Name
Roy Milner Furr
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
28/08/1944
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Leading Cook
C/MX 71303
Royal Navy
H.M.S. Melbreak
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL
78, 3.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St. Saviour's Church Memorial, Hitchin, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
Educated at Wilshere Dacre School, he was a member of the Letchworth Boys' Club Football Team and the Hitchin Swimming Club. In stature he was a big man, over six feet tall. On leaving school, he was employed in his father's fish business.
He had four years of service and saw much action. His Service Number was C/MX71303. At the time of his death he was a cook on the Hunt Class escort destroyer H.M.S. ‘Melbreak’. Early in the morning of the 28th August 1944, the ship was patrolling off the French coast when an unidentified aircraft dropped a bomb which struck the starboard bow. Five men were killed and fifteen wounded. The dead were buried at sea. The ship survived and returned to port to be repaired.
He is remembered on the Chatham Memorial to the Missing.
His parents were Mr and Mrs A Furr of 34, Radcliffe Rd, Hitchin and he was their only son.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Mr R.R. Sanders - signalman and shipmate, Paul Johnson - local historian, Herts Pictorial dated 5th Sep 1944, Herts & Beds Express dated 2nd Sep 1944
