Forgotten no longer:
The missing men from
the
Dulwich Hamlet Roll of Honour
Published by kind permission of Steve Hunnisett
In November 2017, when we
published “For Freedom” which told
the stories of the four men who appear on the Dulwich Hamlet Second World War
Roll of Honour, it was known that there would possibly be some gaps in the
players’ wartime biographies. This certainly proved to be the case with Eric
Pierce, who was killed right at the start of his senior playing career. This
was understandable for many reasons, not the least of which was the sporadic production
of wartime football programmes and the patchy coverage afforded to the game by
the local press, which invariably had bigger stories to chase than amateur
sport.
However, we could only go by the
information available to us and there was no reason to believe that the Roll of
Honour itself was incomplete. I was therefore genuinely surprised when information
came to light after publication of the book which suggested that a further two players
had been entirely omitted from the memorial plaque. Whilst Charles Ede had
admittedly left the club some considerable time before his death and had
perhaps been deliberately ignored for that reason, Alan Adams was still very
much a current playing member of Dulwich Hamlet FC when he was killed on active
service, a fact that had been reported by the club at the time in an official
match programme. Unless the Football Committee of the time was responding to a
specific request from Alan’s family not to include him for some now unknown
reason – which admittedly would seem unlikely – it does seem that at least one
of these two men was overlooked when the club’s war memorial was rededicated
following the end of the Second World War.
Following some diligent and
persistent initial digging by Ian Colley, who first alerted me to this
potential oversight, I have been able to glean some further information and now
hope to belatedly pay tribute to these two hitherto forgotten men.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Photographic Credits:
Charles Ede – Richard Coulthard,
Kingstonian FC
Dely Ibrahim War Cemetery –
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Alan Adams or “Boy” – Luuk Buist
RA Adams grave at Oosterbeek –
www.warcemeteries.nl
Archbishop Tenison’s School Roll of
Honour – Laurence Weeks, Bursar, Archbishop Tenison’s School
Published Sources:
Dulwich Hamlet FC – programmes for
various matches
Glider Pilots at Arnhem – Mike Peters
& Luuk Buist, Pen & Sword – 2014
Unpublished Sources:
Records of Service for CE Ede &
RA Adams – Army Personnel Centre Historical Disclosures
Airborne Operations, NW Europe,
Arnhem: 2 Wing Glider Pilot Regiment, Army Air Corps –
Enquiries into Missing Personnel –
National Archives WO361/505 & 636
Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell,
Civil Defence Incident Log – London Borough of Southwark Archives
RAF Down Ampney, Operations Record
Book – National Archives AIR 28/211
War Diary – 45 Light Anti-Aircraft
Regiment, Royal Artillery – National Archives WO175/425
War Diary – 2 Wing Glider Pilot
Regiment, Army Air Corps – National Archives WO171/1230 & 1235
Charles Edward Ede
Date
of Death: 20 November 1942. Age: 31
Rank
& Unit: Bombardier, 45 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment,
Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
Buried:
Dely Ibrahim War Cemetery, Algeria.
Grave Reference: 3 E 8
Grave Reference: 3 E 8
Charles was a forward who played
on the right hand side of the pitch and joined the Hamlet as a junior, during
which time he also represented Surrey at junior level. He broke through to the
Reserve Team during the 1929/30 Season and scored four times in twelve
appearances during that campaign.
Ede’s goal scoring record
suggests that he was a decent enough player in his own right but as far as his
Dulwich Hamlet career was concerned, he had the misfortune to play at the same
time and in the same position as the legendary Edgar Kail, so opportunities for
First Team football were somewhat restricted and largely limited to appearing
whenever the great man was injured or absent due to representative duties
elsewhere.
