The 76 Darlington victims of WW2 who are NOT on the memorial

In the centre of the hall, on a slightly raised dais, is a dignified wooden cabinet with a glass top which allows a book to be seen.

A plaque on the cabinet explains: “In this Book of Remembrance are the imperishable names of those Men and Women of the County Borough of Darlington who were Faithful until Death in defence of Freedom during the Second World War.”

The book (above) contains the names of 588 local people – seven of them women – who were killed in that conflict.

The memorial hall at the hospital, and the obelisk outside, were officially unveiled on November 11, 1928, by Sgt Joseph Stephenson (below), who had fought with the 5th Durham Light Infantry during the war and whose name had been drawn by lot for the auspicious occasion.

But even as he pulled the cord which dropped the sheet and so unveiled the obelisk, Joseph knew some names were missing – some men he had gone to war with were not recorded.

Joseph Stephenson and his wife, Hannah

And yet this cenotaph is where every year the town’s mayor and its MP – Darlington’s leading people – pay their respects to the fallen on behalf of the townspeople.

Joseph’s grandson, Paul, spent nearly a decade researching those men who had been overlooked, and last year, in Memories 551, we published the names of 155 men with impeccable Darlington credentials who had died in the First World War but who were not on the memorial.

Perhaps their families did not want their names on the memorial; perhaps they had no one in the town who was willing to shout up for them; perhaps they were just overlooked. So, with Paul’s help, we put that right last year.

But Paul has carried on working, comparing the War Graves Commission’s records from the Second World War with the names in Darlington’s Book of Remembrance.

“I got 115 people who were born in Darlington and were killed and are not in the book,” he says.

“As I dug deeper and deeper, there was not much evidence for all of them having stayed and lived in the town,” he says. “But I have got 76 names for which it is beyond any reasonable doubt that they should correctly be in the book and yet they have been missing all of this time.”

Having righted the First World War wrong last year, it is only fair that we complete the task and make sure these Darlington residents – 75 men and one woman nearly all of whom were born in the town – who died while serving their country during the Second World War are also not forgotten…

Remembrance Sunday parade, Darlington, by Peter Giroux

Alderson, Richard, 30

Royal Artillery

D Sept 13, 1947

Married to Olive. Lived Chelmsford Street. Buried in West Cemetery

Anderson, Raymond, 29

Green Howards

D 1944, Anzio, Italy

Married to Edna

Barnes, Thomas, 35

Royal Army Service Corps

D 1943, Beirut, Lebanon

Basnett, Gerard Majella, 18

Army Catering Corps

D 1947, Ramleh, Israel

Bewick, Stanley, 37

Royal Army Service Corps

D 1942, Hargeisa, Somalia

Birkbeck, Marshall, 31

Royal Corps of Signals

D 1943, Madras, India

Blair, John Leslie, 28

East Yorkshire Regiment

D1944, Charles de Percy, France

The foster son of I Blair, Great Burdon

Blakeborough, George Richard, 38

Royal Artillery

D 1943, Thanbyuzayat, Myanmar

Blakeborough, Merriman, 21

Royal Navy, HMS Barham

D 1941

He is commemorated at Tower Hill in London which is for people who have no known graves. HMS Barham was sunk by a German U-boat off Egypt on November 25, 1941, and 862 died – two-thirds of its crew. He has different parents to the Blakeborough above

Bottomley, Arthur Clifford, 31

2DLI

D 1944, Imphal, India

Married Esther in 1940

Bowen, Frederick, 18

Grenadier Guards

D 1944, Lille, France

Brack, Walter Stanley Garrett, 25

2DLI

D 1940, St Venant, France

Brown, Thomas, 26

Royal Navy

D 1946

He married Greta in 1943 in Darlington, and is buried in West Cemetery

Burnside, John Lawrence, 21

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

D 1943, Heverlee, Belgium

Cambage, Harry, 25

Royal Corps of Signals

D 1945, Berlin

Carter, James William, 17

1/5DLI (Searchlight Regiment)

D 1940

Buried West Cemetery

Casebourne, Ralph Ward Samuel, 31

Royal Engineers

D 1942, Acroma, Libya

Chisman, Robert, 25

Royal Artillery

D 1940, Coxyde, Belgium

Married Ethel in Darlington in 1936. A warrant officer

Coley, Herbert Alfred, 30

Royal Artillery

D 1913, Plymouth

Darlington Mayor Chris McEwan lying a wreath at the Remembrance Sunday event at the Cenotaph in the grounds of Darlington Memorial Hospital in 2020. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT.

