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20th August 1944On this day:
If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
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Remembering those who died this day.
- Bickmore Frederick William Alfred. Flt.Sgt. (d.20th Aug 1944)
- Conlon Frank. Pte. (d.20th Aug 1944)
- Gardiner James William. L/Bmdr. (d.20th Aug 1944)
- Gardiner James William. L/Bmbdr. (d.20th August 1944)
- Green Thomas Roderick. Pte. (d.20th August 1944)
- Matthews Edward. Pte. (d.20th August 1944)
- Powell Harry. L/Bmdr, (d.20th Aug 1944)
- Wheeler Thomas John. Pte. (d.20th Aug 1944)
The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please
Add a Name to this List
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Want to know more about the 20th of August 1944? There are:27 items tagged 20th of August 1944 available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Stories from 20th August 1944
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Pte. Frank Conlon. British Army, 1st Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment. (d.20th Aug 1944) I am trying to find information regarding my father Private Frank Conlon who served with the 1st Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment and who died in Normandy in August 1944. He is buried in Bayeux Cemetery. I was 3 years old when he died and have only the information my mother told me. My father and mother were both from Belfast, Northern Ireland but met and married in Birmingham. I have tried on two occasions to obtain my father's Army Personnel records but have been told that they cannot be found. He died on the 20th August 1944 but, according to my mother, he was in hospital for a while before his death. I would dearly love some information on him or advice on any other source I can contact to assist me. I want to keep the memory of my father alive for future descendants.
Marie Dobbin
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L/Bmdr. James William Gardiner. British Army, 28 Field Regiment Royal Artillery. (d.20th Aug 1944) I have only just found my great uncle James Gardiner and discovered his war grave site. Upon starting this research I was saddened to find out that my great uncle died in stalag 344 {stalag v111b}. It has since transpired that some time in 1942 he was reported missing and later turned up on casualty lists as a pow in PG 53. I am still investigating and awaiting war office records to fully explain how or why James ended up in such circumstances. I do not know any details of his service capture or cause of death at present. If any one has any knowledge of the event that occurred on 20th August 1944 or of how 28th Field regiment came to be captured, I would be eternally grateful.
I have recently traced the brief details of imprisonment in both PG53 in Italy and Stalag VIIIb of L/bdr James William Gardiner. James was killed by a US air raid on 20th August 1944. I am hoping that someone somewhere knew and remembered my great uncle and maybe there is a picture of him, I have no idea of what he looked like.
Editor's Note: In May 2009 a list of British POW's names was found in a bottle partly buried in the ground near Monowitz camp by Dominik Synowiec. It is thought that the POWs on the list were probably working in the IG Farben rubber factory part of the camp. An historian at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum believes that the list is authentic and he is positive that one of the names on that list -`Gardiner' - is James William Gardiner, who was killed in a US bombing raid on the camp. The following article appeared in a german newspaper in 2009:
"A list of 17 names believed to refer to World War II British prisoners of war held by Nazi Germany near its infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp has surfaced in Poland, an Auschwitz museum historian said Tuesday. The list of names on the left-hand margin of the card reads as follows, three of them illegible: "Osborne, Lawrence, Gardiner, Lamb, Symes, Saunders, Dunne, Dunn, Hutton, Holmes, ..., ..., Clark, Manson, ..., Auty, Steinger." "I was looking for something else entirely," Synowiec told AFP Tuesday. He says he discovered the list of names by chance under debris inside a WWII-era bunker located on the site of the Nazi German Monowitz prisoner of war (POW) camp holding primarily British citizens. The POW camp in question was located next to the Monowitz slave labour camp, known as Auschwitz III, a branch of the main Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp holding labourers working at the nearby Nazi-run IG Farben rubber factory. Historian Setkiewicz was able to determine the fate of a man bearing the name Gardiner, believed to be James William Gardiner of Britain's Royal Artillery, who died in a US bombing raid and is buried in Krakow's Rakowicki cemetery. A separate list of seven Auschwitz prisoners surfaced last week after workers found it packed inside a bottle fixed in the mortar of a wall of a building in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim. Now part of a local high school, the building had served as a warehouse for the camp's Nazi guards during World War II. Three of the men on the bottle list are alive, including Frenchman Albert Veissid, now a sprightly 84-year-old contacted by AFP at his home in Allauch in southeastern France and two Poles. One of the men named on the list has passed away while the fate of the remaining three remains unclear. Nazi Germany systematically killed more than one million people, mostly European Jews, at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp located in the then Nazi-occupied southern Polish town of Oswiecim between 1940 and 1945. The site was part of German dictator Adolf Hitler's plan of genocide against European Jews, six million of whom perished at the hands of the Nazis during World War II." - AFP (news@thelocal.de) Belinda Thorne
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L/Bmdr, Harry Powell. British Army, 69th Field Regiment Royal Artillery. (d.20th Aug 1944) I had a great uncle who was killed on 20th August 1944 called Harry Powell. I believe he died in or around Conteville in Normandy. I have visited his grave at Ranville.Mark Powell
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L/Bmbdr. James William Gardiner. British Army, 28th Field Regiment Royal Artillery. (d.20th August 1944) Captured during the offensive action at the Gazala line, it appears that James Gardiner was taken prisoner and transported to PG53 before being taken to Lamsdorf Stalag 344 in Poland by the Nazis. Sadly, during an American air raid on the I G Farben factory, my great uncle lost his life. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to obtain any pictures/photos of James.
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Pte. Thomas John Wheeler. British Army, 6th Btn. Durham Light Infantry. (d.20th Aug 1944) Tommy Wheeler signed up, aged 17, to fight with the Durham Light Infantry in 1942. After training, he joined the 6th Btn, part of the 151st Infantry Brigade, 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division who were preparing to take part in the Normandy landings. He landed at Gold Beach with the 8th and 9th battalions DLI at around 11.00 on 6th June 1944, D-Day. He died on the 20th August during the Battle for Normandy. He is buried at Bayeux.Peter Hale
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Flt.Sgt. Frederick William Alfred Bickmore. Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 265 Squadron. (d.20th Aug 1944) Flight Sergeant Frederick Bickmore was a crew member of the Catalina that attacked U-862 in the Mozambique Channel on 20th August 1944. The aircraft was shot down during the attack and crashed into the sea killing all aboard.
At the time Flight Sergeant Bickmore was 23 years old. His mother Mrs Rose Bickmore was told that he was missing presumed dead and refused to accept his service medals. In later life when asked why she said "I always felt he would come home one day and claim them himself".
At the age of 90 she finally received his medals when her grandaughter arranged for them to be sent. Graham Knight
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Pte. Edward Matthews. British Army, Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment. (d.20th August 1944) My great uncle, Edward Matthews, was captured at Dunkirk and spent the next 4 years in different POW camps in Germany and Poland. He died as a result of an air raid at Auschwitz III Monowitz in August 1944. He does not have a marked grave, but maybe one of five unidentified Allied casualties buried in a common grave in the CWG cemetery in Krakow, Poland
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