During the 1930/31 Season,
Charles scored nineteen goals in sixteen appearances for the Reserves and also
appeared for the First Team in a 2-2 draw at Tufnell Park, in which he scored
both of the Hamlet goals. His next recorded First Team appearance is in the
programme line-up for a Boxing Day friendly in the 1931/32 Season versus
Swindon Corinthian, which Dulwich won 5-0, although we do not currently know
whether Charles featured on the scoresheet. Another First Team opportunity for
him came towards the end of the same season, on 23 April 1932 in a home
Isthmian League game against Oxford City, which came exactly one week after the
Hamlet had lifted the FA Amateur Cup by defeating the famous Crosby based club Marine
7-1 in the Final at Upton Park. The programme for the Oxford match promised supporters
that “The Cup will be taken around the
ground today at half time” but whilst Edgar Kail was listed in the printed
team line-up, in the event he did not play. The Amateur Cup Final had been
played on a heavy, muddy pitch on which perhaps he had picked up a minor injury
that was felt not to be worth risking in an end of season match. Whatever the
reasons for Kail’s absence, Charles duly understudied for him in a game which
the visitors comfortably won 3-0 and which was clearly a case of “After the Lord Mayor’s Show...” as far
as the home side were concerned. Incidentally, Edgar Kail returned for the following
match, a 6-1 thrashing of Clapton!
Charles made a further appearance
for the First Team during the following season on 7 January 1933 in a London
Senior Cup tie against London Caledonians when it was reported in the match
programme:-
“Owing to the amateur international trial at Wolverhampton, we are
compelled to make changes…… CE Ede our regular Reserve inside right will play
for E Kail.”
Incidentally, some three months
earlier, Ede had played outside right for the reserves in a 10-1 victory over
the same opposition. In total, Charles made eleven First Team appearances
during the 1932/33 Season in which he scored seven goals, as well as scoring a
further seventeen times for the Reserves.
No doubt frustrated by these
tantalising glimpses of First Team football, during which he never let the club
down, Charles decided during the 1933/34 Season that his footballing future lay
elsewhere, as the programme for the Amateur Cup tie against Walthamstow Avenue
dated 13 January 1934, informed us that he had been transferred to Kingstonian
and quoted from a letter that he had written to the Hon. Secretary:
“Although I
hate leaving the Hamlet, I do not wish to go back to Reserve Team football.”
The programme notes then went on
to state:
“In the circumstances it was decided not to object to the transfer. However,
we desire to express our appreciation of the services of Chas. Ede to Dulwich
Hamlet Football Club. It is unfortunate that at the moment, we could not find
him a regular place in the First Team.
We wish him every success with his new club.”
Charles went on to make 43
appearances for the Ks and scored 20 goals for them during his time there but
left at the end of the 1934/35 Season, at which point he seems to disappear
from the footballing map.
Charles married Ellen Elizabeth Copeland on 29 August
1936 at St Anselm Catholic Church, Balham High Road and the couple settled down
to live at 17 Netherfield Road, Upper Tooting, where they were still living at
the time of the declaration of war three years later. In the 1939 Register, an
emergency census taken shortly after the outbreak of war, Charles described himself
as a Periodicals Editor with the entry containing an enigmatic note “Food and Teaplate” alongside the job
description. If this refers to the name of a magazine, we have so far not been
able to establish the existence of any such periodical of this title, although
being a full-time journalist and editor could possibly be the reason why his
footballing career was curtailed.
Following the declaration of war
on 3 September 1939, Charles had to wait over a year for his call-up but was
duly enlisted into the Army as a Gunner in the Royal Artillery on 12 December
1940 and undertook his basic training with 226 Light Anti-Aircraft Training
Regiment at Rhosneigr, Anglesey. On completion of his training on 29 July 1941,
he was promoted to Lance Bombardier and continued to serve with the same
Training Regiment as a Clerk. It would appear that he continued to play
football during this time as his Army service record tells us that on 16 August
1941, during an Inter-Battery match of NCOs versus Gunners, Charles suffered a
dislocated left elbow which put him out of action for about a week. The medical
report on his injuries stated that “Recovery
of all movements may be slow but the injury is not likely to interfere with
future efficiency as a soldier.”
