The church of St Martin, Overstrand is home to three separate forms of memorial to the fallen of WW1 and WW2. Outside in the churchyard is the War Memorial, while inside the names are carved on a wooden panel. Beneath the panel there are two bound books, one for each conflict. Each name remembered receives a small potted biography which I take no shame in reproducing here.
Edward Henry Anthony Naylor
Son of Henry and Jane Naylor. Born at Letchmore Heath, Aldenham, Herts, June 25th 1898. Educated at Harrow Weald and Overstrand Schools. Joined Commander Locker Lampson’s Armoured Car Brigade, Jan 10th 1917. Wounded in Russia, July 1st 1917. Died at the Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham, August 29th 1917. Buried in Overstrand Churchyard.
Headstone in the churchyard
In ever loving memory of
E H A Naylor
Of the Russian Armoured
Car Squadron, Only son of
H & J Naylor, Wounded in Galicia 1st July
Died at the Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham
??August 1917 Aged 19 years
Remembered on the War Memorial in the churchyard as:- Edward H A Naylor R.N.A.S.
On the memorial board as E H A Naylor
NAYLOR, EDWARD HENRY ANTHONY
Rank:……………………………...................Petty Officer Air Mechanic
Service No:……………………………..........F/25223
Date of Death:……………………………......29/08/1917
Age:……………………………......................19
Service:……………………………................Royal Naval Air Service
Armoured Car Div.
Grave Reference………………………Near North-East corner of St. Martin's Church.
Cemetery
OVERSTRAND (ST. MARTIN) CHURCHYARD AND EXTENSION
Additional Information:
Order of St. George 4th Class (Russia).Son of Henry and Jane Naylor, of The Pleasaunce Gardens, Overstrand. Born at Aldenham. Herts.
CWGC: www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2802710/NAYLOR,%20EDW...
Petty Officer Edward Henry Anthony Naylor, Russian Armoured Car Squadron, can be seen on Norlink here
norlink.norfolk.gov.uk/02_Catalogue/02_013_PictureTitleIn...
The accompanying notes read:-
Born at Alderham, Hertfordshire, 25th June 1898, the son of Henry and Jane Naylor, Petty Officer Naylor enlisted 10th January 1917. He gained the Russian Order of the Cross of St. george. He died at Gillingham Hospital from jaundice after receiving wounds in action in Russia, 29th August 1917. This photograph was donated by his father.
The Royal Navy records for Edward Henry Anthony Naylor, F25223, born 25th June 1898, Aldenham, Hertfordshire.are held at the National Archive under reference ADM 188/610/25223
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=D6...
Census
On the 1901 census the 2 year old Edward H A Naylor, born Alderham, Hertfordshire, was recorded at Latchmore Heath, Alderham, Watford. This was the household of his parents, Henry, (aged 34 and a Domestic Gardener from Bakewell, Derbyshire) and Jane, (aged 38 and from St Peters Thanet, Kent). Edward H A is their only child.
On the 1911 census the family have moved to Pleasaunce Gardens, Overstrand, Norfolk. Henry and Jane have been married 15 years but have had just the one child.
Military career
The Russian Armoured Car Squadron was a partly private initiative, led by Colonel Locker-Lampson who had connections with the Cromer area.
The award of the Cross of St George was “For gallantry under fire and services rendered on the Galician front, 10th August 1917. This was apparently the day he also received the injuries that would see him repatriated to the UK.
Edward Naylor and his father were gardeners for Lady Battersea at her home in Norfolk.
Naylor embarked for Russia on 1/2/17 and landed at Odessa. He was badly wounded (severe head and left arm injuries from shelling) in the very action (Galatz, Roumania) for which he was awarded the Cross of St George. He arrived back in UK on 22/8/17 and died at Chatham Naval Hospital of yellow atrophy of the liver.
1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=176082
Being an Armoured Car Unit, the primary skills which the authorities sought were those of drivers and mechanics and of the 111 Irishmen involved, some 72 offered this particular background. The rest were drawn from diverse occupations and one can now only guess at how these men found their way into this venture.
Prior to its Russian campaign, what became the RACD was, a unit of the Royal Naval Air Service serving in Belgium in support of aircraft reconnaissance. Its nucleus was No 15 Squadron RNAS formed and commanded by Commander Oliver Locker Lampson, Unionist Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire (East Anglia).
The new Squadron with its Irishmen in place initially served a period of home defence duties. It was then posted to Flanders, but in July 1915 it was decided to disband as the cars could not function adequately with the pervasive trench systems now establishing themselves on the Western Front.
The outcome of this development, due in no small part to the coaxing and manipulations of Locker Lampson was that a decision was then made to send the Squadron (plus two others to make up a complete Division) to the Eastern Front in support of Britain's Russian ally.
