Name
Frederick Charles Stokes(*1)
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
13/02/1942
22
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
5952018
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment
5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
SINGAPORE MEMORIAL
Column 64.
Singapore
Headstone Inscription
NA
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St. John's War Church, Memorial, Hitchin Roll of Honour 1939 – 1945 (Book) St Mary’s Church, Hitchin
Biography
He was born in Hertfordshire and at the time he enlisted was resident in the county. He held the Service Number 5952018 and was in the 5th Battalion, which was a Territorial Army unit of the Regiment, being part of the 55th Infantry Brigade. The Brigade left the United Kingdom in October 1941 and travelled to Halifax in Nova Scotia, where they were transferred to the American ship SS ‘Westpoint’ former the ‘America’ and on to Cape Town, Bombay, Poona and the Sunda Straits arriving in Singapore on the 29th January 1942. They arrived during a Japanese air raid. They were then split up into small parties for the defence of the island. He is believed to have died of wounds sustained on Hill 125 in Singapore the day before the surrender to the Japanese. Battalion records show that he was buried there but his body could not subsequently be located.
He is remembered on Column 64 of the Singapore Memorial to the Missing. He was the son of Mr and Mrs W.F. Stokes.
Additional Information
*1 There is a certain amount of confusion on the War Memorials regarding this man. On the Hitchin War Memorial he is shown twice with the initials ‘F’ and ‘F.G.’ and on the St. John's War Memorial with the initials ‘F.C.’.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Paul Johnson - local historian, ‘Cap Badge’ by R. H. Medley, ‘The Wasp’ Spring 2004- M. Green, Story of the Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment
