Name
George William (Jack) Ashmole
Conflict
Second World War
Date of Death / Age
25/09/1944
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
307890
Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment
attd. 6th Bn Royal Welch Fusiliers
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
VALKENSWAARD WAR CEMETERY
I. D. 9.
Netherlands
Headstone Inscription
SOME DAY, JACK WE SHALL MEET AGAIN IN THAT BEAUTIFUL LAND. BARBARA AND JOHN
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School Memorial (WW2)
Biography
He had been born in Hertfordshire and was resident there and attended the Hitchin Grammar School from 1930 - 1934. Whilst there he obtained the School Certificate and a place in the hockey eleven at which game he excelled It was said that he played intelligently and with a sore eye and that his stick-work was a pleasure to watch. On leaving school, he was first employed by the British Tabulating Machine Co. Ltd in Letchworth. Later he became a clerk at Three Counties Mental Hospital in Arlesey and transferred from there to fill a vacancy on the staff of Maidstone Mental Hospital. He was also a bellringer at St. Peter's Church, Arlesey and a member of the St. John's Ambulance Association.
Soon after the outbreak of war he joined the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, having Service Number 307890. After being commissioned early in 1944 he was sent overseas and was attached to the 6th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Whilst serving with this unit he was killed in action in Northwest Europe. This was at the time that desperate efforts were being made to reach the paratroopers in the Arnhem bridgehead from the position of Jack's grave and the date of his death, his unit was probably protecting a flank of the thrust towards Nijmegen and Arnhem being made by the Guards Armoured Division.
He is buried about five miles from the Belgian border in Valkenswaard War Cemetery in North Brabant in Holland in Plot 1, Row D, Grave 9. A private inscription on the headstone reads ·”Someday, Jack, we shall meet again in that beautiful land. Barbara and John".
He was the eldest son of William George and Ethel Ashmole of 22, Church Lane, Arlesey and at the time of his death he had a younger brother serving in India and the Middle East. Jack had married Miss Barbara Sunnick of Maidstone in 1940. A photograph of him appears in the Citizen Newspaper dated 17th March 1944.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines – ‘Hitchin’s Century of Sacrifice’, Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle, Citizen dated 17th Mar and 13th Oct 1944
