Ronald Arthur Davies (plain old 'Ron' to everyone) was born in 1920 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire. His father was Arthur and his mum, Elsie.

Ron’s father was the Branch Manager of the Co-Operative Society grocery store in the town centre, whilst his mum was kept busy on home duties at number 19 Marlpool Lane, the road which led to Franche village.

In 1931 when Ron was aged eleven, he was joined by a ‘little’ brother named Kenneth.

Ron was clearly a clever child, passing his entry examination and gaining a place at Hartlebury Grammar School where he excelled not only in his studies, but also at sport. He represented the school in both cricket and football, proving himself to be an extremely good goalkeeper. Ron’s prowess at tennis was also well-known.

On leaving school Ron found work with the local newspaper, the Kidderminster Shuttle, specialising as a Monotype keyboard operator (meaning that Ron would enter text via a compressed air-driven suite of keyboards which punched holes in a paper tape, delivering output that was on a par with modern-day computer typesetting).

For Ron to master the many intricacies of the Monotype system, he had to spend time at the London-based school for trainee operators which was hosted by the Monotype Corporation (back-in-the-day, the operational use of this equipment really was quite specialised). 

Away from work, Ron continued to excel in his sporting life; captaining Franche Football Club in the 1937-38 season when they won the ‘Harriers Junior Cup’ - beating stiff opposition from both Kidderminster and the Black Country to reach the final.

In the 1939 Register, it’s confirmed that the family had moved house – albeit not far – to number 262 Marlpool Lane. In a nod to his two boys, Mr. Davies had named the new house ‘Kenarth.’

At this time, Ron’s father was still working as a Branch Manager in retail, whilst Ron was now a fully trained and highly regarded Monotype keyboard operator.

Dad Arthur, Mum Elsie and youngsters Ron and Kenneth, would definitely have been listening to the wireless on the evening of the 14th of May 1940, when Anthony Eden (the Minister for War) urged the people of Britain to form a civilian-based army to bolster homeland defences against what was fast becoming, an ever-more likely invasion. He advised that all volunteers for such an army should report to their local police station.

As was the case when such requests for recruits were made during the Great War, the British people responded magnificently (indeed many of the respondents to Anthony Eden’s request were the same men who’d stepped forward so enthusiastically some twenty-six years earlier).

Across the country, within twenty-four hours, a quarter of a million men had volunteered and within six weeks, one and a half million men had enlisted.

Kidderminster menfolk certainly weren’t slow in coming forward; the Kidderminster Shuttle reported on the 18th of May 1940 that:

“The Police were immediately inundated with enquiries and the number enrolled soon ran into hundreds. The first man volunteered almost before Mr. Eden’s broadcast was finished and three others ‘had signed on the dotted line’ before 10 o’clock that night.”

By Friday May the 17th (just three days after Mr. Eden’s broadcast) Kidderminster Police advised that the number of volunteers whose details had been taken, was 350. A week later, this number exceeded 600 and the Kidderminster Shuttle was keen to help add some structure to the process by informing its readers that:

“Col. W.H. Wiggin is the Commander of Worcestershire County sub-area, and Major W.A. Painter MC has been appointed Divisional Organiser LDV Corps for Kidderminster; his Headquarters for this purpose is to be the Police Station.”

Ron Davies was one of the keen young men who’d volunteered alongside some of the town’s Great War veterans, eager to serve in the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) or as they would soon become known, the Kidderminster Home Guard

There were sixteen sections in the Kidderminster Home Guard and Ron served for eleven months with the Wolverley Platoon before signing up with the regular army.

After his time with the Kidderminster Home Guard, where “the Quartermaster’s office was over Bert Onslow’s fish shop in Trinity Lane” and the stores were “through an archway between the Futurist cinema and Woolworths” Ron’s subsequent assignment to a cavalry regiment of some standing, may have come as something of a culture shock.

The 12th Royal Lancers was an armoured car regiment that had distinguished itself in France, having been the first Regiment to cross the Belgian Frontier. During the subsequent retreat they covered the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), at one time holding a front of forty miles between Ypres and Nieuport. In his despatches Field Marshall Lord Gort wrote that: 

“…without the Twelfth Lancers, only a small part of the Army would have reached Dunkirk.” 

That had all happened before Ron joined them; but as an eager, new recruit, his wait to see action wouldn’t be a long one…

In September 1941 the Regiment sailed for Africa with the 1st Armoured Division, a key element of the British Eighth Army. They landed in Port Tewfik, Egypt a month later.

