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| 2nd Lieutenant Rodney Nigel HOLT (337004) | |
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10th (2nd The Rangers) Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps Date of birth: 6th July 1925 Date of death: 20th July 1945 Killed on active service aged 20 Buried at Hollybrook Cemetery in Southampton Section K8 Grave 185 |
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| Rodney Nigel Holt was born at Southampton on the 6th of July 1925 the younger son of Alwyn Barton Holt, a travelling representative for a cotton manufacturer, and Anne (nee Ward) Holt of Mill Hill House, Romsey in Hampshire. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Heads and Gibbs Houses from January 1940 to 1944. He was a member of the Running Team in 1942 and 1943 and was appointed as a House Captain in 1943. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on the 9th of December 1944 and by July 1945 he was based at Barnard Castle where he was involved in special assault training. On the 20th of July 1945 Rodney Holt was in command of eight men from his battalion during an assault training exercise on Lake Windermere. They were crossing the lake at 5.30am in a collapsible assault boat in full battle kit between Cockshott Point and Belle Island, a distance of some three hundred yards, when a sudden squall blew up. Rodney Holt was in the rearmost boat when it was swamped when about one hundred yards from the Belle Island shore and the men fell into the water. He and five of the men were drowned while three men clung to the capsized boat until they were rescued by their comrades. The bodies of the dead were all recovered later that day by a party of eight boatmen under Mr. Norman Garnett, who dragged the lake for six hours in difficult conditions. The dead were: - 2nd Lieutenant Rodney Nigel Holt Rifleman Jack William Weir Rifleman Reginald Ernest Taylor Rifleman Harry Cohen Richard Rifleman Henry Frank Thorp Rifleman Ronald William Digby The men are commemorated on a bench next to the war memorial at Lake Windermere. |
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| Gibbs House |
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