FAQs
Our Fallen gives details (including home addresses) of people from Lowestoft and surrounding villages lost in the two world wars honouring, remembering their sacrifice.
Which villages?
Barnby, Blundeston, Carlton Colville, Corton, Flixton, Lothingland Flixton, The Saints Gisleham, Kessingland, Lound, Lowestoft (town), Mutford, Oulton, Oulton Broad, Rushmere, Somerleyton,, Ashby and Herringfleet.
Inspiration
The inspiration for the our fallen project came from a Felixstowe project “Felixstowe Remembers” where as you can see they identified where people had lived and added posters to the relevant streets. To me this bought history to life and made me wonder if we could do something similar for Lowestoft? Special thanks to Darren Aitchison and his team.
Our Sources
NB everything is 'fact checked' - it does not go into a biography unless there is a verifiable source.
General
- Indexes of births and marriages and deaths
- Probate records
- Parish records - mainly Norwich Diocese but others used as well
- Census returns
- 1939 Register
- Newspapers - mainly Lowestoft Journal but others used as well
- Honours and awards
- London Gazette
- Award cards for awards of the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal
Army
- Army service papers WO 363/364
Pension Record Cards (Western Front Association) - Register of Soldiers' Effects (National Army Museum)
- Soldiers Died in the Great War
- War Diaries WO 95
- Medal Rolls WO 329
- Medal Index Cards WO 372
- Medical Records MH 106
- Army List (officers)
- Prisoner of War Records (International Red Cross)
- Silver War Badge rolls WO 329
- Memorial rolls - various
- Unit histories
- Lives of the First World War website
- Long Long Trail website
- Commonwealth War Graves Website
Navy
- Royal Navy service registers
- Royal Naval Reserve service cards
- Royal Naval Division index cards
- Royal Navy War Graves roll
- Navy List (officers)
Commonwealth War Graves website - Naval-History.net website
- Various websites relating to specific ships
- Mercantile Marine / Fishing Fleet
- Register of seamen lost at sea - Board of Trade
- Crew List Index Project website
- Crew List 1915 (National Maritime Museum website)
- Commonwealth War Graves website
- Various websites relating to specific vessels
Royal Flying Corps / Royal Air Force
- For Royal Flying Corps see Army sources as well
- For Royal Naval Air Service see Navy sources as well
- Royal Air Force muster roll 1918
- Royal Air Forces service records 1918 to 1939 - officers and other ranks
Squadron histories - Airmen Died WW1 and WW2
- Bomber Command losses WW2
- Contributions from Malcolm Nattress
- Commonwealth Units
- Service papers (most are extant for Canada, Australia and New Zealand)
- War Diaries
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) records Most, but not all, of the casualties in either world war will have an entry Issues, but many entries lack addresses and/or biographical information
Transferring data based on the key word Lowestoft meant that addresses such as Lowestoft Road Gorleston were imported and they had to be identified and checked before deletion
Service personnel discharged before they died are often not included in CWGC records
Some serving personnel are omitted from CWGC records
CWGC has errors – for example double entries for one person (Edward John Nichols or Arthur Peak) Arthur Peak served in the 11 th (Cambridgeshire) Service Battalion Suffolk Regiment NOT in the Cambridgeshire Regiment
Evidence: Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects and Pension Record Card
Roll of Honour website Transcriptions of war memorials with biographical details of those recorded on the memorials Issues:
Most transcripts were made before the release of key documents such as Pension Record Cards (Army) or Royal Naval Reserve service records
Several gaps and ambiguities
Duplicate entries
GODDARD W C NOT 4 Suffolks as suggested – William Claud MGC – verified by Pension Record Card GODFREY R C found Robert Charles Royal Navy died in 1920 after leaving the service verified by service record
GOOCH Charles / Charles Samuel a duplicate entry verified by searches of civil records
Local War Memorials Our aim is to include every local war memorial. To date 29 have been included and three remain to be added (Carlton Colville WW2 [book], Kessingland WW2 and the Lowestoft School Memorial) Issues:
While several memorials already have transcriptions on the Roll of Honour website, several do not, for example South Cliff Congregational Church
While there were many memorials created to commemorate those who died in World War One, far fewer were created after World War Two Drawing the three sources together we were able to identify 1874 individuals and since then one additional person has been identified and added, making 1875 – there may be another 30 to add IMAGE SCREEN SHOT 3 Kirkley WM NOT on RofH For each individual found from the above sources details had to be checked to ensure that there was a verifiable connection to Lowestoft. Most difficult are the WW2 casualties who may not feature on the 1939 register as it is redacted and because none of the memorial registers for the army and navy give specific addresses (unlike WW1). Hence the largest number of entries without addresses will be this group of individuals. Probate registers helped a great deal in solving aspects of this problem.