Luccombe Roll of Honour

Marine William Henry John Howard

Corporal Joseph Dennison Barron served with the 1st Regiment, the Royal Reconnaissance Corps. He was injured in June 1943, fighting in North Africa. He was brought back to the UK but died in hospital in Bristol in December, aged 33.

Private Clarence Richmond Charles Harding was the district’s first fatality in the war. In May 1940, he was serving with the 1st Bucks Battalion, the Oxford and Bucks Regiment, fighting a rearguard action against the advancing German troops as Allied forces retreated to Dunkirk. It is believed he was killed by a sniper’s bullet. He was 22.

Second Lieutenant Richard Howard was the son of the Rector of Luccombe. He served with the Royal Marines and was killed in November 1940 in the City of Westminster at the height of the Blitz. He was 24.

Marine William Henry John Howard was just 19 when he died of tubercular meningitis at the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham. It is believed he had been injured after an attack by an Italian prisoner of war he had been escorting near HMS Westcliff, a shore base in Essex.