Info Please: Australian? in Allied Unit, Douglas Hutton Everitt, 2nd Batt, K.O.R.R.Lancaster356366

Discussion in 'Australian' started by spidge, Nov 13, 2011.

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  1. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Info Please: Australian? in Allied Unit, Douglas Hutton Everitt, 2nd Batt, King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) P/356366

    Why was he with this regiment? What was his cause of death after the war had ended? Any information would be appreciated.


    :poppy:

    Need assistance on Who/Where/What/How for this man who is on the Australian Commemorative Roll which is for those "Australians" who died in other Allied Services. If proved not to be "Australian" their names will not be removed from the Commemorative Roll however their details will be updated accordingly.

    I have researched the Air Force members but there are many more Land and Sea deaths in a myriad of different forces.

    There is not a lot of information on these people that can be accessed easily and I ask your assistance to fill in at least some of the gaps.

    Hopefully some relatives may see this thread and add more.

    I will make a different thread for each along the way as they may tend to get lost if clumped together.

    In Memory of
    Lieutenant DOUGLAS HUTTON EVERITT

    356366, 2nd Bn., King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster)
    who died age 24
    on 24 August 1945
    Son of Isaac Leslie and Ruby Bell Everitt, of Young, New South Wales, Australia.
    Remembered with honour
    DELHI WAR CEMETERY
     
  2. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    Place of death narrowed down somewhat - otherwise it appears a bit bizarre.....

    He appears to be on the Australian Army casualty list from the newspaper of the day - checking the nominal roll for a death with a similar name shows that Everitt is on the roll.

    He isn't on the ROH but he has a file at the NAA under his Aussie service number.

    Maybe he took a commision into the British army while serving overseas (a friend of mine did a similar thing from the NZ army to get a British Army commission in 1943/44).
     

    Attached Files:

  3. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Place of death narrowed down somewhat - otherwise.....

    Thanks Dave,

    Maybe disease, Heart Attack?

    May come across further info.

    No doubt this one is an Aussie but would be good to find out his movements to that battalion.

    Cheers

    Geoff
     
  4. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    War Diary ref if any help.

    WO 172/7640
    2 King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster)
    Covering dates1945 Jan.-Dec.
     
  5. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    Well there you go - I thought that a similar scheme must have existed for Aussies to get British Army commissions but I hadn't seen an example before

    (I just had a proper look at the LG page, it is chock-full of Aussies being commissioned as 2nd Lt into various British regiments)
     

    Attached Files:

  6. idler

    idler GeneralList

    A very little bit of background from The King's Own Vol III:
    The end of the war in the Far East was a prelude to renewed unrest in India, and both 2nd and 7th Battalions were called upon to stand by from time to time while they took part in victory parades in different parts of the country. At one time both battalions were desperately short of men; at others they received so many reinforcements from disbanding units that they were almost up to strength.
     
  7. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    A very little bit of background from The King's Own Vol III:

    Thanks Idler!

    Sets the scene in the country post war!
     
  8. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    War Diary ref if any help.

    WO 172/7640
    2 King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster)
    Covering dates1945 Jan.-Dec.

    Thanks Owen,

    Would probably make interesting reading. Why or how he sought the commission and from where.

    Cheers

    Geoff
     
  9. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Well there you go - I thought that a similar scheme must have existed for Aussies to get British Army commissions but I hadn't seen an example before

    (I just had a proper look at the LG page, it is chock-full of Aussies being commissioned as 2nd Lt into various British regiments)

    Hi Dave,

    I had looked at the others for a file but came up with zip. Where would they have applied from?

    Where would he have been prior to going to India.

    Maybe the British Army was short of men and offered these commissions to the commonwealth troops before their units were disbanded.

    Not that it matters to this question but it seems sorted as far as the Comm Roll is concerned.

    Cheers

    Geoff
     
  10. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    Flicking through the pages of the LG around the entry for Everitt shows up the names of at least 60 Australians who were commissioned into the British army. This bloke appears to be the only one recorded as a casualty (at least in the Gazette, I wonder if it would be worth cross-referring the other 60 against the CWGC?).

    I was comparing the names to the ww2roll and noticed a few from the same unit, 10/48 Bn - the unit's war diaries are digitised and it shows some of the process. This unit had a posted strength of 27 officers and at least 9 of them left the unit under this scheme.

    Some of them were Majors & Captains prior to going across.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Flicking through the pages of the LG around the entry for Everitt shows up the names of at least 60 Australians who were commissioned into the British army. This bloke appears to be the only one recorded as a casualty (at least in the Gazette, I wonder if it would be worth cross-referring the other 60 against the CWGC?).

    I was comparing the names to the ww2roll and noticed a few from the same unit, 10/48 Bn - the unit's war diaries are digitised and it shows some of the process. This unit had a posted strength of 27 officers and at least 9 of them left the unit under this scheme.

    Some of them were Majors & Captains prior to going across.

    Hi Dave,

    So it was a shortage or void they were trying to fill.

