WW2 casualty Joan Fieldgate - commemorated on Southall County School memorial board, buried in Germany.

In researching the various people mentioned in these pages their personal stories are rarely as expected. One of the names on the Southall County School Memorial board - Joan Fieldgate – posed some problems in tracing what had happened to them. Joan had no CWGC entry as a civilian casualty nor did she appear to have served in the armed forces.

Much of the information I have found in researching cousin Jim's story has been of the 'well, I never knew that!' variety - Joan's story falls into that category. Joan had been just as much the adventurer as any of the other ex-pupils of Southall County School who became casualties of the Second World War - a volunteer for the Children’s Overseas Reception Board. She died in hospital at Ravensburg,Germany on 9^th October 1941, aged 27 years.

'Evacuation Escort Dies In Germany

LONDON, Nov. 2.—AAP.

The death has occurred in Germany of a children's overseas evacuation escort. Miss Joan Fieldgate, who was taken prisoner while returning from Australia. The ship in which she was travelling was torpedoed. She spent many months in an internment camp, where she became ill. She was taken to hospital at Ravensburg. Her (step-) mother, living in Middlesex, said that letters from her daughter revealed that she had suffered hardships after the torpedoing, but was fairly comfortable in Germany. Her daughter mentioned that she had received hundreds of letters from friends made in Adelaide and elsewhere in Australia.'

Joan Louise Fieldgate was born in Gillingham in July 1914, her father worked as an electrician at Chatham Dockyard, mother died shortly after Joan’s brother Ivan’s birth in August 1918.

Their father worked abroad in Hong Kong between 1920 and 1924 leaving Joan in the care of her father’s parents and Ivan with their mother’s family. Father subsequently remarried and the family was reunited back in Gillingham. Several work moves eventually took the family to West Drayton with Joan attending Southall County School from 1926, progressing to a student teacher position at the County School between 1931 and 1932.

In the autumn of 1932 Joan attended the Avery Hill Teacher Training College, Eltham, graduating with a teaching diploma in 1934 and obtaining a post as an art teacher at an elementary school in Hillingdon. At the outbreak of the Second World War Joan volunteered as an escort to take evacuee children for the Children’s Overseas Reception Board from England to Australia. 

Joan was skilled in making clothes and very interested in fashion. On her initial escort voyage in the ‘Nestor’ she enjoyed a long layover visit in Cape Town where she made contacts in local fashion houses with a view to possible future employment.

Having safely delivered their charges in Australia the escorts were due to sail an easterly route to the south of Chile, thence north to cross the Atlantic, However, Joan intended to follow-up her fashion leads in Cape Town and embarked on the ‘Port of Wellington’, a cargo vessel making a westerly voyage. Ten days out the ’Port of Wellington’ was attacked by ’the Pinguin’, a German commerce raider, accompanied by the ‘Storstad’, a tanker accommodating prisoners which received crew and passengers from the ‘Port of Wellington’ including Joan Fieldgate. While on board the ‘Storstad’ Joan contracted tropical dysentery as a result of the poor living conditions.

The ‘Storstad’ returned to Bordeaux from where the prisoners were taken to Southern Germany, reaching Liebenau in mid-March 1941. By September Joan was very ill and was admitted to a hospital at Ravensburg where she died on 9^th October 1941. She was buried in an unmarked grave. A few months later there was an exchange of prisoners and the remainder of Joan’s group returned home.

Liebenau had before the war been been an asylum for Germans adults and children with mental and physical disabilities. In October 1940 Liebenau was designated by Heinrich Himmler as an internment camp for civilian women and children of countries with whom Germany was at war – many of whom were British passport holders. From this point numerous of the asylum inmates were euthanised to make way for internees whom, it was hoped, may have future 'bargaining' potential.

'The Accidental Captives: The Story of Seven Women Alone in Nazi Germany'

by Carolyn Gossage - includes a brief account of the sad demise of 'Julie' – 'a British escort for a group of English refugee children being evacuated to Australia. …..she arrived at Liebenau in April 1941, but was taken ill shortly after her arrival, and was then misdiagnosed. Before the error could be rectified ….her patient's case of dysentery had reached the point of no return and within six months Julie was pronounced dead. News of her death quickly spread through the camp and with it the realisation that Julie was, in fact, a peripheral victim of the war from which the women of Liebenau felt relatively removed and isolated.'

Another book - 'Who Will Take Our Children?: The British Evacuation Program of World War II ' by Carlton Jackson - also includes references to Joan's demise.

Joan Louise Fieldgate is commemorated by an inscription on her mother Louise's gravestone in Gillingham (Woodlands) Cemetery, Kent, England.

