Name
Robert Benjamin Leach
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
12/11/1946
56
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LITTLEHAM (SS. MARGARET AND ANDREW) CHURCHYARD
Sec. Z. Grave 63.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
"DAD" IN EVERLOVING MEMORY. TIM, BERYL AND HAZEL
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Hitchin memorials
Biography
During the Great War he was an Assistant Paymaster at the Admiralty with the rank of Lieutenant. After the war he was a representative in a paint and chemicals company.
At various times during the Second World War he was stationed in Liverpool, Scapa Flow and later with Admiralty Intelligence in London. He suffered from chronic bronchitis aggravated by the strain of long hours of work during the Second World War. He left the Navy in 1945, but his health broke down and he died in hospital in Exmouth.
He was buried in Section Z, Grave 63 of the Littleham (SS. Margaret & Andrew) Churchyard in Devon. An additional inscription was added to his Commonwealth War Graves Commission stone reading "Dad. In ever loving memory. Tim Beryl and Hazel". ‘Tim’ was his pet name for his wife.
He was the son of Thomas and Catherine Leach who were Londoners. He was the husband of Alexandra Beatrice Leach and the family lived in London but, like many others in the early 1940s, moved to the Hitchin area due to the heavy bombing.
At the end of the Second World War, a number of peace treaties were signed over a period of time. A Supplemental Charter was granted to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission whereby the 31 51 December 194 7 was the final date for the purpose of commemorating Commonwealth war casualties of the Second World War.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Beryl and Hazel - his daughters, ‘The War in the Channel Islands - then & now’ by W. G. Ramsey
