A memorial plaque to those who died while serving in the Second World War is sited in the clubhouse of the Mellish Rugby Club. Those named are shown on the websites of the Imperial War Museum and the Nottinghamshire Roll of Honour. There are 58 names on the plaque which is also inscribed with:
THIS PAVILION AND GROUND IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE OLD BOYS AND STAFF OF THE HENRY MELLISH SCHOOL WHO GAVE THIER LIVES DURING THE WAR 1939-1945
ROLL OF HONOUR
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
The school and old boys raised the funds for the club in the years after the war.
It is hoped that details of all 58 will be added to this page.
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ALVEY, Raymond Henry 1920-1942 (School 1931-1936).
Raymond Henry Alvey was born on 21 February 1920 at Long Eaton, the son of George Alfred Alvey (1878-1949), company secretary of a timber merchant, and Marguerite Elise Aludie (née Saywell) (b 1887 Caudry, France; d 1974 Somerset). The family moved to 226 High Road, Chilwell. Alvey joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in May 1939 and was called up on the outbreak of war. He was reported missing on 22 November 1942 along with other members of the crew of a Handley Page Hampden I (P2063) of 144 Squadron, Coastal Command.
The crew was listed as ‘missing’, the aircraft not having been seen again. However, more recent research (link HERE) by family members and others together with eye witnesses in Norway has revealed what happened.
Raymond Alvey was at RAF Wick, waiting to join 144 Squadron, when a Hampden from that squadron arrived from RAF Leuchars for refuelling. One of the Wireless Operator/Air Gunners, Sgt Burrow, reported sick, Raymond was called in to join the crew, with Sqn Ldr. John Hird as pilot, Sgt Davidson Hepplewhite as Navigator/Bomb aimer and Sgt Robert Coles as the other Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. The mission was ‘nuisance bombing’ over SW Norway.
The Hampden with Raymond on board took off from the airfield at Wick, at about 18:00 hrs. Three other Hampdens, on the same operation, left Wick between 17:30 and 18:00 hrs, and returned safely between 22:15 and 23:05 hrs. They reported bad weather conditions, with rain, sleet and snow, and poor visibility. Only one was able to report a successful operation.
The four aircraft in the flight reached the Norwegian coast at around 19:30 – 20:00 hrs; located their targets, and then at least two encountered anti-aircraft fire from German ground positions. Raymond’s plane, having released one or more bombs on a target to the north of Haugesund, was passing southwards towards Karmøy island when it received a direct hit, exploded, and debris was scattered along the coastline and in the sea.
Eyewitness accounts suggest that the bodies of the three sergeants were recovered and (probably) buried at sea by the Germans, as no graves were discovered by the Missing Research and Enquiry Service or subsequently. As well as having their names recorded at Runnymede, the crew have been commemorated on a plaque erected at the site of the crash by the family of Sqn Ldr. Hird.
Sgt. Raymond Henry Alvey. Runnymede Memorial. Panel 77. Son of George Alfred Alvey, and of Marguerite E. A. Alvey, of of Chilwell, Notts, England. Born 20 February 1920. From family memories and research, the following information can be added: Pre-war, Raymond was employed as a telephone engineer with Ericssons of Beeston, Notts. A keen sportsman, playing ruby, cricket and hockey, and had been a keen swimmer and cyclist. (In July 1939 he cycled from Nottingham to Neuchatel in Switzerland and back.)
Photographs from Aircrew Remembered Website:
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BRATTON, Harry 1920-1942 [School 1931-1936]
Harry Bratton was born in 1920, the son of William (1886-1962), a police sergeant, and Maria Bratton (née Cunnington, 1885-1963) of 14 Orchard Road, Kirkby-in-Ashfield; they had previously lived in Lambley. Sergeant Bratton was a wireless operator/air gunner in the Royal Air Force. He was killed along with the rest of the crew of four on 12 April 1940 when their Hampden I of 50 Squadron Bomber Command was shot down ,either by anti-aircraft fire or a Bf109, while attacking enemy shipping in Kristiansand harbour, Norway. Two aircraft of five from 50 squadron along with their crews were lost. 50 Squadron was operating with seven from 44 Squadron; of those seven two were lost with their crews. Harry Bratton was posted as ‘missing’; his body has not been recovered.
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NAYLOR, Arthur 1920-1941 [School 1931-1939; Temporary Member of Staff 1940]
Arthur Naylor was the son of Arthur (1890-1964), a ‘colliery winding engineman’, and May Lilian (née Gillott) Naylor (1891-1985) and the brother of Frank and Lilian May Naylor of 50 Newthorpe Common, Eastwood. At Henry Mellish he was a noted cricketer and Captain of Red House. The Centaur records he was awarded a scholarship to University College Nottingham in 1939 and in the 1939 Register he is shown as a ‘student’. He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and it seems likely he was a temporary member of the teaching staff at the Mellish while waiting to be called for training as a pilot. In April 1941 has was a Leading Aircraftman (Pilot Under Training) at No. 5 Service Flying School, R.A.F. Tern Hill in Shropshire. By this stage he was on the advanced course of training to become a fighter pilot.
Arthur Naylor and his instructor, Flying Officer Cyril George William Moore, were killed when their aircraft (Miles Master I, serial number T8757) stalled and crashed very shortly after take of from R.A.F. Cosford, thirty-odd miles from Tern Hill, on 26 April 1941: Naylor was 20 and Moore 22. There are reports of engine failure.
Arthur Naylor was buried at Eastwood Cemetery (Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
Photograph and Documents from Lady Clare Howes DL, Arthur’s niece.
Further papers are shown on the MISCELLANEA Page.