    Great info. No more appear under that Battalion.

    I have many more strange ones.


    Why would there be 45 on the Hospital Ship Centaur and 9 on the Hospital Ship Manunda? Were they British crewed as well?

    We will get down to them eventually.

    Cheers

    Geoff
     
  12. Assam

    Assam Senior Member

    Hi spidge,

    Everitt would have been pre war militia in the 1st instance so pre war enlistment with "N" number, transfering to NX in 1942.

    I see he has an entry on the special forces Memorial as well for Chindit operations in 1944, so that would be what 2nd op?

    Being buried in Delhi is a bit of a furfy, from what I have read, the Bn was deployed to Cawnpore in July 1945 some 5-600 miles from Delhi. cawnpore was known as a bit of a trotskyite area & had faced riots going back to the early '30's.

    I would have thought it was a pretty big cantonement but probably unserviceable in terms of war graves during this period - immediate post war.

    in regards to the Officer scheme, it was huge & Commonwealth based (all Major nations involved not just Australians). I have a group to a Kiwi who after joining the 34th Anti Tank Bn in London then transfered to the British Army & died in India being buried in Kirkee.


    Regards

    simon
     
  13. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Thanks Simon,

    I thought it must have been something along those lines which I mentioned in post #9.

    Was it due to a shortage of British troops only or for some other reason?



    This one was possibly amongst that group as they are listed as being part of the Chindits.

    (Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) attached 13th Battalion The King's (Liverpool Regiment)

    Will get to this one soon.:lol:
     
  14. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    Hi Simon - a couple of queries from your previous entry:

    I see he has an entry on the special forces Memorial as well for Chindit operations in 1944, so that would be what 2nd op? - Does this have his Australian or his British service details? Either seems odd for differing reasons.......

    According to the LG, he didn't get his British commission until mid-1945 and (as far as I'm aware) no Aussie soldiers were with the Chindits (happy to be proven wrong here).

    I am going to see if I can get any futher details added to his WW2roll entry - such as date of discharge & last recorded unit.


    Being buried in Delhi is a bit of a furfy, from what I have read, the Bn was deployed to Cawnpore in July 1945 some 5-600 miles from Delhi. - One of my newspaper extracts earlier in this thread lists his place of death as Dehra Dun, where is that in relation to Cawnpore & Delhi??

    (Might have partially answered my last question - "Nestled in the verdant splendour of a 138 acre campus is the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehradun the 'Cradle of Excellence'. RIMC is 85 years young. On the 13th of March, 1922 the Prince of Wales Royal Military College, the forerunner of RIMC, was inaugurated" - that makes sense for a new officer in the Indian / British Army.
     
  15. Assam

    Assam Senior Member

    Hi Simon - a couple of queries from your previous entry:

    I see he has an entry on the special forces Memorial as well for Chindit operations in 1944, so that would be what 2nd op? - Does this have his Australian or his British service details? Either seems odd for differing reasons.......

    According to the LG, he didn't get his British commission until mid-1945 and (as far as I'm aware) no Aussie soldiers were with the Chindits (happy to be proven wrong here).

    I am going to see if I can get any futher details added to his WW2roll entry - such as date of discharge & last recorded unit.


    Being buried in Delhi is a bit of a furfy, from what I have read, the Bn was deployed to Cawnpore in July 1945 some 5-600 miles from Delhi. - One of my newspaper extracts earlier in this thread lists his place of death as Dehra Dun, where is that in relation to Cawnpore & Delhi??

    (Might have partially answered my last question - "Nestled in the verdant splendour of a 138 acre campus is the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehradun the 'Cradle of Excellence'. RIMC is 85 years young. On the 13th of March, 1922 the Prince of Wales Royal Military College, the forerunner of RIMC, was inaugurated" - that makes sense for a new officer in the Indian / British Army.

    Dave,

    Dehra Dun is a hellova long way away from Delhi. It is a hill station in the North West...very handy to send them straight out to slaughter on the NWF.

    Cawnpore is further South South.


    Regards

    simon
     
  16. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    According to the CWGC, the "Delhi War Cemetery was created in 1951 when graves from many cemeteries in northern India were moved into the site to ensure their permanent maintenance.

    Among them are graves from cantonment cemeteries in Allahabad, Cawnpore, Dehra Dun and Lucknow.

    There are now 1,022 Commonwealth casualties of the Second World War buried, or commemorated by special memorial, in this cemetery"


    I suppose that the place of final burial isn't really that important to work out where he might have actually died.....
     
  17. Assam

    Assam Senior Member

    I suppose the question now is what was he doing in Dehra Dun when the Regiment was in Cawnpore ?



    Regards

    Simon
     
  18. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    I suppose the question now is what was he doing in Dehra Dun when the Regiment was in Cawnpore ?

    Regards

    Simon

    Quite a lot of stories on Dehra Run if you google Dehra Run ww2 and the regiment name.

    Cheers

    Geoff
     

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