Gunner EDGAR HAROLD

Edgar Harold was born in Diss, Norfolk on 14 February 1897[1].  His parents were  George Frederick, a carman, and Mary Ann Harold.  He had an older brother, Frederick.  In 1911 Edgar was still living in Diss with his family and was employed as an errand boy for a boot shop[2].  When and why he moved to Odiham is not known, but in January 1919 he married a local resident, Gertrude Mileham[3], in the Basingstoke Registration District. They subsequently lived in 5 Council Houses, North Warnborough[4].  Their entry on the 1939 Register gives details of the family at that time.  Edgar was a ‘Labourer General’, Gertrude a housewife and their two children, Reginald, aged 17, a builder’s labourer and Dorothy, aged 11, who was at school.

According to his attestation Edgar re-enlisted in to the Army in February 1940 and was posted to the 78^th Battery, 35 Lt. A.A, Regiment of the Royal Artillery[5].  This unit’s preparations for service abroad started in Middlesborough that year.  The Commander of this unit, Lt. Col. John Bassett, recorded the Regiment’s movements in a log, which is available on the internet at www.cofepow. org.uk/armed-forces-stories-list/35th-laa-regiment-royal-artillery.

The Regiment sailed from the Clyde on the Empress of Japan on 13 November 1941 and arrived in Durban on 19 December 1941.  On 24 December they left Durban on board the Narkunda en route for Singapore.  They arrived in Singapore on 13 January 1942.

It is thought that the men of the regiment were probably captured when Singapore fell, but no war diaries exist after this date.  Edgar was recorded as missing on 1^st February 1942[6] and was captured on 8 March 1942, becoming a prisoner of war[7] in Java PoW Camp[8].   The Japanese Armed Forces captured nearly 140,000 Allied military personnel in Southeast Asia and the Pacific areas during the war to engage in hard labour – constructing railways, including the infamous Thai-Burma (‘Death’) Railway, roads and airfields.  Of these 140,000 circa 36,000 were sent on to Japan where there was a shortage of labour to work in the coalmines, mines, shipyards and munitions factories, etc.   Death rates were high, not only because of the hard labour and working conditions, but through lack of food and poor living conditions.  According to a list held in the National Archives “Harold, an Englishman, died January 1943 at Shimonoseki Camp. Japan. Cause of death was recorded as – Chronic Ulcerative Colitis, Starvation, Avitaminosis.  Believed cremated.  Lt. Eppley was an eye witness of his death”.  As he had no grave, he is commemorated on the Yokohama Cremation Memorial in Japan.  He would have been awarded the War Medal 1939-1945 and the 1939-45 Star.