Charles then attended a course of
instruction as a Muster Clerk and duly qualified on 15 April 1942, at which
point he was promoted to Bombardier and transferred to Headquarters, 45 Light
Anti-Aircraft Regiment. This regiment was equipped with 40mm Bofors guns for low-level
anti-aircraft defence and formed part of the anti-aircraft defence for the
important industrial and railway town of Crewe.
However, the unit was earmarked
to be deployed overseas and on 1 November 1942, sailed from the Clyde on a
vessel of Convoy KMF2 bound for Algiers as part of Operation Torch, the joint
Anglo-American invasion of French Morocco and Algeria. This operation was
designed to squeeze the Vichy French and Axis forces out of North Africa
concurrent with the advance of General Montgomery’s Eighth Army from the east
following their victory over Rommel’s Afrika Korps at El Alamein.
The convoy arrived off Algiers on
12 November, four days after the initial invasion and whilst it had been the original
intention to land part of the regiment at Djidjelli (now called Jijel), about 320
kilometres east of Algiers, poor weather and sea conditions precluded this and
the entire regiment instead disembarked at Bougie (now called Béjaïa).
Algiers itself had quickly fallen to the Allies – the senior Vichy French
officer located there had surrendered the city on the same evening as the
initial landings – but despite this collapse of their erstwhile collaborators,
Hitler ordered German forces to continue to resist the invaders.
By 20 November 1942, 45 Light AA
Regiment had reached Djidjelli and their twelve 40mm guns were deployed, along
with eight heavier 3.7” guns of 72 Heavy AA Regiment to provide anti-aircraft
defence for the Allied aerodrome which had been established there, with
Regimental Headquarters located nearby. The Regiment’s War Diary records that
at 20:05 a single Ju88 aircraft approached from between 4-5,000 feet in a low
level dive bombing attack. The bombs missed the airfield but caused considerable
damage to adjacent buildings, one of which housed Regimental HQ. Charles was
initially posted as missing but later the same evening, his body was found
beneath the rubble of the building. An officer from the US Army and a further four
American servicemen were killed in the town during the same air raid.
Charles’s wife Ellen received the
heart breaking telegram informing her of her husband’s death on 9 December 1942
and was subsequently awarded a War Widow’s pension of 19 Shillings per week
effective from 22 March 1943. Charles is buried at Dely Ibrahim War Cemetery
along with 493 other British and Commonwealth Servicemen killed during the
Second World War, as well as eleven of other nationalities.
Despite the fact that he had left
the Hamlet some eight years before his death, it is to be hoped that we can eventually
add his name to the Roll of Honour in order that we can continue to remember
his service both to Dulwich Hamlet and to his country.
Charles Ede’s resting place, Dely
Ibrahim War Cemetery in Algeria
Richard Alexander Alan*Adams
(*or Allen)
(*or Allen)
Date
of Death: 18 September 1944. Age: 19
Rank
& Unit: Serjeant, E Squadron, No. 2 Wing,
Glider Pilot Regiment, Army Air Corps.
Glider Pilot Regiment, Army Air Corps.
Buried:
Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, Netherlands.
Grave Reference: 6 D 12
Grave Reference: 6 D 12
Our second forgotten man was a
local boy born in Camberwell who was to become by far the youngest of our
Second World War casualties. Alan Adams was
a first generation Londoner, as his parents Richard James and Pyarea Victoria Adams
(nee Rhind) had both originally hailed from West Derby on Merseyside. Alan had
an elder sister, Patricia, who was born on 13 August 1923 at the former family
home at 18 Oban Road in the Walton district of Liverpool but sometime after
this event, the family had moved to London and were established at 22 Bushey
Hill Road, Camberwell by the time of Alan’s birth on 22 May 1925. The reason
for the move south is unknown but could possibly be connected with Richard’s
job as an accountant with a steamship company or was perhaps because of a general
lack of work on Merseyside at that time.