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STEVENTON, Arthur 1917-1942 [School 1929-1933]
Ordnance Artificer 4th Class Arthur Steventon was killed on 5 April 1942 when the heavy criuiser HMS Cornwall was attacked and sunk by aircraft from three Japanese carriers 200 miles south-west of Ceylon. HMS Dorsetshire was also sunk. British losses that day were 424 men killed.
STEVENTON, John Ashley -1942 [School 1932-1935]
Ordnance Artificer 4th Class John Ashley Steventon was killed on 26 September 1942 when the destroyer HMS Veteran, on convoy escort duties south of Iceland, was torpedoed by a U-boat while picking up survivors from the merchant ship SS New York which had been hit earlier. All hands plus those picked up from the merchant ship were lost.
Arthur and John Steventon were the sons and only children of Thomas Henry Steventon (1890-1969) and his wife, Elsie (née Wild) (1893-1978) of 25 Leacroft Road, Bobber’s Mill, Nottingham. Thomas had served in the Nottinghamshire Royal Horse Artillery. At the outbreak of war both sons were working with their father at John Player & Sons, the tobacco factory, where Thomas was Foreman Fitter Millwright; Arthur was a ‘Fitter Millwright’ and John ‘Improver Millwright’.
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WARD, George William 1922-1941 [School 1936-1938]
George William Ward was born on 16 April 1922 at Trimulgherry, Madras, India, the son of George William (1894-1981) and Isabel (or Isobel) Hilda Mary Ward (1895-1981). From 1936 they lived at 45 Cator Lane, Chilwell.
Educated first at Blackpool Grammar School, George arrived at the Henry Mellish in 1936. After leaving from the iVth form in 1938 he was first an apprenticed electrical engineer at Blackburn, Starling and Co in Nottingham and then worked for three months as an electrician for Barton Transport in Chilwell. In 1940 he studied at a college in Preston in order to qualify as a radio officer in the Merchant Navy.
George Ward was ‘supposed drowned’ after the steam tanker SS San Florentino (requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1939 from Eagle Oil & Shipping Co, London) on which he was serving as 3rd Radio Officer was torpedoed on 2 October 1941 while on passage in ballast in the outgoing convoy ON-19 from Glasgow via Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Curaçao. The ship was attacked while straggling behind the convoy by two U-boats 1,200 miles ENE of Newfoundland. The attack began late on 1 October. One torpedo missed. Then, just before midnight, the ship was hit amidships but pressed on. The ship was equipped with a 4.7-inch naval gun and that kept up a running battle with the U-boats for over 5 hours, achieving a direct hit or very near miss. At 02.49 a torpedo hit the bow. The ship radioed the position 52°42N/34°51W, dropped fog buoys and continued as she did after being hit by another torpedo at 04.26. Minutes after evading another torpedo the ship broke in two at 05.02. The final and fourth torpedo hit the wreck and the boiler exploded. The bow remained afloat and upright while the stern section sank slowly. The U-boat (U-94) fired 34 rounds from its deck gun into the wreck and then departed.
Lost that night were the Master, 21 crew members, including George Ward, and one gunner of the Royal Navy. The oldest was 54 and the youngest, a cabin boy, was 16. HMCS Mayflower, a corvette, responding to the radio signal arrived about 13 hours later to rescue 31 members of the crew and four RN gunners. The part of the ship still afloat was scuttled by gunfire from HMCS Alberni, another Flower-class corvette.
Fourteen members of the crew and one naval gunner received awards for their conduct on San Florentino. The 2nd Officer of the ship, George Taylor (1914-1984), was awarded the George Medal for his conduct, calm courage and seamanship. He was in charge of the gun for 5 hours (the accuracy of fire was judged ‘magnificent’) and then took command of one of the lifeboats that got away. George William Ward, aged 19, received a posthumous Commendation. The newspapers explained why.
The Nottingham Journal of 4 March 1942 under the headline Went Singing to Death explained that when the ship was hit the radio was put out of action. Ward managed to repair the set and send out the ship’s position, a signal that led to the survivors being rescued. As the ship began to break up Ward and three others lashed themselves to a raft ‘on one portion of the vessel’. From there he began singing in order to keep up the ‘spirits of his companions’. After the announcement of the award in the London Gazette the reporter for the newspaper found Mrs Ward at home. Her husband was away, ‘engaged on work of national importance in the North of England’. ‘She was astonished to learn that her dead son had been specially commended for bravery. “This is the first I have heard of it”, she declared. Nor did she know why he had been specially singled out for such an honour. “He only did his duty”, she said’.
See FOOTNOTE
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WHYATT, Haydn Reginald 1920-1941. [School 1932-1936]
Haydn Reginald Whyatt was born on 18 April 1920, the son of Albert (1891-1973) and Gertrude May Whyatt (née Eley) (1893-1977) of ‘Burnham Thorpe’, Linby Road, Hucknall. Albert was a commercial traveller in garden sundries and a member of the Observer Corps.
Haydn, a store manager by 1939 joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve before the outbreak of war. Sergeant (Observer) Whyatt of the Torpedo Training Unit at Abbotsinch, Renfrew (now Glasgow Airport) was killed on 30 July 1941 when his aircraft, a Beaufort I, crashed in the sea one mile northwest of Lady Isle in the Firth of Clyde. He was buried in Hucknall Cemetery.
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FOOTNOTE
Ward, George William. On the Memorial Board, Ward’s initials seemed to have suffered a typographical error, becoming Ward, G.E. and not G.W. Although correct details were provided in The Centaur, at some stage the wrong person has been identified as amongst the school’s war dead. The list published by Notts County Council incorrectly includes George Eric Ward, a gunner in the Royal Artillery who was shot dead while trying to disarm his drunken and angry friend in 1940; the fellow soldier was acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.