Davies, Stephen Henry, 26

King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

D 1944, El Alia, Algeria

De Wied, Francis, 26

Hampshire Regiment

D 1943, Delhi, India

Dixon, Robert Alfred, 21

Royal Navy, HMS Sultan

D 1942

He is commemorated at Tower Hill, London – HMS Sultan was the shore base in Singapore, so he probably died out there and his body was never recovered

Dodds, Clifford, 20

RAF

D 1942, Runnymede

Dormand, Arthur William, 22

RAF Volunteer Reserve

D 1942, Reichswald, Germany

Dowson, Edmund, 24

Merchant Navy, MV Jedmoor

D 1941

He was an engineer on a merchant ship that was sunk by a U-boat off the north west coast of Scotland. His body was not recovered so he is commemorated at Tower Hill, London

Freeman, Edward Charles, 24

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

D 1946

Buried in West Cemetery

Gavin, Eric, 30

Merchant Navy, SS Empire Heath

D 1944

Commemorated at Tower Hill. A ship’s carpenter, he – along with 57 other – died when the ship was sunk off Rio de Janeiro by a U-boat

Gill, Herbert, 22

Scots Guards

D 1942, Geel, Belgium

Goldsbrough, George Henry, 25

Royal Artillery,

D 1945, Labuan, Malaysia

Goodwill, Herbert Colling, 20

Northumberland Fusiliers

D 1940, Dunkirk

He died the day after the evacuation began

Grimshaw, James William Travers, 32

Royal Artillery,

D 1944, Jonkerbos, Holland

His father, a doctor, had an OBE

Harding, Henry, 21

Duke of Wellington Regiment

D 1940, Ramegnies-Chin, Belgium

Hind, John, 38

Royal Army, Ordinance Corps

D 1943, Tel-El Kebir, Egypt

Hodgson, Thomas Ernest, 28

RAF

D 1942, Reichswald, Germany

Holliday, Cornelius, 21

Army Catering Corps

D 1946, Acroma, Libya

Hugill, Bertie, 23

Green Howards

D 1943, Ancona, Italy

Jobling, John, 26

Royal Corps of Signals

D 1943, Tobruk, Libya

Johnson, Wilfred, 30

Royal Scots Fusiliers

D 1945, Maynamati, Bangladesh

Darlington mayor, Cllr Jim Skinner, laying a wreath in 1978

Kenley, Ernest, 28

Royal Armored Corps

D 1945, Groesbeek, Holland 1945 Aged 28

Kipling, Matthew George, 47

Royal Air Force

D 1941, Brest France

Kirby, Ronald, 27

Royal Army Service Corps

D 1944, Bayeux, France

Knight, Laurence Douglas, 19

Durham Light Infantry

D 1944, Tilly-Seulles, France

Lambell, James, 36,

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

D 1944, Thornley, Nottinghamshire

Lambert, Hannah Maria, 26

Auxiliary Territorial Service

D 1944, York

She was a private in the ATS, and her headstone in Fulford has a personal inscription: “Happy, smiling, always content loved and respected wherever she went.”