By the time of the 1939 Register
being taken shortly after the outbreak of war, the family had moved to 58
Sunray Avenue in Herne Hill but the then 14 year old Alan does not appear in
the census. He had become a pupil of Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School at
Kennington in 1936 and had been evacuated out of London with his school to the
relative safety of Reading. Alan served with the school’s Officer Cadet Corps but
later transferred to their Air Training Corps when this was established in 1940
and so appears to have taken a keen interest in the military from a young age,
as well as perhaps having an eye on a future career as a flyer. Alan was also
an accomplished sportsman who represented his school at athletics, cricket and
football – the latter two at First Eleven level.
Alan left school in mid-1941 and
returned to live at the family home in Herne Hill, from whence he took up a job
as a Junior Insurance Clerk for the Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company. Alan’s
military life continued after leaving school, as he served in his local Home
Guard Unit, the 18th County of London Battalion which was based at Lordship
Lane, from 1942 pending his enlistment into the Army proper.
It was whilst serving with the
Home Guard that the then 17 year old made his senior debut for the Hamlet on
Saturday 7 November 1942 at Champion Hill in a 4-4 draw against the London Fire
Force. Ironically, despite the match being played at Dulwich, this was in fact
an away fixture for the Hamlet as the Fire Force also used the ground for their
home matches – such oddities were not entirely uncommon in wartime football.
Alan didn’t feature on the original team sheet but the following week’s
programme explained that he had been a late call-up due to the regular left
back Roger Bishop being detained at work and unable to reach Champion Hill in
time for kick-off. Dulwich fielded a youthful team and in addition to Alan,
there was another debutant on display, a young centre forward by the name of
Charles Birdseye, himself a late replacement for Stan Smith who was suffering
with influenza. Birdseye made an instant impression by scoring one of the goals
during the Hamlet’s spirited fightback from 1-2 down at half time. Arthur
Phebey with two and Gillespie were the other scorers in a match which the
following week’s programme described as
“…reminiscent of the peace time days when it was a bye-word that Dulwich Hamlet
always played their hardest when up against it.” This same programme, which
was for a match against the RAF on 14 November 1942, went on to say that “….the youngsters mentioned will be heard of
again.” so we can only assume that Alan performed well on his senior debut.
Alan was attested into the Army
and duly swore allegiance to the Crown on 19 March 1943 but his actual enlistment
date did not come until the following 6 May. It would appear that previous
experience with the school Air Training Corps had hardened Alan’s ambition to
become an airman, as after completing his basic training with the Gordon
Highlanders, he transferred to the Army Air Corps on 14 January 1944 having
volunteered to train as a Pilot with the Glider Pilot Regiment. At this point,
Alan was promoted to the rank of Corporal, with a further promotion to Serjeant
following on 15 June 1944. He was awarded
his Army Flying Badge to signify qualification as a glider pilot on 27 July
1944 and was then posted to E Squadron, No. 2 Wing, Army Air Corps, where he
would fly the Airspeed Horsa glider. These large wooden aircraft could either
carry 30 fully equipped soldiers, or a freight load of three tons on airborne
operations.
The role of a glider pilot was an
extremely hazardous one, for not only were they expected to fly the heavily
laden gliders into their landing zones through invariably hostile skies but upon
landing, they were then expected to fight as infantrymen alongside the airborne
troops they had just transported, until such time as they could be evacuated
out of the landing zone back to friendly territory. The photograph that
illustrates this article shows a young pilot wearing civilian clothes rather
than Army uniform – this type of photograph was taken in case a false identity
was required to smuggle the glider pilots from behind enemy lines following
airborne operations and further demonstrates the precarious nature of the
glider pilot’s life. Whilst we are not absolutely certain that the photograph (which
was kindly supplied by Dutch military historian Luuk Buist) definitely depicts
Alan, we see a hitherto unidentified pilot of E Squadron who is simply
described as “Boy”. Given Alan’s
extreme youth, coupled with his position as the youngest pilot in his squadron,
it must be a fair assumption that this is him, especially as the physical
description given on his Army service record “fair complexion, grey eyes and brown hair” matches that of the
person in the photograph.
