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CPO. Henry Chesney . Royal Navy HMS Saker Fleet Air Arm from Gillingham, Kent Harry Chesney joined the Royal Navy as a shipwright apprentice in 1914. Around 1939 now a CPO he transferred to the Fleet Air Arm. In 1943 he sailed to the USA on an almost empty Queen Mary and did not know until he arrived that Winston Churchill had been aboard travelling for a meeting with Roosevelt.
Harry spent the next two years at Roosevelt Field, New York and travelled home on an almost empty Queen Elizabeth. He was demobbed in 1946 but carried on as a civilian writer at a base near Abingdon. When he finally returned home to Gillingham he returned "to his tools" as a shipwright in RN Dockyard Chatham where he worked on submarine conversions.
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Capt. John Stanley I'anson Chesshire MC.. British Army Royal Army Medical Corps from Worcestershire John Chesshire died aged 96 on the 27th of November 2011. His obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph on the 3rd of January 2012 as follows:
In March 1944 Chesshire, a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), was serving as Medical Officer to 1st Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment (1 SSR), part of 77th Indian Infantry Brigade. In the middle of the month the Brigade blocked the railway at Henu, northern Burma. Faced with this threat to their supply lines, the Japanese attacked and, on March 17, the regimental aid post manned by Chesshire and a colleague, Captain Thorne, was overrun.
The two officers continued to operate and tend the wounded until a counter-attack repelled the enemy. Days of heavy shelling followed, but Chesshire carried on with his work even though it meant standing in the open while others were able to take shelter. During the first two weeks of the month-long battle, he was senior MO to the Brigade. On at least five occasions shells landed close to his operating theatre.
The citation for his MC estimated that 500 men had passed through his hands during the campaign. It paid tribute to his tireless energy under dreadful conditions, which had saved many lives and provided a great boost to morale.
John Stanley I’Anson Chesshire, the son of a clergyman, was born on September 8 1915 at the rectory at Stourport-on-Severn. After leaving Marlborough he wanted to become a missionary, a vocation that his father had followed as a young man. He decided, however, to become a doctor, reasoning that he would find other ways to satisfy his initial ambition.
He went up to Birmingham University to read Medicine and was then apprenticed to the city’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. As a junior registrar he was always short of money and supplemented his income by assisting the brain surgeon – who could only use the theatres at night because of the length of time that most of his operations took.
When war was declared Chesshire was exempted from call-up but, after pestering the authorities, joined the RAMC and accompanied 1 SSR to India and then Burma. After the conflict he started practising as a GP, based at Knighton, Radnorshire; in the early 1950s, however, he resigned from the National Health Service and transferred to the Colonial Service so that he could take his surgical skills to Malaya. After eight years there during the Emergency, he spent a year in Sumatra as Esso’s chief medical officer.
Chesshire subsequently returned to Knighton and became a hill-farmer, rearing Welsh ewes and Hereford cattle. During the lambing season he converted a large wooden crate into a shepherd’s hut, had it taken to the top of Stowe Hill and camped with just a primus stove for warmth.
When the missionary in him emerged once more, he set off for Borneo. On one occasion, on a trip into the jungle to attend someone who was ill, he experienced severe stomach pains. A self-diagnosis confirmed his fears. He had acute appendicitis and he was the only medical practitioner for many miles. He did, however, have a medical orderly with him whom he instructed to set up a primitive operating table with a mirror over it. Chesshire then gave himself a large dose of local anaesthetic and, with the aid of the mirror, proceeded to guide the orderly through an operation to remove the appendix.
He retired from farming in the late 1970s but continued to practise medicine and enjoyed fishing into old age. An accomplished fly fisherman, when his legs were not strong enough to support him, he would tie himself to a tree to avoid falling into the water. Geology was another absorbing interest and he achieved some striking results using boot polish to make paintings of rock formations. He married, in 1949, Marion Walker. She predeceased him and he is survived by their three sons and a daughter.