Ron fought with the 12th Royal Lancers throughout the North Africa campaign and saw much action at:

The Battle of Gazala ~ a battle which cost the Allies around 98,000 men killed, wounded, and captured as well as around 540 tanks destroyed. German and Italian losses were approximately 32,000 casualties and 114 tanks.

For his victory and the subsequent capture of Tobruk, German General Erwin Rommel was promoted to Field Marshal by Hitler.

Ron was wounded in this battle, subsequently spending some time in a base hospital before returning to his squadron.

The Battle of Alam el Halfa ~ this battle took place between the 30th of August and the 5th of September 1942, just south of El Alamein. Newly promoted Field Marshal Erwin Rommel attempted an envelopment of the British Eighth Army (of which Ron’s 12th Royal Lancers were part) with the intention of defeating the Allies before they were able to take-on reinforcements. 

Montgomery knew of Rommel’s intentions through signal-intercepts (de-coded at Bletchley Park) so he deliberately left a gap in the southern sector of the front, knowing that Rommel planned to attack there. Montgomery then deployed the bulk of his armour and artillery around Alam el Halfa Ridge, 20 miles behind the front.

Unlike in previous engagements, Montgomery ordered that the Allied tanks were to be used as anti-tank guns, dug-in along the defensive positions on the ridge.

When German and Italian attacks were beaten back on the ridge, Rommel ordered a withdrawal.

The Battle of El Alamein ~ This famous battle took place in October 1942. Montgomery opened the offensive against the Germans and Italians with the most devastating artillery barrage and in the thirteen day battle that followed, Rommel’s Afrika Korps was crushed and forced to retreat from Egypt, through Libya and to the borders of Tunisia.

The Allied victory at El Alamein was the beginning of the end of the Western Desert Campaign and effectively ended the Axis threat to the Middle East and Iran, reviving the morale of the western Allies, being their first major success against the Germans. The victory was wildly celebrated back in ‘Blighty’.

With the desert war won, Ron and his 12th Lancers were now charging headlong towards Tunisia where they were the first British troops to link up with the Americans in April 1943.

The Battle of Tunis ~ the Allies had endured two years of setbacks, losing thousands of men, and tons of equipment, to reach this point. Now, the end of the North African campaign was in site. Tunis was the glittering prize. With its capture, the Axis forces in North Africa would be forced to surrender.

Despite determined fighting since the end of December, the Germans and their Italian allies had been pushed back thousands of miles and finally kettled into the area around Tunisia’s capital.

Constant Allied pressure caused the Axis frontlines to crumble. The old German tactic of throwing heavy counterattacks at the Allies had failed to make gains. The Allies’ advance was relentless, breaking German and Italian resistance before it.

Next for Ron was Italy…

Italy ~ In 1943 Ron's 12th Royal Lancers landed on mainland Italy, ready to continue the fight against Axis forces; pushing their armoured cars to the limit, serving as a reconnaissance unit.

Richard Doherty’s excellent book describing the pitfalls of a reconnaissance role in World War Two was appropriately entitled: “Only the enemy in front (every other beggar behind).”

Such was the nature of the treacherous work that was to be undertaken by Ron’s 12th Royal Lancers in Italy; always exposed and always the first to make contact with the enemy.

Ron and his mates would soon form the opinion that Winston Churchill's description of Italy being "the soft underbelly of Europe” was well wide of the mark… 

At the start of 1944, German forces held the Rapido-Gari, Liri, and Garigliano valleys and several surrounding peaks and ridges. Together, these features formed their defensive front which was known as the ‘Gustav Line.’

Monte Cassino, a historic hilltop abbey which dominated the town of Cassino and the entrances to the Liri and Rapido valleys was part of the Gustav Line defence system. Lying in a protected historic zone, it was initially left unoccupied by the Germans, although they manned some positions set into the slopes below the abbey's walls.

Monte Casino ~ between the 17th of January and the 18th of May 1944, Monte Cassino and the Gustav Line defences were attacked on four occasions by Allied troops. After much hard fighting and many losses, on the 16th of May soldiers from the Polish II Corps launched one of the final assaults on the German defensive position as part of a twenty-division assault along a twenty-mile front.

Two days later, a Polish flag and a Union Jack were raised over the ruins.

In this battle, Ron’s 12th Lancers had initially been used as infantry – a move that would be repeated as the Italian campaign dragged on.

