This month we have 3 more men who died during 1944, and our 1 man who died in 1945. Next month we will start listing earlier deaths during WW2.
Leading Seaman David Ravie - 1919 - 1944
David was born in Queensferry in 1919.
He was nicknamed “Popeye” working on board boats on the River Forth before war broke out. When children came from Glasgow to Butlaw Camp in Queensferry, for holidays, he was Master of Ceremonies for the entertainment. He then enlisted into the Royal Navy and was serving on SS Nairung, a steam merchant, built in 1941, as DEMS Gunner (DEMS is a Defence Equiped Merchant Ship), when he died, lost at sea on 18th August 1944 aged 25.
The SS Nairung, was on route to Bombay from Durban, carrying general cargo, including ammunition.
On 18th August she was torpedoed and sunk, with no survivors, by U-862 roughly 1000 metres northeast of Mozambique. The master, 82 crew members and eight gunners, one of which was David, were lost. The ship blew up in such a violent explosion that some crewmen aboard the U-boat thought that they had been struck by their own torpedo, while debris struck the U-boat without damaging her.
David is remembered with honour on the Chatham Naval Memorial and is named on his Mothers headstone in Queensferry Cemetery. He was awarded the 1939/45 Star and War Medals.
David was born in Queensferry in 1919.
He was nicknamed “Popeye” working on board boats on the River Forth before war broke out. When children came from Glasgow to Butlaw Camp in Queensferry, for holidays, he was Master of Ceremonies for the entertainment. He then enlisted into the Royal Navy and was serving on SS Nairung, a steam merchant, built in 1941, as DEMS Gunner (DEMS is a Defence Equiped Merchant Ship), when he died, lost at sea on 18th August 1944 aged 25.
The SS Nairung, was on route to Bombay from Durban, carrying general cargo, including ammunition.
On 18th August she was torpedoed and sunk, with no survivors, by U-862 roughly 1000 metres northeast of Mozambique. The master, 82 crew members and eight gunners, one of which was David, were lost. The ship blew up in such a violent explosion that some crewmen aboard the U-boat thought that they had been struck by their own torpedo, while debris struck the U-boat without damaging her.
David is remembered with honour on the Chatham Naval Memorial and is named on his Mothers headstone in Queensferry Cemetery. He was awarded the 1939/45 Star and War Medals.
Private David Moubray Brett, 1921 – 1944
David was born in Edinburgh in 1923. His father served in the Black Watch during WWI and his parents were living in Queensferry by the time of David’s death.
David enlisted into the 2nd Royal Scots. Most of 1941 passed without active duty for the regiment, and with growing concerns about the stability of the Far East, the 2nd Battalion, based at Hong Kong, moved into defensive positions around the colony. These fears materialised on December 8th when the Battle of Hong Kong began a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbour; the Royal Scots fought heroically, but the result was inevitable and the whole battalion had been killed, wounded or become POWs by the time of the surrender of the Colony on Christmas Day 1941. A new 2nd Battalion (originally the 12th) was formed in May 1942 and they served in Italy and Palestine.
The 2nd Battalion moved to Gibraltar in April 1943. On 3rd September 1943, the Allies invaded the Italian mainland. The 2nd Battalion moved back to Italy in July 1944, where it saw action in the Italian Campaign.
This is where David was killed in action on 25th August 1944 aged 21. He is buried in Florence War Cemetery, Italy. Grave ref: ll.A.1. and was awarded the 1939/45 Star and War Medals.
The site for the war cemetery was selected in November 1944 for burials from the hospitals established in and around Florence but the greater part of those buried here lost their lives in the fighting in this area from July to September 1944. Florence War Cemetery now contains 1,632 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.
Marine Charles William Shoebridge, 1899 – 1944
Charles was born in 1899 in Chatham, Kent. He enlisted into the Royal West Kent Regiment saying he was 19, when he was only 16. He was discharged, then enlisted into the Royal Marine Light Infantry on his 17th Birthday and served with them until his death in 1944.
He married in Queensferry in 1927, having met his wife, a Dairymaid, in the dairy in Brewery Close. They met when he came up with the canisters to collect the milk for his ship, HMS Repulse. (which was sunk in 1941).
Charles died tragically on Christmas Day, 1944, aged 44, in Orkney. He and his friend were in the recreation quarters and a fight broke out between his friend and another man. Charles went to intervene to try to stop the fight and was stabbed. He died from his wounds in the Military Hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney. The press later reported that police had detained a man on a charge of Murder.
He is buried in Grave No: 184 in Queensferry Cemetery.
Charles was awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War and Victory Medals for his service in WW1. In October 1932 he was awarded the RN Long Service Medal and Good Conduct Medal. He would also have been awarded the 1939/1948 Star and War Medals.
And in 1945 -
Pilot Officer Pilot Thomas Louis Benoit Shoolbread 1921 - 1945
Thomas was born in 1921 in Queensferry. His birth is registered as Schoolbread, not Shoolbread, however Parents marriage states Shoolbread.
Thomas enlisted into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
By the end of 1941 more than half of Bomber Command aircrew were members of the RAFVR. Most of the pre-war pilot and observer NCO aircrew had been commissioned and the surviving regular officers and members of the RAFO filled the posts of flight and squadron commanders. Eventually of the "RAF" aircrew in the Command probably more than 95% were serving members of the RAFVR.
In August 1941, RAF Cranfield became a night flight training centre and was such until the end of the war.
Thomas died on 4th January 1945, age 23, at Wavendon, near RAF Cranfield, Buckinghamshire and is buried in Grave Ref: 1083, Queensferry Cemetery.
Queensferry Cemetery contains 180 First World War burials, almost all of them naval. There are also eight burials of the Second World War.
He was awarded the 1939/45 War and Star Medals.
Pilot Officer Pilot Thomas Louis Benoit Shoolbread 1921 - 1945
Thomas was born in 1921 in Queensferry. His birth is registered as Schoolbread, not Shoolbread, however Parents marriage states Shoolbread.
Thomas enlisted into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
By the end of 1941 more than half of Bomber Command aircrew were members of the RAFVR. Most of the pre-war pilot and observer NCO aircrew had been commissioned and the surviving regular officers and members of the RAFO filled the posts of flight and squadron commanders. Eventually of the "RAF" aircrew in the Command probably more than 95% were serving members of the RAFVR.
In August 1941, RAF Cranfield became a night flight training centre and was such until the end of the war.
Thomas died on 4th January 1945, age 23, at Wavendon, near RAF Cranfield, Buckinghamshire and is buried in Grave Ref: 1083, Queensferry Cemetery.
Queensferry Cemetery contains 180 First World War burials, almost all of them naval. There are also eight burials of the Second World War.
He was awarded the 1939/45 War and Star Medals.
© Queensferry History Group 2019