Kenneth Wagstaff lived with his parents in St Anns Nottingham. Like many of his peers, he joined up to serve in the Second World War, but unlike most of his peers, he never returned
Pte Kenneth Wagstaff was ‘killed in action’ just three days before his 19th birthday.
He is buried in Holland near to where he fell on 1st November 1944. His letter home was dated a few days earlier, however he had also left a more permanent message carved into a brick wall near his home. His message was short and to the point.
VICTORY DAY
Kenneth lived with his parents at 15 Franchise Terrace off Westminster Street in St Ann’s.
Westminster Street ran between St Anns Well Road and Hungerhill Road. When St Anns was redeveloped in 1970, it became Westminster Close.
The old wall that bears his words survived though. The houses on Hungerhill Road survived the redevelopment.
Using this old street plan, the wall is on the house at the top of Westminster Street on the right hand corner.
Pte Wagstaff was assigned to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 6th Battalion that landed on the Normandy beaches on the 15th June 1944. They took part in the battles around Caen and the River Odon before advancing through France, Belgium and Holland, and those that made it crossed the Siegfried Line, and over the River Rhine into Germany.
Pte Wagstaff only got as far as Holland, where his Date of Death is recorded as: 1st November 1944.
Much of our information was obtained from either the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website or the very useful local website St Anns Pre-Demolition where his nephew Stephen Wagstaff provided some more personal details. We still didn’t know the circumstances of his death.
How Did He Die?
Thanks to local military historian Martin Kerry, we were sent the link to the following on a dutch archive website -: https://www.oorlogsslachtoffers.nl/deurne/over-mij/
A keen football player for the Raleigh Bicycle Factory who came from a military family. His grandfather William Wagstaff as well as his father Harry Wagstaff had served. Kenneth’s enlistment date was 20th January 1944, originally serving in the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry then transferring to the Kings Own Scottish Borderers.
In his last letter home, dated 28th Oct 1944 he wrote among other things
“We are in a town at present which we liberated yesterday and you should have seen the people when we entered the town”.
Kenneth Wagstaff and his colleague Pte R.A. Herrod died during shelling by the Germans while they were transporting civilian casualties in a Red Cross jeep. The casualties, Johannes van den Berkmortel and his wife Maria Catharine van den Berkmortel had been injured in an earlier grenade attack.
Kenneth and his colleague were initially buried in a field grave next to where the Red Cross jeep was hit. This was near Camp Heitraksgoor of the Dutch Labour Service that was Sloot in Liessel on the Kennelweg near the corner with the Neerkantseweg.
The bodies of Pte Wagstaff and Pte Herrod were later reburied on 29th August 1946 at the Nederweert British Cemetery (plot II. F. 9) Netherlands where the inscription to Pte Wagstaff reads:
SWEET ARE THE MEMORIES KEPT OF A SON WE LOVED AND WILL NEVER FORGET. DAD
