Having come across this name on a Roll of honour for people who served and were from Exmouth I am curious as to his place of death as it is given as HMS Repulse 1943 which im sure has been mixed up with RN casualty(found his name in the CWGC site and he died on the Repulse 1941) above his name, however if I take the RN casualty and give his place of death to the Devonshire casualty instead......... it reads Germany 1943 POW? the RSM is buried in this country see here CWGC :: Casualty Details
Hi Steve, it was in this book he was listed on the ww2 roll of honour The Book of Exmouth: From Fishing Village to Coastal Resort - Community History Series (Book) by Harry Pascoe (2006): Waterstones.com
I have the read the War diaries for the 6th & 9th Devons. All their service battalions got mixed up in 1942 and a lot were broken up to bolster other units in all theatre's. There is the Regimental museum in Dorchester (which I am sure you are aware of) and the Devonshire Heritage website, one of these may be able to help? TitleRemake Home - The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester, Dorset Just to mix it up further, I am pretty sure there was a POW camp in the Exmouth area for captured German Seamen? No help at all really!! Bamboo.
To unravel the mystery you may have to look at all the people 5 or 6 either side and see if they are buried in the right place and then work it out. Also have a look on Naval-history.net and see if the other person from Exmouth shows up on the casulty lists for the Repulse
Perhaps just a call to the enquiries Section at CWGC would clear up any doubt. They are usually very helpful.
On checking the Repulse casualty list there is no one by the name of Ludgate listed as Missing Presumed Killed. Perhaps if you could post the other name then I could check for you to see if they are listed.
Thanks Oldman, but the first thing I did was check the RN casualty and it matched the place of death as HMS Repulse with date of Dec 41 I know something was wrong when the RSM of the Devons place of death was given as HMS Repulse in 43 and the RN guy as In action Germany so that is even more confusing........... anyone know where the 8th Battalion Devonshires were in Aug 43?........... mind you that might be wrong have checked a few more and so far they all pan out.
Geograhically no, but deffo at home in the UK. I might have a sneaky look for you next time I'm at Kew! Bamboo.
Re: RSM Ludgate. 8th Devon's part of the 134 Brigade/45 Division. Based Rayleigh, Essex in June 1942, went on in turn to, Colchester, Southminster then up to Yorkshire/Cleveland borders. Here the battalion was broken up into Companies, staying at Eaglescliffe, Crathorne, Middleton, Kirklevington Hall and Yarm. And it was at Yarm on 25/08/1943, that RSM Ludgate was fatally injured by an explosion while supervising training on the company assault course. Hope this is of use? Bamboo.
Thanks Gents, My Grandad was in the 9th Devon's before fate took him away to Burma. The diary today showed that the 9's relieved the 8's at Colchester, so it was a relevant search for me anyway. It was a great bonus to have Ludgate's death mentioned in the diary notes for August. These things rarely work out like that, so it made a pleasant change. Bamboo.
Here's the details from the Army ROH which tallys with the info from Bamboo Name:Ernest Ludgate Given Initials:E G Rank:Warrant Officer Class I Death Date:25 Aug 1943 Number:5430971 Birth Place:Somerset Residence:Cornwall Regiment at Enlistment Devonshire Regiment Branch at Enlistment:Infantry Theatre of War:United Kingdom Regiment at Death Devonshire Regiment Branch at Death:Infantry
rsm, Ludgate was my mothers husdand, he was not my dad,i know little of his death, only he was killed in a training accident
Hello Peter, I looked this afternoon to see if I still had the information in my files, but I could not find it I'm afraid. The details I posted back in 2010 were a transcription more or less, so you have a picture at least. The information came from the 8 Devon's War diary held at the National Archives. If you ever have the chance to visit, the file reference is WO166/12514. 8 Devonshire Regiment | The National Archives
Hi, I've just joined the Forum and I noticed that 'The Roll of Honour' for Exmouth was mentioned. I just wanted to let you know, that the information that was found in Harry Pascoe's 'The book of Exmouth' has a printing error from page 137 to 139, in the column 'How/where death occurred', as at the top of the page, it repeats the previous entry - so all the rest of the column is out by one line. The same list is in Arthur Cook's book 'Exmouth at War' - but the column in question, has been omitted. The original list came from Eric Delderfield's book 'Exmouth Milestones'. Printed in 1948. I have found it not that totally accurate, as far as Christian names go, and is quite vague of where and when events happened - which is surprising really, as at the time he was editor of 'The Exmouth Journal' and would have had access to quite a lot of info. The same list has been used to put names onto The Exmouth War Memorial. I have found that the number of extra names - connected with Exmouth, and not on The Exmouth War Memorial - is just over 200!