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Albert Chessman . Royal Navy H.M.S Southdown from Camden, London My father, Albert Chessman, did not talk about the war except to say his shipped sailed to Wilhelmshaven in Germany, where he climbed a building and took down a Nazi flag.
Further information about his time on the Southdown was found in "The Southdown Story" held by the Royal Naval Museum.
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Able Sea. Arthur James Chester . Royal Navy HMS Reading from Chadderton, Lancashire (d.4th May 1944) Able Seaman Arthur Chester served with the Royal Navy during WW1 and was killed in action on the 4th May 1944 aged 20. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial in Plymouth.
Arthur was the son of John William and Violet May Chester of Chadderton, Lancashire.
At the time of Arthur's death HMS Reading was unarmed and used as a target ship for aircraft so the circumstances of his death are not clear.
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Tpr. Arthur Gerald Chester . British Army North Irish Horse Gerry Chester served with the Home Guard in his home town of Wallasey, before enlisting in September 1942. He trained with the 57th Training Regiment RTR at Warminster in Wiltshire and was posted to the North Irish Horse, serving with them in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.
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Pvt. Elmer "Buck" Chester BSV.. US Army Battery B 674 Parachute Field Artillery Company from Indio, California This story was one that my father, Chester Elmer told my brother and I.
While in New Guinea, he said that an Army Officer came and announced that he was looking for volunteers to go on a dangerous mission. A small unit of between 18 to 25 troops would be dropped behind enemy lines to destroy an enemy supply/ammunition depot. He added that their chances of making it back alive were slim. My father had also been trained as a Lineman and, this was also someone that was needed in this unit so, as fate would have it, my Dad and his best army buddy volunteered to join the unit.
The unit was made up of 23 brave men. He said that they were dropped in over a dense, dark jungle. They found each other and headed out to find the depot. After locating it, they waited for an opportune time to destroy as much of it as they could and still get away. Their opportunity came. They hit fast, destroying much of the depot supplies and then ran like hell. My father said that the only place for them to make a stand was a small, round-topped hill. They managed to scramble safely to the top of it and dug in as best as they could, with the amount of time they had to dig. They had a larger machine gun that they set-up (sorry, I don't know the kind it was) and they each had their own machine guns, which they began firing. He said that the enemy (Japanese) arrived in swarms. He thought that there may have been over 200 or more of them. They came rushing up the side of the hill, yelling and firing their weapons in a frenzied mass. One man, of the American Unit, was killed during the fight that day.
All Dad had to do was point the machine gun toward the enemy, no aiming necessary, pull the trigger and move the gun back and forth, back and forth. He watched the enemy fall in heaps, one on top of the other. Then another swarm would start up only to be slowed down by the bodies that they had to climb over, giving the U.S. Unit a second or two to reload.
When night came, my father and the others could hear the enemy creeping quietly up the hill to get their dead and wounded. He could hear the muffled voices of the enemy and the moans of the wounded. He could hear the creepy sounds of the bodies being dragged back down the hill. It was all too close; it was like a nightmare that he had no time to waste energy thinking about, because, he was busy reaching main command, via radio, with information of their immediate situation and location. The paratroopers were on that hill three full days, before reinforcements came. It was a very real miracle they made it back alive.
My father's memory of this event was very vivid and long lasting. He was very proud of his service to this country. He made me promise that when he passed away he would have a military funeral. Dad passed away February 11,2010 at San Jose, California at the age of 91. The promise was kept to him.
Written in Honor of my Father, Elmer Chester: Who Served in Battery B; 674th. Parachute Field Artillery Company. He served in New Guinea, S. Philippines; Luzon, Leyte, Okinawa, and Japan as stated on his Military Record. He joined the Army Apr. 1, 1942, at the age of 22. He was Honorable discharged November 24, 1945.
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Lt.Col. Francis George Leach "Gort" Chester DSO OBE.. British Army (d.18th Aug 1946) Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Chester was a British officer attached to Special Operations Australia. He led several covert operations in Borneo with SOA including Python, Agas I and Agas III. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Officer of the Order of the British Empire. For 20 years prior to the Japanese invasion, Chester was a rubber planter near Jesselton on the West Coast of North Borneo. His fluency in Malay, intimate knowledge of the country and many acquaintances in the Dayak and Chinese community provided vital intelligence and safe contacts in the region. Chester returned to North Borneo in October 1945 and resigned his commission in March 1946. He died at Jesselton now Kota Kinabalu on the 18th August 1946 of malaria.
