Name
John Charles Collett
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
10/07/1943
28
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Corporal
1871410
Royal Engineers
9 Field Coy.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BROOKWOOD 1939-1945 MEMORIAL
Panel 5. Column 1.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
He was born in Hertfordshire and resided there at the time of his enlistment. His Service Number was 1871410 and he served with the 1st Air Landing Brigade of the 9th Field Company, Royal Engineers. The unit was part of the invasion force on Sicily consisting of gliders and towing aircraft, which left the Tunisian airstrips at 18.40hrs on the 9th July 1943. Unfortunately, due to the inexperience of the pilots mostly Americans, and high winds, the losses between North Africa and Sicily were considerable. The pilots released the gliders too far offshore and they fell into the sea and many of the men with all their battle equipment were drowned. This landing by the 1st Airborne was the first landing of a self-contained unit complete with engineers and artillery. The operation was code-named ‘Ladbrooke’ and about 300 men were missing, mostly drowned, in their gliders.
He has no known grave, but is remembered on the Brookwood Cemetery Military Memorial at Purbright in Surrey on Panel 5, Column l.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘The Second Great War’ by J. Hammerton, ‘The Glider Soldiers’ by A. Wood
