HISTORICAL CONTEXT

He was a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to 9th Battalion, Parachute Regiment. The battalion was tasked with capturing the Merville Gun Battery which Allied headquarters had designated as a D-Day priority.

The battalion were dropped by parachute at 00:50 on D-day as part of Operation Tonga (6th Airborne Division's parachute and glider assault in the early hours of D-Day).

The men of the battalion were widely dispersed when they were dropped. One glider crash-landed near the battery, killing ten soldiers.

Of those who did land in the right area, a number drowned because much of the drop zone had been flooded by the Germans as a defence against parachutists.

The exact circumstances of his death are unknown. He has no known place of burial so he is commemorated on the Bayeux Memorial to the Missing, Calvados.