Name
Cecil Henry Ellis
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
10/09/1944
20
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Guardsman
2623773
Grenadier Guards
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
JONKERBOS WAR CEMETERY
22. B. 2.
Netherlands
Headstone Inscription
NONE
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St. Saviour's Church Memorial, Hitchin, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Pre War
He was born in Hertfordshire and resided in that county. Before joining up he had attended Wilshere Dacre School and later worked as a lorry driver for the Victaulic Company of Walsworth. He had served for two years with the Guards having been given the Service Number 2623773 and was killed in the battle for the Nijmegen Bridge in Holland while he was with the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. This was during the advance of 30 Corps towards Arnhem in their unsuccessful attempt to join up with the Airborne Forces there. A photograph of him appeared in the Herts Pictorial.
By 6.15am on the 19th September 1944, the Engineers work on the Zon bridge had been completed and the Guards resumed their advance. In half an hour they had reached Veghel and by 8.30am were through the unguarded fourteen miles to the north where they met the American 82nd Airborne Division near Grave. At Grave they turned right and went by the bridge at Heumen to the southern outskirts of Nijmegen. In the afternoon attacks were made for the capture of the road and railway bridges across the Waal by tanks and infantry. The enemy positions were strongly defended as the Guards tanks were knocked out and casualties mounted.
He was buried on the outskirts of Nijmegen and for a time his grave was tended by local patriots. Later, his body was reinterred in the Jonkerbos War Cemetery in Plot 22, Row B Grave 2 in the Netherlands.
His home was at 15, High Dane, Walsworth, Hitchin and his parents were Mr and Mrs A.C. Ellis.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Roll of Honour Land Forces W.W.2.’ by J. Devereux & S. Sacker, ‘Victory in the West - Vol. II’ by L.F. Ellis, Herts Pictorial dated 10th Oct 1944, Herts & Beds Express dated 14th Oct 1944
