LEATHERHEAD WAR MEMORIALS - WWII
Lieutenant Llewelyn Walter Joseph 'Joe' Evans
281/86 Light Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery
Town Memorial World War II
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LIEUTENANT
LLEWELYN WALTER JOSEPH EVANS
Service Number: 217035
Royal Artillery
281/86 Lt. A.A. Regt.
Died 13 September 1944
Age 30 years old
Buried or commemorated at
CORIANO RIDGE WAR CEMETERY
XVIII, H, 10.
Italy
Son of Hugh Llewelyn Evans and Edith Evans; husband of Irene Margaret Evans, of Leatherhead, Surrey. B.A., Hons. (Oxon.).
He joined the army in 1940 and was sent to Middle East. At end of Desert Campaign he was sent to Italy. Near Rimini he was killed in an attack on the Gothic Line.
Newspaper cutting 4 Oct 1944
EVANS Killed on active service,
Sept 1944, Ll WJ EVANS, Lieut, Queen's Royal Regt, late RA, dearly loved
elder son of the Rev H Ll and Mrs Evans, St Matthias Vicarage, Poplar,
also beloved husband of Peggy, and father of Hugh, Highfield, Linden
Gardens, Leatherhead.
Surrey Advertiser
Saturday 14 October 1944
QUEEN’S OFFICER KILLED
The news of the death in action in Italy of Lieut. Llewelyn W. J. Evans, The Queen’s Royal Regiment, of which his wife was unofficially informed fortnight ago, has now been confirmed. Mrs. Evans is the eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Ireland Russell, of Highfields, Linden Gardens, Leatherhead, and has resided with them since her husband went overseas.
The news of the death in action in Italy of Lieut. Llewelyn W. J. Evans, The Queen’s Royal Regiment, of which his wife was unofficially informed fortnight ago, has now been confirmed. Mrs. Evans is the eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Ireland Russell, of Highfields, Linden Gardens, Leatherhead, and has resided with them since her husband went overseas.
Lieut. Evans was the elder son of the Rev.
Hugh Llewelyn Evans, vicar of St. Matthias, Poplar. He was educated at
St. John’s College, Leatherhead, and was a master at Downsend
Preparatory School, Leatherhead, where his wife also taught. They have a
son 20 months old. Three years ago Lieut. Evans joined the Royal
Artillery, and later transferred to The Queen’s. His younger brother is
in the Merchant Navy.
Mr. G. Ireland Russell, who is a post
warden, has three other daughters and two sons. Mr. G. T. Russell is a
lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. One daughter, Miss A. M. Russell, is a
Leading Wren; Miss Ruth Russell is a pilot in the A.T.A.; and the other
son, Mr. W. T. Russell, after serving seven months in the Royal Navy, is
at present taking a Government engineering course, and hopes to rejoin
the Royal Navy.
The Johnian
March 1945
[permission awaited to add this report]
His life
He was known as "Joe": his birth on 7 December 1913 was registered in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales.His father was Rev Hugh Llewelyn Evans, born 20 June 1888 in Llanwddyn, Montgomeryshire, a son of Hugh Evans, a Stone Cutter from Carnarvon, and Mary Evans from Trawsfynydd, Monmouthshire, a daughter of Richard and Margaret Evans.
His mother was Edith Fanny Mercer born 4 February 1886 in Southborough, Kent. She was a daughter of Walter Mercer, a House Builder from Speldhurst, Kent and Sarah (Sally) Mercer (née Whitehorn) from Waddon, Surrey.
Their marriage in Tonbridge, Kent was registered in Q1 1911
Joe's siblings were Eifion (1916-1919) and Huw Mercer (1921-2012) Evans.
He was educated at St. John’s College, Leatherhead (set up for the education of sons of poor clergy), and at Keble College, Oxford, where he graduated with BA Hons in French. He taught in private schools in England (including Downsend School, Leatherhead) and in Switzerland.
Surrey Advertiser
Saturday 2 August 1941
MARRIED BY HIS FATHER
Only intimate friends attended the wedding
at Leatherhead Parish Church on Saturday of Miss Irene Margaret (Peggy)
Russell, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Ireland Russell, of
Highfield, Linden-gardens, Leatherhead, and Mr. Llewelyn Walter Joseph
Evans, elder son of the Rev. and Mrs. H. Evans, of St. Matthias
Vicarage, Poplar. The father of the bridegroom and the Rev. G. H. B.
Coleridge (vicar of Leatherhead) officiated, and the bride, wearing a
simple dress of delphinium blue, with wine hat and accessories, was
given away by her father. She was attended by her sister. Miss Diana
Russell, who wore a pink and blue floral silk dress, with a natural
straw hat trimmed with flowers. Mr. W. T. Russell (brother of the bride)
was best man.
Peggy was born 21 June 1913 in Gravesend, Kent. She was a daughter of George Ireland Russell (1884-1950) and Irene Russell (née Morris: 1885-1977) and taught at Downsend School, Leatherhead.
They had a son, Hugh.
Susan Evans published this memoir on Ancestry.com:
At the outbreak of the war in 1939, Joe,
who was a Conscientious Objector, took advantage of a bargain holiday to
go skiing in Switzerland with Peggy and her sister.
Following the rapid German advance across
Belgium, they fled Switzerland to catch one of the last ferries back
across the Channel.
Following Dunkerque, Joe realised that he
would have to enlist. He joined the Royal Artillery in 1940 and was
commissioned in 1941. He was sent to North Africa attached to the 2/6th
Queens Regiment at the end of Desert Campaign in 1942. His
regiment landed in Sicily with the 8th Army and took part in the Italian
Campaign. In September 1944 the 8th Army was fighting to break through
the eastern end of the Gothic Lines south of Rimini.
He was killed on 13 September near the
village of Croce. According to Major R C G Foster’s History of the
Queen’s Royal Regiment (Gale and Polden, 1953) vol. 8 p. 433 "on
the 12-13th September 1944, the 2/6th moved to the area of Croce itself
and the 2/7th about a mile north-east, near S. Savino and opposite the
Fabbri ridge. The whole area was in full view of the Germans still on
Gemmano ridge and the high ground to the west, and no movement at all
could be made by day. By night all transport had to use Stonk Alley, a
long straight road shelled day and night and littered with vehicles
knocked out by the enemy guns. The shelling and mortaring were the
heaviest anyone could remember. Our own artillery preparation for the
big attack started in the evening and was so continuous that single
explosions, friendly or hostile, could not be distinguished."
He is buried in the Coriano Ridge War
Cemetery.
After the war
Joe's father died in 1962 in Kilcoy, Australia. His mother died in 1970 in Townsville, Australia.According to the Electoral Registers his widow Peggy went on living with her mother at Highfield, Linden Gardens, Leatherhead until 1960. In 1961-62 they are listed at Highfield, Epsom Road, Leatherhead.
She died in January 2008 in Brockenhurst, Hampshire. Her ashes were scattered on her husband's grave in Italy in 2010.
Leatherhead Town Memorial
Leatherhead RBL Roll of Honour, Leatherhead Parish Church
St John's School, Leatherhead
Keble College, Oxford
the website editor would like to add further
information on this casualty
e.g. a photo of him, his headstone, and any recollections of him
last updated 20 Aug 20