The Men of the Yeomanry in the Courier

The Warwick Courier has been partnering our project to find the stories behind the WW2 names on the Church Street war memorial. They gave prominent coverage to the public appeal for information and photographs of the 112 men named on the memorial, launched on the 80th anniversary of VE-Day, and have been reporting on some of the stories we have uncovered since then, with full pages over the following three weeks. 

On June 5th, the newspaper devoted another full page to the project with the stories of the Warwickshire Yeomanry who did not survive WW2. With considerable help from Philip Wilson, the Trustee and Archivist at the Warwickshire Yeomanry Museum in the Court House, we have pieced together the stories of the three Warwick men who were serving with the famous Yeomanry Regiment during WW2 and are named on the memorial.

Major Ernest Heather was invalided out of the Middle East where he had been serving while the Yeomanry were still mounted cavalry. He never recovered from illnesses contracted on active service and died shortly after the war had ended.

Arthur ‘Mac’ Midwinter was killed in Italy when the Yeomanry had stopped using horses and had converted to Sherman tanks. His Yeomanry unit was ambushed by German forces at the Battle of the Cemetery near Orvieto in Italy.

Cyril Hall was killed at El Alamein in a particularly fierce tank battle in which no fewer than 37 British tanks were lost.

You can see more about the exploits of the Yeomanry in both world wars on the special website www.warwickwarmemorial.org.uk . We hope that the publicity in the newspaper will encourage more families to look out their photograph albums and send us information about the Warwick men who died in WW2 and are named on the memorial in Church Street. 

Email: Christine Shaw at info@warwickwarmemorial.org.uk