He was 47 aged and is buried in the Kota Kinabalu (Anglican) Cemetery in Malaysia.
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Sqd.Ldr. Hurll Fontayne Chester . Royal Air Force 82 Squadron from Falmouth, Cornwall (d.2nd July 1940) Squadron Leader (Pilot) Hurll Chester was the son of Mr and Mrs Richard Chester of Falmouth, Cornwall.
He is buried in the Heerhugowaard (Veenhuizen) Churchyard, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.
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Arthur Harry Chesterman . British Army Royal Army Ordnance Corps Arthur Chesterman went to France with the BEF in 1939. Little is know but he was evacuated by small boat from Dunkirk.
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Volunteer Ng Tak Cheung . British Army Aid Group (d.31st October 1944) Volunteer Cheung was cremated at the Diamond Hill Cemetery in China. There is also a special memorial headstone to him in Stanley Military Cemetery.
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Sgt. Victor Chevalier DFM. Royal Air Force 101 Squadron I am trying to contact relatives of the following crew members of 101 Squadron:
Sergeant Victor Ainsley Chevalier, DFM (RAFVR 954100) Navigator
Sgt. J M Gill (W/OP)
F/O G A Gilboy (F/Engineer)
F/Sgt John Noel Castle, DFM (RAFVR 13943990) A/Gunner
Sgt G. Machin (A/Gunner)
Sgt. W. Boardman (A/Gunner)
P/O J. S. Scott (Special Operator)
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Cne Raymond Chevalier. . Free French Airforce 347 Squadron (d.15th Mar 1945) Raymond Chevalier was a Navigator with 347 Tunisie Sdq Free French he was killed on 15th of Mar 1945 when his aircraft crashed near Scawton.
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L/Cpl. Ronald Chew . British Army 44th Btn Royal Tank Regiment from Blackburn, Lancashire
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Thomas Graham Chew . United States Marine Corps from Swathmore, PA Thomas Chew joined the Marines in 1944 and served in the Philipines and on Guam in the Northern Mariana Islands.
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Sgt Norman Alfred Pinxton Chew. . RAF 12Sqd. (d.28th Aug 1943) Rear Gnr. Norman Chew was killed on 28th Aug 1943 in Lancaster DV187 PH-A of 12sqd
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R Cheyne . British Army R Cheyne served with the British Army. I have his unissued dogtags, made in preparation for deployment to the Far East and would love to get them home to his family. I am happy to cover all costs. If you are a family member or can put me in touch with them please get in touch. Update: Unfortunately The Wartime Memories Project has lost touch with Dan, his website, facebook page and email have all ceased to function. But if you can add any details about the person listed, please use the add to record link below.
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Henry J. Chiarini . US Army from Boston, MA My father, Hank Chiarini many times spoke of the food provided to Prisoners Of War at Stalag 221, "it was water with rotten vegetables floating in it". Sometimes he would critique my mother's home-cooked meals by saying, "the food was better at Stalag 221." I never forgot that. My dad was captured when the Jeep he was driving overturned in rain and fog, he became disoriented and the Germans caught him. He managed to escape captivity twice, once hiding in an apple tree in an orchard for 3 days, surviving on apples. Another incident was during a POW train transport, my father and several other POWs jumped from the moving train.
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Flt.Sgt. Alcide Joseph Chiasson . Royal Canadian Air Force 408 Squadron Alcide Chaisson was my brother. He served with No.408 Goose Squadron based
at Linton-on-Ouse in 1944. He wrote this a short memento in
1988 for the reunion:
"I was the tail gunner on a Halifax Bomber in 408 Goose Squadron, 6th Canadian Bomber Group, Bomber Command. Out home base was Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire, England.
