Ronald Eldridge was my dad's younger brother, so if he had lived he would have been my uncle.

 Born in 1925 and brought up in the East End of London, he was the youngest of four children and the only one not to have returned from the war.

He joined the Hertfordshire Regiment in 1942 and saw service in Gibraltar before eventually being posted to Italy.

In August 1944 he was part of the Italian Campaign which lasted until October 1945. The following are extracts from the Hertfordshire Gazette which chronicled the events of the campaign as they happened. - "The story starts astride the River Arno in Florence and ends with the departure of the Division to rest and refit from positions about 15 miles South-West of Bologna. This represents an advance of just over a hundred miles up the centre of Italy. During the campaign almost every variety of weather conditions was experienced. August and September were hot and sunny. October and November were just wet. Soaking clothes, mud and yet more mud...by the middle of January 1945 the cold was intense...with drifts of snow six or seven feet high."

Ron never saw that snow because less than one month after the start of the campaign he was killed. The Gazette goes on to describe his last actions - "There was no advance on 4 Sep. Each of the forward companies did excellent recce patrols...Lt. Sutton was out nearly 10 hours with Pte Eldridge. These two laid up within 150 yards of an enemy paratroop position and later returned in daylight over very difficult country. It was almost certainly not spotted. This was a fine piece of work."

There is no mention of how he was killed except to say that the only casualties were due to mines being laid in front of 2 and 4 Coys.

Ron was part of 3 Coy. He was the only one of 3 Coy to be listed as killed on that day and he was mentioned in despatches.

I never knew my Uncle Ron except through the memories of my dad, who himself served in the RAF 609 Squadron as an armourer. He too has now passed on and I am the only one left to keep alive the memory of Pte Ronald Eldridge, Mentioned in Despatches.

Now, there are just the faded photographs of a handsome young man and the stories told to me by my dad. My love is with you both always.