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This Roll of Honour has been compiled from four main sources: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database of 16th DLI casualties; the Roll of Honour in Major L E Stringer's 1946 book The History of the Sixteenth Battalion The Durham Light Infantry; the consecutive listing of 16th DLI casualties by date held by the DLI Museum (which is also contained in the DLI Book of Remembrance in Durham Cathedral); and the 1947 War Office Roll of DLI Casualties, which is held by both the DLI Museum and the Imperial War Museum. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists casualties according to the specific country and War Cemetery in which they are buried. The War Office Roll is an alphabetical listing, but uses a somewhat unwieldy system of codes to give the place of birth and enlistment of each man and his Regiment or Corps if he was already in uniform in 1939. The Battalion History includes a name-only listing of casualties killed on active service, but omits those killed accidentally prior to 1943 and after May 1945.
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My main aim here has been to unify these sources into a single more easily accessible format and also to account in as much detail as possible for every name on the 1946 Battalion History Roll. The four listings have been carefully compared, cross-referenced and combined. However, there are quite a large number of anomalies between them some of which may well be impossible to resolve almost 60 years on. Several casualties on the 1946 Roll are listed merely as 'DLI' by the CWGC, with the battalion number unrecorded; some others, who came to the 16th DLI as Salerno reinforcements, are listed by the CWGC under their previous DLI battalions, the 8th and 9th, which never served in mainland Italy. Also, several casualties on the CGWC database do not appear in the other listings and vice versa. And furthermore, several men are recorded by the CWGC as 16th DLI who must have been posted elsewhere by the time of their deaths. Date of death record also vary considerably, particularly between the CWGC database and the consecutive listing regarding the Battle of Sedjenane. Some of these discrepancies have been noted in the individual entries below. Others are listed in a separate appendix.
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However, please note: where the various Rolls differ as to the rank, or the date of death, or the spelling of a casualty's name, the CWGC version has been followed in all cases: these are the details which actually appear on the soldier's gravestone or memorial. Next of Kin information is as recorded by the CWGC. Where the CWGC have only partial or no Next of Kin details, less specific information on the soldier's place of birth and enlistment (by city, town or county) has been drawn from the War Office Roll. As with the War Office Roll, I have included the casualties suffered by the Battalion both prior to Embarkation in December 1942 and those after VE Day.
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The final lines of each entry record any known newspaper references and the specific Company of the casualty where this is known. This latter information is derived both from my own interviews with several 16th DLI veterans and from the extensive collection of 16th DLI interviews held by the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive. However, In Memoriam notices in various local newspapers and Major Stringer's Battalion History have also furnished vital details here. The initials in brackets after each Company reference refer to the specific sources of this information. The following 16th DLI veterans in particular have been extremely helpful to me in providing a literal Remembrance of some of their Fallen Old Comrades:
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Tom Atkinson, ex-B Company stretcher bearer (TA), Les Bernard, ex-C Company (LB), J Bowery (JB), Charles Bray, ex-D Company (CB), Sam Cawdron, ex-HQ Company, MT Section (SC), Joe Drake MM, ex-HQ Company, Carrier Platoon (JD), George Forster, ex-C Company (GF), Gordon Gent, ex-A Company (GG), Alex 'Jock' Gray, ex-HQ Company, Signal Platoon (AG), W 'Jimmy' James, ex-HQ and D Company (WJ), John Lewindon MM, ex-HQ, C and D Company (JL), Ken Lovell, ex-B and D Company (KL), Stan ‘Mac’ McDonald, ex-B Company (SM) Charley Palmer (ex-HQ Company, Intelligence Section (CP), A E 'Ernie' Scriven, signaller attached to D Company (AES), Syd Shutt, ex-B Company (SSh), Tom Tunney, ex-C Company (TTu), Tom Turnbull, ex-B and D Company (TTr), Duggie Wakefield, ex-HQ Company (DW), Major AEC Vizard, ex-A and HQ Company (AV). Also special thanks to the late Pte Jack Roach’s son David for B Company casualty information taken from his father’s annotated copy of the Battalion History (JR)
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This is a work in progress, so any further information, particularly regarding incomplete Next of Kin records and Company details, is most welcome. Many names still need to be properly researched, but even in this unfinished form the text will hopefully be of interest to all who served with the Battalion and their relatives. Regarding the reference numbers which accompany each War Cemetery listing, the first refers to the Plot, the second to the Row and the third to the specific Grave. Thus VII B 20 means: Plot 7 Row B, Grave 20. A shortened, September 1943 to May 1945, version of this Roll was published in the 1999 book The Heat of Battle by Peter Hart (Pen and Sword Books).
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A Note on Army Numbers
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Until quite late in the war all Regiments and Corps of the British Army were allocated their own blocks of seven-figure identification numbers for Other Ranks. The DLI sequence was in the range of 4435001 to 4523000. Thus a soldier with a seven-figure number in this range would have been with the DLI from his enlistment. And, obviously a casualty with a seven figure number outside of this range would have originally have been a member of another Regiment or Corps and posted to the DLI at some later point in his Army career. Readers will notice that very many 16th casualties, particularly later in the war, began their Army service with other units. Late in the war, eight figure 'General Service Corps' numbers for all arms were introduced in the series 14000,2001 to 15000,000. It should also be noted that a soldier commissioned from the Ranks to become an Officer would then be assigned a new Officer's personal number. For more on this subject, see the ARMY NUMBERS section of the site.
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