Operation Olive ~ Ron and his 12th Royal Lancers had been fighting their way up the Italian peninsula since landing in Italy almost a year previously. By August 1944, they seemed poised to crack the final Nazi defensive line, but German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had other ideas.

His last hope of halting the German retreat was the ‘Gothic Line’, a ten-mile-deep belt of fortifications extending from south of La Spezia on the west coast, through the natural defensive barrier of the Apennines, to the Adriatic Sea between Pesaro and Ravenna on the east coast.

The assault on the Gothic Line in the autumn of 1944, was launched at the request of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, with the aim of destroying the German Army in Italy and thus enabling the Western Allies to swing east, take Trieste and secure entry into the Balkans ahead of the Soviet Red Army (already Churchill was foreseeing a potential post-war problem with the soviets and was keen to gain the upper hand).

With this objective, the Eighth Army launched ‘Operation Olive’ on August the 25th, throwing everything they had at the Gothic Line defences.

Early signs were encouraging, but as always, German opposition soon stiffened.

The exact movement of Ron’s unit at this time is difficult to pin-down; undertaking reconnaissance work as they were, the armoured cars of ‘C’ Squadron would have been extremely busy, racing from one position to another, gathering information to help the planning for forthcoming attacks on German positions in Rimini and Coriano.

One thing is for sure, Ron’s 12th Royal Lancers would have had the enemy in front and every other beggar behind… 

On the 2nd of September 1944, after having seen so much action in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Italy, Ron was killed in action.

He was just 23 years old.

Today, Ron rests under a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone in the beautiful and tranquil Arezzo War Cemetery in Tuscany, Italy. The personal epitaph chosen for his headstone by his family reads:

“HE FELL ASLEEP LEAVING ONLY MEMORIES. HE GAVE THE GREATEST GIFT, HIS UNFINISHED LIFE”

The Germans had made a stand in front of Arezzo early in July 1944 and there was fierce fighting before the town was taken by the 6th Armoured Division with the aid of the 2nd New Zealand Division, to which Ron’s 12th Lancers had been attached.

The terrain around this cemetery therefore, would have been well known to Ron.

Today, Arezzo War Cemetery contains 1,266 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

Back in Blighty, Ron is commemorated on the Kidderminster War Memorial, which is situated to the front of St. Mary and All Saints Church. Below the names of the fallen on this memorial, the following epitaph is inscribed:

“THESE DIED THE NOBLEST DEATH A MAN MAY DIE ~ FIGHTING FOR GOOD AND RIGHT AND LIBERTY ~ AND SUCH A DEATH IS IMMORTALITY”

Ron is also commemorated on the 1939-1945 memorial tablet inside St Barnabas Church, in Franche village, a two minute walk from Ron’s home, Kenarth on Marlpool Lane.

On September the 16th 1944, Ron’s local newspaper, the Kidderminster Shuttle, printed news of his death. The fact that Ron was an employee of the newspaper and that the article was written by a close work colleague clearly comes across. He was clearly very highly regarded – not just for his professionalism in work, but also as a highly decent and honourable young man:

“Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Davies of ‘Kenarth,’ Marlpool Lane, received the tragic news on Monday that their elder son, Corpl. Ronald Arthur Davies, had died from wounds in Italy.”

“By an irony of fate, the distressing news reached the bereaved family on Ron’s 24th Birthday.”

“The toll of war has taken a life full of promise and many besides his immediate family relatives have sustained a shock which only time can eradicate. An old boy of Hartlebury Grammar School, Ron came to the ‘Shuttle’ to learn the intricacies of the Monotype and within a few months perfected his knowledge…”

“His work was characterised by industry, care and thoroughness and he enjoyed the affection and esteem of the whole staff as well as the management of the ‘Shuttle.’ Quiet, competent, pleasing and obliging, he took the utmost interest in the quality of his work and bade fair to become an extraordinarily good compositor.”

“One can only estimate the loss his removal means to his family…”

“That he was as good a soldier as he was considerate and helpful at home and in his working life, none who knew him will doubt.”

Rest in Peace Ron Davies ~ your service and your bravery will never be forgotten ~ and your sacrifice will be remembered, For Evermore. 

Acknowledgements: This story could not have been told were it not for the wonderful team at the Kidderminster Museum of Carpet; most especially Geoff, Jill and Jean. Very many thanks to you all. www.museumofcarpet.org.uk