Tag Archives: 1944

Sergeant Donald Henry Gilbert Browett

Donald Browett was born on September 26, 1923. He was the eldest son of Harry & Ivy Browett, he had two brothers and a sister, Richard, Brian & Margaret. In the 1922 electoral register, Harry Browett is listed as living at 67 Robinson Road.

Donald went to school in Mitcham. He was interested in airplanes, and he made models of them using balsa wood. His father made him work as a delivery man, a family business, and he delivered baskets of vegetables with a horse. When he turned 18, he joined the RAF.

He was a Sergeant (Air Bomber) with 50 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, Service Number 1318489.

He died 9th June 1944 as part of crew of Lancaster bomber, LL841 VNO, which crashed in Betton, France. Buried in Bayux Cemetery, France.

Sources:
Commonwealth War Grave Commission casualty record
Memorial Service 8th May 2013 website (in French)

Private Henry James Charles Warner

Born 26th August 1910.

In the 1911 Census, he was living with his parents Harry, aged 23, a clerk in the Army and Navy Stores in Westminster, London, and Alice, also 23, a sewer in a silk printing works, presumably the nearby Merton Abbey works. They lived in Littler’s Cottages, at the corner of Phipps Bridge Road (the part now called Liberty Avenue) and Church Road.

In the 1925 street directory, Harry Warner was living at 10 Shore Street, off of Phipps Bridge Road.

On 30th June 1934, when he was living at 10 Shore Street with his parents, he married Lilian Violet Ward of 75 Church Road, at the Mitcham parish church in Church Road. They were both 23 years old.

Marriage Banns

In the 1939 Register he was living at 75 Church Road, Mitcham, with his wife Lilian Violet. He was listed as a central heating fitter’s labourer.

He was originally in the Royal Artillery and was then transferred to the Somerset Light Infantry, 7th Battalion, service number 1741114.

Died 1st October 1944, when his battalion was part of the 214th Infantry Brigade in Operation Market Garden. He was killed by a mortar.

Sources:

Banns – Surrey History Centre; Woking, Surrey, England; Reference Number: 3477/4
Commonwealth War Grave Commission casualty details
Wikipedia – Operation Market Garden Order of Battle