R. H. HOOD - 2nd Battalion Somerset Light Infantry

Richard Henry Hood (Private No. 5385945) - 2nd Battalion Somerset Light Infantry (Formally in Oxford & Bucks L.I.) - 28th Brigade. 

Dick, as he was more generally known, was born on August 31st, 1914, the second son of Albert and Florence May Hood. His older brother was also named Albert, and he was 20 months Dick's senior. Father Albert was popularly known as "Scottie" Hood and was the village coal merchant. He and May went on to have a family of five sons and two daughters at their home in the heart of the old Eton Wick Village at 3, Albert Place. Unfortunately, the elder girl, Rosie, died of tuberculosis as a teenager. 

Dick attended the village Infant School until April 4th, 1922, when he registered at Eton Porny. He left school, nearly a month before his 14th birthday, on August 2nd, 1928. Three years later he joined the regular peacetime army, serving in the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. Presumably this was not exactly to his liking, for in 1933 he persuaded his father to buy him out of his army engagement. Father had been delivering coal in the village by horse and cart for many years until early one evening, in the spring of 1931, a tragic fire destroyed his stable in Sheepcote Road, and killed the poor horse trapped inside. Scottie then had motor truck, but he never really mastered its temperamental mechanics in a way which compensated for his love of the old horse. 

By the mid 1930s his two elder sons, Albert and Dick, were running the business. At this time Dick was well known and a popular villager. In his leisure time he played right back for the Eton Wick F.C. and Saturday evenings, after the matches, he often played his accordion in The Grapes public house, for the landlord, Mr Dick Whittington. 

War came in 1939 and Dick had left the business to do military service. He was duly transferred from the Oxford and Bucks L.I. to the 2nd Battalion Somerset Light Infantry. He was now 25. Without his help, Albert probably became unsettled, causing him to volunteer for service in the Royal Air Force. When he arrived at this decision, his brother-in-law, Walter Farmer, moved from Sapperton in Gloucestershire to work in the village coal business before himself joining the R.A.F. in 1941. The business was subsequently sold to R. Bond & Sons for £100. 

In April 1941 the 2nd Battalion Somerset Light Infantry became a unit of the 2nd (Gibraltar) Brigade which was formed for the defence of Gibraltar, and in consequence they served there until December 1943. On December 1st 1943 the Brigade was re-organised as the 28th Brigade and two weeks later, on the 15th, they left The Rock en route for Egypt. Other battalions effected included the 4th Devons, the 7th Kings Own, the 1st Herts, the 2nd Kings, 1st Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders and the 2/4th Hampshires. They were nine days in transit and arrived in Egypt on Christmas Eve 1943, where they served until March 10th 1944. 

Dick and Albert Hood together for the last time. 

At some time during the 10 week stay in North Africa, Dick managed to meet brother Albert. This rendezvous was very probably in Cairo and was certainly the last occasion he would see any member of his family.

The battalion sailed north to Italy, arriving there on the 15th. American and British forces had landed in the south of Italy on September 3rd 1943 and had steadily advanced up through the country. Particularly fierce opposition had been encountered at Cassino, south of Rome. On January 22nd landing barges poured more troops into Anzio. The stubborn defenders of Cassino still held on. 

On March 16th Dick was among fresh reinforcements landed at Anzio and the Battalion's first battle in Italy of note was recorded as Cassino II fought between May 11th and 18th 1944. Dick was reported as missing on May 13th and later recorded as died on that date. The Battalion took part in four more Italian battles in 1944. Cassino fell to British and Polish forces on May 18th. As with so many families whose kin were reported as missing, the hopes remained that one day their loved one would return. Most soldiers reported as "Missing" were in fact those whose bodies had no means of identification, many would be buried in graves with the headstone inscription "Known Unto God". The Commonwealth War Graves Commission says: 

Private Hood, Richard Henry, 5385945, 2nd Bn. The Somerset Light Infantry. Died 13th May 1944. Commemorated on the Cassino Memorial, Italy, Panel 5. 

Dick is commemorated on the Eton Wick Memorial and on the Village Hall Memorial Plaque. He was unmarried and 29 years old. 

Richard Hood's page on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

This is an extract from Their Names Shall Be Carved in Stone  

and published here with grateful thanks to the author Frank Bond.

R. Hood was Captain of the winning Five-a-Side in 1930.

W.W. FARMER - Royal Air Force

William Walter Farmer (Sergeant Air Gunner) - Royal Air Force

Generally called by his second name, Walter, on account of his first name being the same as his father, he was born in the picturesque Gloucestershire village of Sapperton in 1922 or 1923. Sapperton is a small village with stone cottages and is about three to five miles west of Cirencester. He had two brothers and one sister, but unfortunately one of his brothers died at the age of ten. The older brother made a career m the Royal Navy, and his sister Edna married an Eton Wick man, Albert Hood, and they made their home in a newly built semi-detached house in Tilstone Avenue in 1937.

Walter attended the Sapperton School until he passed the entrance exam for Cirencester Grammar School. He was both popular and good at sports and represented his school at football and cricket. The school considered him to be the outstanding cricketer at the close of one season, and awarded Walter the much coveted "Wally Hammond" bat. He was also an accomplished snooker player. When he was 16 years old he left school and took up employment as a footman to Lord Bathurst at Park House in Cirencester. At this time his brother-in-law was running the family's coal business in and around Eton Wick. Originally the business had been operated by Albert's father, "Scottie" Hood, with a horse and cart, but since the mid 1930's it was run by his two sons, Albert and Dick.