Sincere thanks to Joan's brother Ivan for telling me about his vivacious elder sister.

Centenary of the outbreak of the Great War - A tale of two brothers

John Ives and his elder brother James began the War doing the same job at the same place.

Alfred De Rothschild the owner of Halton Hall, near Wendover, Bucks offered his estate to the War Office for military training. The 21^st Division, one of the components of Lord Kitchener's Third New Army, was concentrated in the vicinity of Tring, Hertfordshire in the autumn of 1914 and occupied Halton Park before the onset of winter drove them into local billets.

The Ives brothers lived in the village of Long Marston about six miles from Halton Park via Wilstone and Aston Clinton.  The construction of huts must have been an attractive employment opportunity for local carpenters and the brothers worked on the project from 1914 onwards - they would earn a bonus of half-a-crown for every hut completed. James and John specialised in cutting match-boarding and held the record for the greatest number of boards sawn in a day. They were apparently among the last remaining carpenters of 2000 men who worked on the construction of Halton Camp, which, by 1916, accommodated nearly 20,000 infantrymen in wooden huts and tents.

 

Subsequently Johnny Ives went across to France to build huts there and James joined the army.

 

Johnny Ives in RFC uniform

John spent three and a half years in France, including 12 months serving in the Royal Flying Corps. There his woodworking skills were employed in repairing and converting a single-seat aeroplane into a twin-seater so that his CO could ‘take a certain duchess for a spin’.

James joined the army in 1916 and in the spring of 1917 was attached from the Hertfordshire Regiment to the 'D' Company 8^th Lincolnshires Regiment. On May 22^nd 1918 ‘tidings’ came from the War Office that Private Ives had been killed on or about 31^st July 1917 in Belgium during the third Battle of Ypres.

A letter from the 'British Red Cross and Order of St John Enquiry Department for Wounded and Missing', dated 21^st February 1918 confirmed that it was likely that Private Jas. Wm. Ives 235254, D Coy. 8^th Lincolns was dead.

‘With reference to your enquiry regarding the above, I write with deepest regret to inform you that we have just received the following sad report from Pte. J H Dunn, 43324, D Coy. 8^th Lincolns, a prisoner of war, who reports as follows:-

‘The last time I saw Pte. Jas. Wm. Ives was early in the morning, say 8 o’clock; he was wounded, tried to get back, but I think, well most sure, he was sniped and killed.’

We fear his conclusion is probably correct as had Pte Ives survived we feel certain that he would have been heard of long before this.

Yours faithfully,

For the Earl of Lucan’.

On 8^th July 1917 8^th Battalion Lincolnshires, a component of the 63^rd Brigade together with 8^th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry; 4^th Battalion Middlesex Regiment; 10^th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment; 63^rd Machine Gun Regiment and 63^rd Trench Mortar Battery; joined the 37^th Division, part of the Second New Army, to later take their part in the Battle of Pilckem Ridge in the Third Battle of Ypres.

The Third Battle of Ypres was a series of small battles which became synonymous with the slaughter of the Western Front. The intention for the opening stage of the battle was to take objectives in and around the village of Pilckem, a few miles to the north of Ypres. The village was situated near a ridge which gave a commanding view of the British line and so it was important that it was taken both to deny the enemy their excellent vantage point and to give the British an observation point across the German rear, which would give them a significant tactical advantage.

The Allied artillery bombarded the German lines with more than four million shells between July 16^th and the 31^st in preparation for a forthcoming advance. The attack was to begin at dawn on 31^st July. The action commenced at 3.50am in mist and heavy rain and by the end of the day, with most of the objectives having been taken, allied casualties numbered 15,000.

The History of the Lincolnshire Regiment records the following:- 'At 3.50am on 31^st July, the attack began. 'D' Company of the Lincolnshire being detailed to form the defensive flank on the right of the 4^th Middlesex from June and July Farms. The right company of the Middlesex advanced and gained its objective, and, at 4.30am two platoons of the supporting company went through to reconnoitre and clear Bab Farm. It was at this stage that the leading platoon of the 8^th Lincolnshire, then engaged in forming the defensive flank, was drawn into the fighting. Some stiff close-quarter fighting then ensued, and heavy casualties were inflicted on the enemy, but the attackers were hard-pressed. Again and again they tried to send runners back for assistance but they were shot down. Runners sent forward from the reserve company also failed to reach the attackers and the brigade narrative ends the account of the gallant party of Middlesex and Lincolnshire with the words: “This party fought it out where they were until they were all either killed or wounded”.'

Pte Jas Wm Ives, D Coy 8th Lincolnshire