Name
Harold Arthur Ostler
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
26/05/1941
25
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Staff Serjeant
7516283
Royal Army Medical Corps
2 Armd. Div. Field Hygiene Sec.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ATHENS MEMORIAL
Face 9.
Greece
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2)
Biography
He was born in northwest London and was a pupil at Hitchin Grammar School from 1927-1932. He had been at Earl's Colne Grammar School in Essex, and he had also lived in Biggleswade. After matriculation and gaining the Oxford School Certificate, he entered one of the offices of the Hitchin Rural District Council. He later qualified as a Sanitary Engineer and was appointed Sanitary Inspector at Cuckfield in Sussex. He had the letters M.R.S.I. after his name which was almost certainly a professional qualification in sanitary engineering.
At the outbreak of war and whilst resident in Sussex he joined the Hygiene Section of the Royal Army Medical Corps and was given the Service Number 7516283 and went to the Middle East with the rank of Staff Serjeant He was concerned with field hygiene as part of the 2nd Armoured Division.
By Autumn 1942 he was declared missing believed killed - died Between 26 May 1941 and 27 May 1941. His date of death coincides with the final phase of the invasion of Crete by German paratroopers, in which the British forces were engaged in fierce fighting and suffered heavy casualties before the remnants were evacuated by sea.
He has no known grave and is remembered on Face 9 of the Athens Memorial to the missing in Greece.
His parents were Arthur G. and Amelia M. Ostler of Haywards Heath.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Hitchin Grammar School Registers
