Remembrance
Remembrance Sunday Services
We hold a Remembrance Sunday service and Church Parade on Remembrance Sunday each November, usually at 10.30am.
All are welcome to attend, as usual.
We at Allerton are fortunate in having in our church the memorials from Canning Street and Mount Pleasant Presbyterian churches, the latter being hidden from view in the Mount Pleasant room. We know who those men were, and we honour them as our own.
But on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, we spared a moment to look at the names of those from our church who gave their lives in the 1939 - 1945 conflict in the service of the nation, as we do on Remembrance Sunday each year.
They are:
Flying Officer Ronald Maclean ADAM. 223 Sqn RAF(VR).
The son of naval architect Thomas Maclean ADAM of 11 Allerton Drive with two sisters, Ailsa and Jean. Had moved down to Liverpool from Scotland, joined the forces straight from Liverpool College when war was declared. He died from his injuries over the Mediterranean on 25th October 1943, aged 21. He is commemorated on the Valletta Memorial in Malta.
George BARRY.
Had a sister Marjorie who was in the Guides at Allerton with Muriel Proven. Died in the last year of the war, on 25th April 1945
Captain William GALBRAITH. Merchant Navy, Master, SS Brackenfield.
Born in Peel on the Isle of Man, lived at 137 Booker Avenue with wife Lydia and two daughters, Joan and Barbara who came to Sunday School here at Allerton. He was killed in action on 10th June, 1944 when his ammunition coaster was torpedoed and sunk in mid-Channel by a German E-boat during the D-Day Normandy landings campaign.
Gunner Richard Frederick GUNN. Royal Artillery
Lived at 43 Chalfont Road with his wife Margaret Southey (Sloane), whom he married in Spring 1937. The first of our servicemen to die in WWII, on 17th November 1942, at Caserta, Campania in Italy. Richard is commemorated in some silver communion plate inscribed in dedication to his memory.
Flt/Lt Robert Edward George HUTCHISON DFC & Bar. 617 Sqn RAF
Lived in Brodie Avenue, the son of Robert and Ada Louise HUTCHISON, one of four children: his brother Len, who died tragically young before the war, his other brother Colin and sister Jean. Bobby had been at the Liverpool Institute, our Youth Club and the then Allerton Players, (now RADS). Worked at Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Joined the RAF where he became a member of 617 Squadron, the “Dambusters” as wireless operator/ gunner with W/C. Guy Gibson VC. A survivor of the Ruhr raids, he was killed with the rest of his crew in a subsequent air raid when their plane was shot down over Germany, near Reichwald, Westphalia on 16th September 1943. He was aged 25.
Pilot Officer George Herbert LAWRENSON. 110 Sqn RAF
Lived with his parents George and Margaret Ann LAWRENSON and younger brother in Barndale Road. Educated at the Liverpool Institute he, too, came to our Youth Club. He joined the RAF straight from school, became an RAF service crew member and was posted to India just after his 21st birthday in 1939. In charge of engine servicing, George died in a plane crash when testing an aircraft following a repair, on 23rd April 1943, just one week before he was due to return home. He was buried in India at Ranchi cemetery, Jharkhand, nr. Calcutta, aged 25.
Sergeant James Edwin MYLCHREEST. 59 Sqn RAF (VR)
The son of James Edwin (and Sarah Elit) MYLCHREEST who was lost in WW1, Edwin Jr was educated at the Liverpool Institute and was living in Childwall when war broke out. He served in the RAF and was lost having been reported missing following a reconnaissance flight over Le Havre, his official date of death being 21st August 1941. aged just 24.
Flying Officer Gordon Gambley WHYTE. 300 (Polish) Sqn RAF (VR)
Lived with his family also on Brodie Avenue, the son of a Merchant Navy Captain D L WHYTE. His sister Margaret was a long-standing member of this church. After education at the Liverpool Collegiate School, Gordon worked briefly in Martin’s Bank, Woolton before service in the RAF as a rear gunner in Bomber Command. He died and was buried in Durnbach, near Munich, Germany after his plane was shot down on 26th August 1944.
With acknowledgements to the late Betty Phillips and
Muriel Proven, ancestry.co.uk and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Compiled
from currently available information by Ray Redfern. VE75 8 May 2020
