Gerald A. Birkett – Trinity School War Memorial

Key Information

Name: Gerald Anthony Birkett

DoB: 03/09/1919 Carlisle

Regt: Royal Corps of Signals, Hong Kong Signal Company

DoD: 08/12/1941 22

Commemorated: SAI WAN MEMORIAL

Hong Kong

Academic Career: Creighton School 1931-1933

Other:

Biographical Information

Family Background

Family Background:

Gerald had three older brothers and a sister and one younger brother. His three oldest siblings had been born in India. His father was a career soldier who had served 22 years in the army mainly in India, he had married a Swedish girl Ann Norah Matilda Janson in November 1903 in Allahabad. Gerald’s father Alfred Nicholson Birkett had been born in Workington and the family returned to live in Cumberland when they left India. Gerald and his brothers George and Allan were all born in Carlisle. George died as a baby. His brother William Edward was also in the Royal Corps of Signals.

Gerald’s paternal grandfather had run a successful shoemaker’s business on Wilson Street in Workington. Alfred was the youngest of eight children his two eldest brothers became solicitors.
Academic Record
War Record

War Service:

Gerald left the Creighton School in 1933 and joined the Corps in the spring of 1934 aged 14, obviously wanting to be a career soldier like his father. He followed his older brother William and joined the Royal Corps of Signals. He joined ‘F’ company, Training Battalion at Catterick Garrison. He finished his training 3 years later in September 1937 and was posted to 2^nd Divisional Signals in Aldershot and later (precise date unknown) he was posted to Hong Kong.

The Japanese attacked Hong Kong on the same day that they attacked Pearl Harbour (8^th Dec 1941). Gerald along with another 49 men from the Hong Kong Signal Corps was listed as a casualty on Christmas Day 1941, and the CWGC gives his date of death as 8/12/1941 the first day that the Japanese attacked. The Hong Kong Signal Corps was under the command of Major Leonard Hayes. The corps consisted of 7 officers and 177 men. Nick Metcalfe states that ‘There is no record in the war diary to confirm exactly when or how he died. His body was later found by Chaplain H. L. O. Davis and buried near St. Albert’s convent, which was on Hong Kong island on the plain at the foot of Mt Nicholson. In the consolidation of graves after the war his was not found, hence his commemoration on the Sai Wan Memorial. If he did die on 8 December it must have been in an air raid because the Japanese weren’t on the island until several days later (they attacked Kowloon first).’

It therefore seems likely that a list of all casualties was made on 25/12/1941 and that Gerald died between the 8^th and the 25^th of December.
Other
Sources