The RACD were sailors on dry land, fighting from armoured cars and trenches. They faced conditions ranging from the acutely freezing temperatures within the Arctic Circle, the extreme heat and dust of the desert terrain of Armenia, to the Flanders like mud of the Danube delta. They fought in Asia Minor, Rumania, Russia, and Austria, against Kurds, Turks, Bulgarians, Germans and Austrians.
They served with Cossacks and Siberian Army Regiments and rubbed shoulders with Poles, Serbs, Czecho Slovaks, Tartars, and many other ethnic groups which at that time were a part of the once vast but by then sadly depleted armed might of Czarist Russia.
However events at home were to rock the unit as Easter 1916 approached, news of the Sinn Fein uprising in Dublin reached Alexandrovsk. The effect on some of the Irish was predictable. The UVF men, no doubt, feared for the security of Ulster and the safety of their families at home if the Dublin insurgents were to capitalise on their absence.
Exactly what subsequently happened in this remote part of Russia remains shrouded in mystery and has not been revealed in official records. From what can be ascertained, some form of mutiny occurred (fuelled by illegally hoarded rum).
It has been suggested that a number of Irishmen demanded repatriation and were refused. Whatever then occurred necessitated the summoning of British Marines from warships lying in the nearby Kola Inlet. There was at least no bloodshed and the 'rising' ended as quickly as it had begun.
In all, four Irishmen died in service with the unit and eight were wounded in action. Out of the unit as a whole there were 17 deaths and 7 reported `missing in action', later confirmed as Prisoners of War (of whom 3 died in captivity).
Apart from the direct results of engagements with the enemy, the strains created by inhospitable conditions and the pressure of trying to prop up, a disintegrating ally clearly told on the health of some of the men.
The War was still of course continuing, even though Russia was no longer an active participant.
www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/topics/war...
1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=815
Not all of the RN Armoured car Squadrons were disbanded with the demise of the RNACD (in the summer of 1915 - the initials stand for Royal Naval Armoured Car Division). The Commander of the 15th Squadron (Lampson) was a well connected, ambitious and politically creative animal. However, with his connections, he was able to convince the Russians of the virtues of using Armoured Cars within the Russian Army. The Russians did not need to be convinced as they were at this time buying up as many Armoured cars as possible. Lampson volunteered his unit for service within the Russian Army, which the Russians were more than willing to accept. He then convinced the Admiralty that one squadron was not sufficient and a division of three squadrons was more suitable. The three squadrons came from the 15th and 17th Squadrons and volunteers from the other units being disbanded. These units became known as The Russian Armoured Car Division. The formation consisted of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Squadrons. The formation fought in Russia with some distinction up until the Russian revolution, when things became difficult and the men were sent progressively home on leave. The final Members of the formations rear elements finally escaped via train to Murmansk and arrived back in the UK in February 1918.
www.oocities.org/pentagon/base/1545/WWI/Main/ArmouredCars...
Commander Oliver Stillingfleet Locker-Lampson, CMG, DSO (25 September 1880 (Belgravia, London) – 8 October 1954 (Kensington, London)) was a British politician and naval officer. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Ramsey, Huntingdonshire and Birmingham Handsworth from 1910 to 1945 as a Conservative
In December 1914 Locker-Lampson received a commission in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. This was largely on the basis of an understanding with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, that he would personally fund the establishment of an armoured car squadron for the Royal Naval Air Service's Armoured Car Division. After training at Whale Island, Hampshire and in north Norfolk near his family home, Newhaven Court, Cromer, Locker-Lampson's No. 15 Squadron was sent to France, then operated in the unoccupied portion of Belgium on attachment to the Belgian Army during much of 1915.
By the end of 1915, trench warfare meant there was no scope for armoured cars on the Western Front and most of the RNAS's armoured car squadrons were disbanded by the Admiralty. However, three squadrons of RNAS armoured cars were assembled and sent by ship to Murmansk as the Armoured Car Expeditionary Force (ACEF), also known as the Russian Armoured Car Division, with Locker-Lampson in command in order to show support for Britain's Russian ally. The ACEF operated with the Russian Army in several areas, including Galicia, Romania, and the Caucasus.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Locker-Lampson
He was also a director of a Norwich based car and coach-building firm Duff, Morgan & Vermont, (more familiar to Norwich residents of my generation as Duff Morgan). According to this web-site the firms London garage built all of the early armoured cars used by the RNAS in WW1.
www.duffmorgan.com/about-us/
Galatz is apparently its German name, in Romania its known as Galati and is a port on the Danube in the Moldavia region.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gala%C8%9Bi
