator goes on to point out:
‘It is easy to forget that not all those who died did so in action – many fell victim to accidents or illness whilst on active service. Their loss is as poignant whether they fell in battle or their death is due to the fact that they were there serving their country at a hazardous time in a dangerous place.’
A picture of the funeral of those killed in the train crash. Picture courtesy Queens Royal Hussars Museum
Craftsman Thomas Mills d 14 April 1943 aged 29
Thomas Mills R.E.M.E. is buried in the churchyard of St Johns. His headstone notes that he ‘accidentally drowned at Newbury, Berkshire’, but so far no details have been unearthed about the circumstances of this death. It is also noteworthy that it is a normal headstone and not one of the standard Commonwealth War Grave Commission headstones.
The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers is the professional engineering branch of the army and provides engineering support and maintains and repairs the Army’s equipment. Established in October 1942 to meet the technological challenges and demands of the mechanised form of warfare that World War II came to be.
Two images of REME personnel at work repairing and recovering broken and damaged equipment.
Except where indicated, images are from Imperial War Museum archives or Ian Harrop.
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