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Reculver

The war memorial for the village of Reculver in Kent is situated in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin, facing the road. The memorial consists of a block of granite, with the lower section carved into a rough plinth. The upper section has a cross carved into the stone and an inscription.

In 2008 the War Memorials Trust gave a grant of £212 towards carrying out a survey of the foundations of the memorial, the first step in a plan to carry out remedial work to halt the lean of the memorial.

Upon the memorial is carved the following inscription:

“This stone was erected by the parishoners of
Reculver in memory of the men
connected with this parish who gave their lives for their country
in the Great War 1914- 1918.

Greater love hath no man than this
that a man lay down his life
for his friends”

Names of the men who fell in the First World War are inscribed below this on a polished surface. The names are separated into the branches of the services. The lower (plinth) section of the stone is inscribed with the names of those who died in the Second World War, also on a polished surface and separated into the branch in which the man served. The memorial is surrounded on three sides by a low ragstone wall.

The Reculver memorial has six First World War seamen commemorated on it. Chief Stoker Foad and Chief Yeoman of Signals Smith were both members of the crew of HMS Formidable, which was originally based at Portland in Dorset to defend the English Channel, and assisted with the transport of the BEF to France at the beginning of the war. Her base was changed to Sheerness in November 1914 as German invasion was felt to be imminent. She was torpedoed off Portland Bill on night of 1st January 1915, and sank. The total loss of life on HMS Formidable was 547 men out of a total complement of 780. Eight months later Frederick Alfred Foad, Stoker 1st Class on HMS Foxhound, drowned; it is possible the two men were related.

Not all of the sailors were killed by enemy action; two of the sailors commemorated were killed when their ships exploded due to an internal fault. Petty Officer Hare died on the HMS Natal on 30th December 1915 near Cromarty, and J.F. Souden on 9th July 1917 when HMS Vanguard blew up at Scapa Flow, taking 800 of her crew down with her.

Three of the men on the memorial were members of the local East Kent regiment, the Buffs. Ptes Read and Fielder, of the 8th and 1st Buffs respectively, died during the Battle of the Somme, Pte. Read on 17th July 1916 at the Battle of Delville Wood, and Pte. Fielder on 15th September 1916 (although the memorial has the date 1915) at the battle of Flers-Courcelette, the third and last Allied offensive of the Somme campaign. Private Prett, also of the 8th Buffs, died a year later on 23 July 1917 after the Battle of Messines. The Battle of Messines, a prelude to Passchendaele, broke German dominance of strategic locations in the area of Ypres.

Pte. Riches, despite being a native of Margate in Kent, was a member of the 1st Canadian Division – many members of the Canadian divisions were not in fact Canadian - and died at the Battle of Mount Sorrel on 14th June 1916. The Battle of Mount Sorrel was an action by the Germans to divert Allied troops from the build up they could see happening at the Somme.

The Royal Navy is also represented amongst the men commemorated from the Second World War. Petty Officer Mount served on HMS Laforey, and in March 1944 was patrolling the waters of the Mediterranean off the west coast of Italy. She had already covered the invasion of mainland Italy in August 1943, and the landings at Anzio in early 1944. HMS Laforey was torpedoed by the u-boat she was hunting on 30th March 1944; there were only 65 survivors out of the 247 people on board. The Merchant Navy is represented on this memorial too; First Radio Officer Place was on the S.S. Empire Citizen (London) when she was torpedoed during an Atlantic gale south of Iceland on 2nd February 1941.

The highest proportion of the men on the Second World War memorial come however from the Royal Air Force. Sgt. Helcke of 504 Squadron fought in the Battle of Britain; the 15th of September 1940 is recognised as the peak of the battle and Sgt. Helcke died on 17th September. The other airmen died in bombing raids over Germany; Flying Officer Southern was in a Lancaster bomber that was lost on the 8th April 1943 on a raid to bomb Duisburg in the Ruhr valley, and Flight Sgt. Steele was killed on when his Lancaster bomber crashed into the grounds of a coalmine between the villages of Eijsden in the Netherlands and Lanklaar in Belgium on 22nd June 1944 whilst on a bombing raid to Wesseling, a city on the Rhine.

The most illustrious war record on the memorial is that of Wing Commander Ian Gleed. He was a member of 601 Squadron, which was originally known as the Millionaires' Squadron as at the beginning of its existence many of its members were elegant and well-to-do. After fighting in the Battle of Britain in their Hurricanes, the squadron was re-equipped with Spitfires in March 1942 and sailed for the Middle East in June, where it joined the Desert Air Force. After the decisive battle at El Alamein in the autumn of 1942 the squadron moved westward to Tunisia, where it was present until the end of the North Africa campaign in May 1943. Wing Commander Gleed died in April 1943 and is buried in Tunisia. During his lifetime he was awarded the D.S.O., the D.F.C, the Croix de Guerre avec Palme (Belgium) and the Croix de Guerre avec Etoile de Vermeil (France).

The one member of the army from the Second World War commemorated on this memorial died in Italy. As mentioned above, Petty Officer Mount was patrolling Italian waters in the first months of 1944; Pte Foad of the 2nd Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment was also there as part of the force landing at Anzio. This was the second phase of the invasion of mainland Italy; Allied soldiers were landed behind German lines in an effort to outflank them. Pte. Foad died on 8th February 1944 and is buried at the Beachhead War Cemetery in Anzio.

The memorial was paid for by public subscription from the people of the villages of Beltinge and Hillborough and was dedicated in 1948. 

Further information

War Memorials Trust reference WM1413
UK National Inventory of War Memorials: 41037

The campaign to save Reculver war memorial 
The Royal Navy
The British Army and armies from the Empire in the First World War, detailing regiments, divisions, battles and theatres of war.
The loss of HMS Vanguard 

If you have a concern about this memorial please contact the Trust on conservation@warmemorials.org

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