In September 1944, Alan’s
Squadron was required to take part in Operation Market Garden, Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery’s bold plan to seize the bridges over the River Rhine and
thrust directly into Germany. Had everything gone according to plan, the war
could perhaps have been considerably shortened but for a variety of reasons too
complex to go into in an article of this nature – a mixture of over-optimistic
planning, poor weather, missed opportunities and intelligence failures – the
operation went down in history as one of the “glorious failures” of the war which is still hotly debated amongst
military historians to this day.
On 18 September 1944, as part of
the Second Wave of landings, the Horsa glider piloted by Alan, which was
chalked “837” left from RAF Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, towed by a Douglas Dakota
transport aircraft of 271 Squadron RAF. Alan’s glider carried a heavy load of a
Jeep plus two trailers full of ammunition as well as two passengers from
Headquarters, 1 Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery. The Second Pilot on
board was Serjeant Richard Ennis from Wallasey on Merseyside who thus had
something in common with Alan, whose parents were both originally from that
part of England.
The flight initially went
according to plan but shortly before 20:00 when approaching the Landing Zone at
Wolfheze, Alan’s glider was taken under fire by German anti-aircraft guns and a
flak shell burst close to the glider’s starboard wing. Alan was hit by shrapnel
and slumped in his seat over the controls, at which point, the Second Pilot Serjeant
Ennis took over. Unfortunately, he could not recover full control in time and
as a result, the glider overshot the Landing Zone and ploughed into trees at
over 100 mph. Ennis was catapulted
through the Perspex windscreen whilst still strapped into his seat but
amazingly survived more or less unscathed, as did the two Army passengers in
the rear. Sadly, Alan was crushed by the load behind him which shifted forward
with the impact of the crash. At first, he was given a field burial in a garden
behind the Psychiatric Home at Wolfheze but on 24 August 1945, as part of the
general peacetime consolidation of British and Allied war graves in the area, he
was re-interred at Oosterbeek War Cemetery, which contains the graves of 1,691
British and Commonwealth servicemen as well as a further 79 Polish and three
Dutch servicemen.
Alan’s death was reported in the
match programme for the fixture against Pinner on 2 December 1944, which went
on to describe him as “a promising left
back for the Reserves, who had one or two games for the senior side before
joining the Forces.” The same article
also hints at a wider family connection with the club as it mentions that “his father used to referee some of our
games on the top pitch.” The report goes on to mention that Alan’s father
had “some time ago suffered another great
bereavement when his wife was killed by enemy action.”
Whilst the death of Mrs Pyarea
Adams was undoubtedly a great tragedy for the family, the circumstances of her
death as described in the Hamlet programme do not stand up to scrutiny. The
1939 Register recorded that Alan’s parents both served as Air Raid Wardens
within the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, which could lend credence to the
“enemy action” theory but inspection
of Pyarea’s Death Certificate reveals that she died at the age of 43 on 19
February 1944 from “Cardiac Asthma”
at home in Sunray Avenue. Although there was indeed an air raid on the day of
her death, the family home was not bombed and neither were any fatalities or
injuries recorded elsewhere in the immediate area. The mystery is further
compounded because she is not recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission as a Civilian War Death, which would have been the case had she been
killed as a direct result of an air raid. Whilst the stress of working as an
Air Raid Warden during the London Blitz would undoubtedly put a great strain on
a weak heart, it would appear that Pyarea did, in fact, die of natural causes.
There is also some confusion regarding
Alan’s Christian names; his Birth Certificate records him as Richard Alexander Adams, whilst his Army service
record and that of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission show him as Richard Allen Adams, although Archbishop
Tenison’s Grammar School’s obituary in December 1944 gives his name as Ronald Alan Adams. To compound matters
further, Dulwich Hamlet programmes and the “Tenisonian”
yearbooks refer to him simply as Alan
Adams. However, the details concerning
his Army records, parents, schooling and home address leave us in no doubt that
despite the various permutations of his name, these all refer to the same man
mentioned in the Dulwich Hamlet programmes, who should belatedly be
commemorated on our Roll of Honour.
The grave of Alan Adams at Oosterbeek
Alan Adams commemorated at Archbishop Tenison’s School
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