When the 1939-45 war started, Dick was called up to serve with the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and Albert decided to join the Royal Air Force. Because of this, Walter left his native Sapperton to live with his sister in Tilstone Avenue, discarding his footman's clothes for those of a coal merchant. He probably arrived in Eton Wick in mid or late 1940 and Albert was able to explain the business and introduce him to the customers before himself entering the R.A.F. in early 1941. 

When the time came for going abroad, Albert sold the business to R. Bond & Sons, the village road contractors, for £100. Walter decided to join the Royal Air Force also, and left the village for preliminary training in April 1942, having been Eton Wick's coalman for about one and a half years. He was a driver attached to the Motor Transport section, R.A.F. until he decided to volunteer for aircrew duties as an Air Gunner. By this time his sister Edna had a year old son, and his parents, Mr & Mrs Farmer, had moved from Sapperton to keep her company in Eton Wick.

Walter completed the gunnery course and was awarded a trophy for obtaining 85% marks: the highest entrant at that time. Before taking up flying duties with an operational squadron, it was customary for crews to be adjusted to the hazards they would encounter when they took part in raids against the enemy. They obtained this experience from one of many operational training units (O.T.U.s). During the last week of this further training Walter was one of the crew of a Lancaster bomber which crashed into the Brecon Hills in Wales. The entire crew were killed. Had he lived he would have been posted for operations the following week.

Albert Hood returned from the middle east after the war and Dick Hood was killed in the Anzio Landings in Italy on August Bank Holiday 1944. Walter was killed on the Easter Bank Holiday of that year in April just two years after he entered the R.A.F. He was 21 years old and his grave is in the beautiful Haycombe Cemetery that overlooks Bath. He is commemorated in Gloucester Cathedral, in the Sapperton Village Church, on the Eton Wick Memorial and on the Eton Wick Village Hall tablet.

William Farmer's page on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

This is an extract from Their Names Shall Be Carved in Stone  

and published here with grateful thanks to the author Frank Bond.

World War 2 Eighty Years On - January 1944

The American bombers flying over the village on their return from daylight raids at times showed signs of battle with the damage plainly visible to those watching; occasionally debris was seen to fall from the bombers. The coloured recognition flares of the day were fired by the low flying and crippled aircraft to ensure their safety from the anti-aircraft guns. Unidentified allied aircraft could and did invite attention from local Ack-Ack Batteries. 

Four years of war had brought a dwindling supply of non-essential goods to the shops. Caleys of Windsor, in an endeavour to overcome the difficulty, placed advertisements in the local paper offering to buy good quality second hand jewellery, silverware, leather goods, good toys, perambulators, carpets, and furniture.  

The Eton U.D.C. chairman spoke of the acute shortage of administration and maintenance people which made it difficult to maintain many public services such as maintenance to roads and footpaths which had declined since the beginning of the war. The proposal to amalgamate offices, such as the Ministry of Food in Eton with Slough, were not welcomed by local housewives who complained it would be inconvenient. After joining Slough, the Eton food office remained open for two days a week. Complaints to the council Surveyor from mothers who were finding it difficult to push a pram through one path which had become overgrown and was half the original width and also of the damage done by people who rode their hacks on the paths instead of the road brought no firm answer. The Surveyor replied that the matter would be looked into, but it must be realized that it was difficult to obtain labour and materials for those jobs that were not directly connected to the war effort. 

The Council Medical Officer reported on the virulent influenza epidemic that had swept the country during the winter, confirming that the outbreak was subsiding locally, and the worst was now over. He also spoke of an Eton College boy, who had been given permission to pursue his hobby of bird watching at the Slough Sewage farm and was attacked by a family of Coypu. The boy had lashed out at the animal and killed it by kicking it in the head. These large rat like animals were thought to have escaped from a fur farm in Henley in 1935 and established themselves on the streams around the Cippenham area.  

Salvage of many materials was still important in 1944 and Eton U.D.C. took the decision to continue the collection of wastepaper at Eton Wick, previously carried out under the supervision of Mr Chew. Fifty pounds had been raised from the salvage operation and the

monies were invested in National Savings. The saving certificates, purchased on behalf of the council, were in the names of the late Mr Chew and the Surveyor. 

Much of the salvage collected early in the war, such as household aluminium pots and pans and railings taken from public parks and private houses, was of poor quality and of little use to the war industries so was left lying in dumps. The Surveyor when commenting on the salvage situation said the council had a beautiful collection of salvaged bottles that could not be disposed of so the collection had been discontinued.

Light iron was also a problem and no more was collected, but as Eton had a baler, the collection of tin cans continued. Iron garden gates and railings had been taken away in 1940 by council salvage teams. It is alleged that a local resident buried his ornamental gates in a field to save them from the salvage.

Friday January 21st.               

A mixed force of approximately four hundred enemy aircraft, including heavy bombers, raided London. Ack-Ack* Batteries stationed in the Slough - Windsor locality went into action with very heavy gunfire and a similar raid followed on the night of 29-30th, again followed by heavy gunfire from the local Ack-Ack* Batteries. Night raids on London over the next few weeks brought more heavy AA fire from the surrounding gun sites. At least one shot down enemy aircraft was claimed by 608 Battery whilst stationed in this area. Much later a rumour was circulating amongst the battery troops that it had been a Canadian plane which forced landed with no-one badly hurt. The crew said after flying through the Flak of Germany and back ours was the most accurate. The last raid on London known as the Little Blitz was on the night of April 18th, 1944.