Lambert, Walter, 26

Royal Artillery

D 1942, buried North Cemetery

Longthorne, John Raymond, 22

Royal Engineers

D 1946, buried North Cemetery

Meynell, Aubrey Denys, 21

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

D 1943, buried West Cemetery

McDonough, Francis, 32

16DLI

D 1943, Tunisia

Miller, Douglas, 32

Royal Army Service Corps

D 1941, Athens, Greece

Oliver, William Stanley, 23

Green Howards

D 1942, El Alamein, Egypt

Parkinson, Ernest George, 34

Royal Artillery

D 1942, Durban, South Africa

Pearson, William Robert Blackburn, 34

Royal Engineers

D 1942, Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey

Peers, Kenneth Gibson, 38

Royal Air Force

D 1944, buried West Cemetery

Married Emma in Darlington in 1937

Porritt, Basil, 21

Royal Navy, HMS Aldenham

D 1944

He is commemorated at Tower Hill, London, as HMS Aldenham was sunk by a mine in the Adriatic Sea, with the loss of 126 lives

Pringle, William, 39

Royal Navy, HMS Rawalpindi

D 1939

He is commemorated at Tower Hill, London, as HMS Rawalpindi was sunk by German battleships on November 23, 1939, off the Faroe Islands, with the loss of 268 lives

Robinson, Charles Thomas, 44

Royal Air Force

D 1941, West Cemetery

He married Dorothy in 1924

Robinson, Thomas Henry, 40

Pioneer Corps

D 1940, Pornic, France

A young boy lays a wreath in 2008

Sanderson, Robert Henry, 28

Royal Corps Of Signals

D 1943, Thanbyuzayat, Myanmar

In 1943-43, he was held prisoner. Thanbyuzayat, where he died, was a PoW camp at the western end of the notorious “Death Railway” on which the prisoners worked

Scott, Harold, 31

Royal Army Service Corps

D 1945, West Cemetery

Skinner, Ernest, 39

Royal Artillery

D 1942, Sai Wan, China

Married Emily in 1930 in Darlington

Slater, Thomas Michael, 26

Royal Navy, HMS Glorious

D 1940

Married Eileen in Darlington in 1936. He is commemorated at Tower Hill, London, as Glorious was sunk by German battleships off Norway with the loss of 1,200 lives

Smith, Rupert, 26

Royal Army Medical Corps

D 1943, Delhi

Smurthwaite, Samuel, 30

Gordon Highlanders

D Le Havre, France

Stark, Denis Beckwith, 27

Durham Light Infantry

D 1943, Tabarka, Tunisia

Stock, Roger Neville Graham, 26

2nd Durham Light Infantry

D 1944, Rangoon, Myanmar

Strayton, Raymond Peter, 20

Royal Armored Corps

D 1944, Assisi, Italy

Taylor, Albert Bertie, 42

Pioneer Corps

D 1944, Buried North Cemetery

One of the few on this list not born in Darlington. He was born in Ipswich in 1901 but lies in Darlington

Thompson, William, 39

Royal Army Service Corps

D 1944, Jonkerbos, Holland

Trees, John Hardwick,22

Royal Engineers

D 1944, Kirkee, India

Waldie, Wilfred Morris, 40

West Riding Regiment

D 1941, Kirkee, India

Walker, Charles Edward, 33

Coldstream Guards

D 1944, Faenza, Italy

Walker, Laidman Augustine, 26

Royal Corps of Signals

D 1941, West Cemetery

Watson, Leslie, 22

Royal Navy, HMS Fidelity

D 1943, Portsmouth Naval Memorial

The Fidelity was sunk by U-boats off the Azores, with the loss of 369 lives

Wilkinson, Thomas, 24

Royal Navy, HMS Quebec

D 1943, Tower Hill, London

He married Catherine in Darlington in 1941. HMS Quebec was a training centre at Loch Fyne in west Scotland where 250,000 troops trained prior to D-Day

Wilkinson, Walter Graham Gordon, 28

Royal Tank Regiment

D 1941, Halfaya, Egypt

Married Winifred in Darlington in 1938

Wright, Albert Ernest, 21

Pioneer Corps

D 1944, East Cemetery, Darlington

If you can tell us of their stories, we would love to hear from you. Email either chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or s.stephenson1@ntlworld.com

READ MORE: THE 150 DARLINGTON MEN WHO DIED IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR BUT WHOSE NAMES WERE OMITTED FROM THE WAR MEMORIAL 

READ MORE: THE GRAPHIC DIARY OF THE DARLINGTON NURSE CAUGHT IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR SIEGE OF MALTA