Frederick Iles

Memorial: Hanham - High Street

Regiment: Royal Tank Regiment

Medals: 1939–45 Star, War Medal 1939–1945

Rank and number: Trooper 14330518

Parents: Jabez and Daisy Edith Iles

Home address: The family had lived in Stroud but moved to ‘Grasmere’ 155 Whittucks Road, Hanham, in 1934

Pre-war occupation: University Student at Bristol University, serving in the Home Guard until he received his ‘call up’ papers

Date of birth: 1923

Place of birth: Stroud

Date of death: 17/04/1945

Buried/Commemorated at: Becklingen War Cemetery (Ref. 2. J. 4.), Germany

Age: 22

Further information:

Frederick's father was a policeman and worked in Dursley and Stroud in Gloucestershire. He retired in 1933 and moved back to Hanham where he had been born. Frederick won a scholarship to Marling School in Stroud and was transferred to Kingswood Grammar School when he and his family moved to Hanham. Fred won a scholarship to Bristol University. He wanted to join the RAF but was persuaded but his father to join the Army as ‘too many pilots were being killed’. He went to officers training and joined the Royal Armoured Corps as sergeant and later transferred to the Royal Tank Corps where he became a Master Gunner and Master Driver. He went to Europe after the D Day Landings and was in the first convoy of tanks to knock down the gates of Belsen Concentration Camp, which he later described as ‘Hell on Earth’. During the clearing of the site at Luneburg Heath, where the Germans surrender to Montgomery took place, he wrote home saying ‘it’s all over now, we will soon be home’. On April 17th 1945 only weeks from the end of the war in Europe he was killed by an allied Typhoon aircraft which accidently bombed their own tanks

By kind permission, this information is based on the following source(s):

This information is based by kind permission on the following source.
1) Booklet ‘Not Just a Name on Stone’ by Hanham Local History Society
2) Thanks to Mr R Crew and Mrs. M Antill of Hanham Local History society for their help
3) Jo Hurst, researcher for the Second World War Stories Project.