Name
(Cyril) Bonar Larman
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
31/07/1943
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Serjeant
5952341
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment
5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
SINGAPORE MEMORIAL
Column 61.
Singapore
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Stondon Village Memorial, Beds
Biography
We believe this to be the man listed on the Hitchin War Memorial as ‘B. Larman’, who was born in Hertfordshire and was resident in the county when he enlisted.
He had been employed at Vauxhall Motors in Luton.
He held the Service Number 5952341 and served in the 5th Battalion of the Regiment, which was part of the 18th (Eastern) Division re-directed from the Middle East to Singapore shortly after Pearl Harbour. They had left Scotland in October 1941 and sailed to Halifax Nova Scotia where they were transferred to an American transport ship S.S. ‘Westpoint’ formerly the ‘America’. They arrived in Singapore during an air raid and were then split up into very small units to assist in the defence of the island.
He was reported missing at the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 and he died in hospital at Parsao Camp, Thailand, probably from the combination of malnutrition, overwork, lack of medical facilities and the physical cruelties that the Japanese inflicted on those unfortunate enough to fall into their hands.
He has no known grave but is remembered on Column 61 of the Singapore Memorial to the Missing.
The news was not received by his wife, Mrs Rose Margaret Larman of 14 Chiltern View, Letchworth, until April 1945. He was the son of William and Ethel Larman of Lower Stondon, Beds.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, ‘Cap Badge’ by R. H. Medley, ‘The Wasp’ Spring 2004 - M. Green, Herts Pictorial dated 3rd April 1945
