From the Mitcham News & Mercury, 1st September 1944, page 1.
BOMBARDIER HAWKINS WON’T CARE IF IT RAINS
News comes this week of Bombardier I.C.V. Hawkins, son of Mr and Mrs Hawkins, Preshaw-crescent, Lower Green West Mitcham, who for four years has been serving with the RA in the Middle East.
Bdr. Hawkins joined the Territorials in 1936, and was mobilized the day war broke out. Since then he has seen many new parts of the world, has fought in the Eritrean campaign, then in the Western Desert, and was in the Siege of Tobruk.
Later he was in Iraq, Persia, the Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Bdr. Hawkins thinks he has seen quite enough of the world.
His one ambition is to get home. ”Four years overseas in the Army is four years too much,” he remarked to a Military Observer, ”particularly in an area like the Middle East. I should be glad to get home and stay home – even if it does rain all summer.”
From the Royal Artillery Attestations 1883-1942
Ivor Collin Victor HAWKINS
Service Number : 862125
Attestation year : 1936
From the British Army Casualty Lists 1939-1945
Gunner I C V Hawkins
144 Fd.Regt.
Wounded Eritrea 3rd February 1941
Mitcham History Notes 