#war casualty

4 incidents tagged

Maurice Turnbull Killed by Sniper at Montchamp — August 1944

Glamorgan / England (cricket); 1st Battalion Welsh Guards (military)

1944-08-05

Major Maurice Turnbull of the Welsh Guards, the Glamorgan and England all-round sportsman who had played nine Tests, captained Glamorgan for ten years and represented Wales at rugby and squash, was shot through the head by a sniper near the Normandy village of Montchamp on 5 August 1944. He was 38. His was the second Test cricketer death of the Normandy campaign and ended the most polished all-round sporting career produced by inter-war Welsh cricket.

#maurice-turnbull#wwii#glamorgan

⭐Explosive

Hedley Verity Dies of Wounds at Caserta — July 1943

Yorkshire / England (cricket); 1st Battalion Green Howards (military)

1943-07-31

Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire and England slow left-arm bowler whose 144 Test wickets at 24.37 included a record 15 wickets in a single Lord's Test, died on 31 July 1943 in a German-controlled hospital at Caserta after being severely wounded leading his platoon during the Allied invasion of Sicily. He was 38, and had not played first-class cricket since taking 7/9 against Sussex on the day Britain declared war. His death — alongside that of fellow Test cricketers Ken Farnes, Ross Gregory and Maurice Turnbull — became the most poignant individual loss cricket suffered in the Second World War.

#hedley-verity#wwii#yorkshire

⭐Explosive

Ross Gregory Killed in RAF Wellington Crash — Bengal, June 1942

Victoria / Australia (cricket); RAF 215 Squadron (military)

1942-06-10

Pilot Officer Ross Gregory of the Royal Australian Air Force, attached to RAF 215 Squadron, was killed on 10 June 1942 when the Wellington bomber on which he was the observer exploded in mid-air near Gafargaon in the Mymensingh district of Bengal. Gregory had played two Tests for Australia in 1937 and was widely tipped to be a long-term replacement for Bradman in the middle order. He is the only Test cricketer to die in active service in Asia, and his death — alongside those of Farnes, Verity and Turnbull — became part of the running ledger of cricketers lost to the war.

#ross-gregory#wwii#australia

⭐Explosive

Ken Farnes Killed in RAF Training Crash — Chipping Warden, October 1941

Essex / England (cricket); No.12 OTU, RAF Chipping Warden (military)

1941-10-20

On the night of 20 October 1941, the England Test fast bowler Pilot Officer Ken Farnes was killed when his Vickers Wellington bomber crashed shortly after take-off from RAF Chipping Warden in Oxfordshire on a night-flying training exercise. Farnes was 30, had taken 60 wickets in 15 Tests between 1934 and 1939, and had been one of the few amateurs in the country considered the equal of the leading Australian fast bowlers. His death, just 11 weeks before Hedley Verity was wounded in Sicily, was the first major loss of an active England Test cricketer in the Second World War.

#ken-farnes#wwii#essex