Donald James Hadingham

Born: October 1984

Died: 19 April 1917

Rank and Regiment: Corporal 50473 in the 163rd Company of the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry)

Resting Place: Gaza War Cemetery, Syria - XXIV. E. 3.

Memorials: St. Mary the Virgin, Carleton Forehoe, United Kingdom

Donald was the younger brother of Bertie Hadingham.

He was born in Carleton Forehoe in October 1894. By the time of the 1911 Census, Bertie, as we have seen, had left home and was working in Norwich, and Donald’s older brother Lewis had followed in his father’s footsteps, working as a carpenter. Donald was working as a domestic gardener.

Donald enlisted in the Norfolk Regiment, as Private No 1955; his service number suggests that he enlisted early in the Great War, though most of his military records have been lost. He transferred to the Machine Gun Corps with the rank of Corporal, and was killed in action in Syria on 19 April 1917. He is buried at Gaza War Cemetery.

His effects amounting to £19 5s 3d, together with a War Gratuity of £13 10s, were paid out to his father. The amount of the War Gratuity implies that Donald enlisted not later than 19 August 1914.

While virtually all of Lewis Hadingham’s military records have been lost, he appears to have enlisted in the Royal Air Force in April 1918, just after it was formed by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. His service number was 161476. Flying in the Great War was a desperately dangerous activity – although by the time Lewis joined the RAF matters had improved from the early years of the war when the life expectancy of a Royal Flying Corps pilot was a few weeks at most, pilots were not allowed to carry parachutes because it was thought that this might encourage them to bail out if their aircraft was hit. Parachutes were only issued in 1919 when it was realised that skilled pilots were actually more difficult to replace than aircraft! However, Lewis was more fortunate than his younger brothers. He survived the war, marrying in 1926 and eventually dying in Ketteringham in 1985 at the very ripe old age of 93. In 1939, he was working as an estate and farm bailiff, but was also an ARP Warden.

Gaza War Cemetery, Syria