Lest We Forget
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we will remember them.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
My grand-uncle Horace is one of those we remember, one who ‘gave his tomorrow for our today’.
He was killed in Italy, just before the end of the Second World War. In the British Army War Cemetery, Milan, on Grave 6B1, the gravestone states, ‘His smile and gentle face are ever remembered by his loving wife, mum, dad, and family’.
His last letters home were kept by the family. Watch the videos below to learn his personal story.
Born in Llanarthney, Carmarthenshire – his mother being Welsh – the local newspaper reported that Horace had moved to Teddington when he was 5 years old. Of course, family visits to Wales would have continued, my mother recalling aunts chatting in Welsh in their kitchens in the 1950s.
Horace attended Saint Marks, Teddington before working at several local butchers as he learned his and his father’s trade. As a young man, he was also a member of the local Sea Cadets and Saint John’s Ambulance. Army records state that Lieutenant Ransom (269389) of 35 Wick Road, Teddington was born 2nd February 1914 and enlisted on April 26th, 1940. The address is that of his father’s butcher’s shop, Horace had been expected to take over from his father Arthur when the time came. He was 5 feet 6 ½ inches tall, with brown hair and brown eyes, weighing 122 lbs. He was enlisted on 26th July, 1940. He initially served with the Royal Sussex Regiment, then with the South Stafford glider troop where he was commissioned, then the East Surry Regiment. In Sicely, the gliders went in the night before D-Day, attempting to take key points such as gun batteries and bridges, to assist the main landings. In the nigh operation, nearly half the gliders landed in the sea, hundreds of men drowned. Those that made it to land suffered heavy casualties. Many officer transfers were subsequently made.
Horace moved from the Airborne to the Green Howards after the loss of their junior officers. Horace’s letters to his parents, especially below, describe his progress through Sicely and the subsequent campaign on the Italian mainland.