On 24th of December 1944 we were assigned to a bombing mission on a German Air Base at Dusseldorf. Approximatley 250 aircraft were deployed on this raid, only two planes failed to return, ours was one of them. This, incidentally was our first daylight raid, we always flew at night. While over the target we were coned by Germany Ack Ack Fire resulting in several direct hits, setting the plane on fire. Out of a crew of seven, the pilot Bill Dunwoodie and myself were the only two who survived by parachuting out of that airborne inferno."
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Jmdr. Prakash Singh Chib VC.. British Indian Army 4th Btn. 13th Frontier Force Rifles from India (d.17th Feb 1945) Prakash Singh Chib was 31 years old, and a Jemadar in the 4 /13th Frontier Force Rifles, when he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
"On 16th/17th February 1945 at Kanlan Ywathit, Burma, Jemadar Prakash Singh Chib was commanding a platoon which took the main weight of fierce enemy attacks. He was wounded in both ankles and relieved of his command, but when his second-in-command was also wounded, he crawled back and took command of his unit again, directing operations and encouraging his men. He was wounded in both legs a second time but he continued to direct the defense, dragging himself from place to place by his hands. When wounded a third time and final time, he lay shouting the Dogra war-cry as he died, inspiring his company that finally drove off the enemy."
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Tel. Robert Henry Chick . Royal Navy HMS Stonecrop from Cardiff Robert Chick seems to have spent almost his entire war (December 1940 to until discharged February 1946) on the Corvette HMS Stonecrop.
Only other ships mentioned in service record are:
Royal Arthur, Drake, Eaglet, Mercury, Mayina and Lanka which are all shore bases.
He started as a cadet in Merchant Navy 16/02/39 on SS Harberton.
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Mjr. J. G. Chicken . Home Guard D Coy. Workington Btn.
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Cpl. Charles Chidwick . British Army
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Cpl. Selemani Chikombene . East African Army Service Corps (d.11th October 1943) Corporal Chikombene was buried in the Lubudi African Cemetery in the Congo, Grave 1.
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Pte. John Mirazi Chilala . British Army East African Army Service Corps (d.13th October 1943) Private Chilala was buried in the Lubudi African Cemetery in the Congo, Grave 5.
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Pte. John Mirazi Chilala . East African Army Service Corps (d.13th October 1943) Private Chilala was buried in the Lubudi African Cemetery in the Congo, Grave 5.
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Phyllis Mildred "Philly, Milly or Chilly" Chilcott . Womens Land Army from Woolwich My mother's early atempts to join the Land Army were thwarted, they would'nt take her! she was too young!! But after eventually joining up towards the end of the War and spending many happy times based near Brent Pelham it has to this day shaped and defined her life. With a life long love of nature and cows! On the occasion of her 80th Birthday we had a family gathering at the Pub in the village where she was based, for lunch. During those 'happy times'(aside from the sadness, horror,s and futility of war) she spent many an evening in this pub playing the piano and having her drinks lined up (a small line, it was the war after all!), and having a life long love of Whiskey! (in a responsible moderate drinking sort of way!) She still keeps in contact with a fellow 'girl' Vera, who now lives near Kings Lynn. Having finally been recognised for their efforts by the powers that be, in the form of a Service Medal and after having marched past the Whitehall Cenotaph and now more recently the memorial to all those 'women who served', and with probably being one of the youngest remaining Land girls thankfully surviving, she and I could'nt be more proud of her doing her bit.
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Glen Child . Royal Air Force 460 Sqd. Glen Child was a flight engineer with 460 Squadron
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Cpl. William Clarence Childers . USAAF 18th Fighter Group My Dad William Childers was one of the Greatest Generation, that has and will be the only in my book. He served in the Asiatic-Pacific theater and Philippine liberation.
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Pte Albert George Childs . British Army 2nd Battalion from Newport Pagnall My grandfather, Albert Childs, served in Greece, Africa and Italy during WW2. We have been told that he represented his battalion in the High Jump.
He was awarded the Italy Star, Africa Star, War Medal 1939-1945
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