Name
Raymond Cooling
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
09/04/1945
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Serjeant
921421
Royal Artillery
135 (The Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Regt.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
KRANJI WAR CEMETERY
25. E. 9.
Singapore
Headstone Inscription
UNTIL THE DAY BREAKS
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Tilehouse St. Baptist Church Memorial, Hitchin, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin, Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2)
Biography
Born in Hertfordshire, he attended the Hitchin Grammar School from 1930- 1934 and was in the football First XI. He left to take up employment with Bondor in Baldock and later with the Meridian factory in Nottingham.
He joined the Hertfordshire Yeomanry as a Territorial before the war and was later called up and given Service Number 921421. At the time that he enlisted he was living in Hertfordshire.
He was a Territorial in the 344 Battery in the 135th (Herts Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery equipped with 8 x 4.5 howitzers. The Regiment sailed from Gourloch at the end of October 1941 for Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were transferred to the S.S. ‘Mount Vernon’ and went to Cape Town heading for the Middle East. On the way they were diverted to Singapore and arrived during an air attack on the 13th January 1942. After disembarking they were despatched to the west coast of Johore and were in action before withdrawing to Singapore Island by the 31st January 1942. They fought vigorously on the island until ordered to destroy their equipment and surrender on the 15th February 1942.
Following the surrender they were moved to Changi and in May 1942 moved to Bukit Timah, both on the Island of Singapore. Late in 1942 about 500 of the Regiment were at Tamarkan building the bridge on the River Kwai which was completed in April 1943. They then continued in various work camps in Thailand and Malaya where they were starved and ill-treated. He was reported as being in a Malayan prison camp by Spring 1943. On the 23rd August 1943, a card was received by his wife and son at 59, Heathfield Rd, Hitchin, which said that he was safe but a prisoner of war.
He was later sent to a prisoner of war camp near Saigon in Indo-China, but after all these ordeals, he was eventually killed when American aircraft machine-gunned the camp where he was imprisoned. The camp at Saigon may have been at Ubon on the eastern frontier of Thailand with Indo-China where many of the Regiment were still being held when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.
His body was later moved to Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore Plot 25, Row E, Grave 9 as part of a cemetery consolidation scheme.
He married Anne S. M. Eastwell in St. Mary's Church Hitchin, in 1939.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Mr Geoffrey Cooling - his brother, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery - Far East Theatre 1941 -1946’ by M. Farndale, Herts & Beds Express dated 28th Aug 1943, Herts Pictorial dated 31st Mar & 7th Apr 1942
