John Foster was killed in action on 14 October 1944 in the vicinity of Overloon. He was aged 34 at the time. He was a Lance Corporal in the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment (Service No. 4535833). He was initially buried at Cemetery De Kleffen in Overloon and re-interred on 15 July 1946 in grave I. C. 10 in the Overloon CWG Cemetery.

No photo of John has yet been found. Should anyone reading this have a photo of him or further information regarding him – or if they are aware of any errors in his biography below can they please contact the Foundation?

 John’s Family Background

John Foster was the son of Charles Robert and Mary Rebecca Foster.
 
Charles Robert Foster married Mary Rebecca Lawson in 1898 in Holbeach, Lincolnshire.
 
Holbeach is situated in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire. This is in the Fenland area south west of the Wash. Until the beginning of the 17th century, the sea came to within 2 miles of the town which was also subject to severe floods. Various land drainage programmes moved the coastline of the Wash to 9 miles away, leaving Holbeach surrounded by reclaimed fertile agricultural land.
 
Charles R Foster had been born on 25/8/1869 in Holbeach while Mary R Lawson was born in Fleet around 1878. Fleet is just a mile or so east of Holbeach. It is thought that Charles and Mary had four children, all in Holbeach: Samuel Garrett on 6/9/1906, Rose on 8/12/1907, Arthur in 1909 and John in 1910.
 
Charles and Mary lived in Station Street Holbeach. Charles was a Boot and Shoe Maker and Repairer. By 1911 three of their children were with them, but not Arthur. It isn’t clear what had happened to him, but he may have died. In 1911, Charles’ brother Alfred, aged 50, single and an agricultural labourer was living with them. Sadly, Samuel Garrett Foster died in Holbeach in 1919, aged just 12. He is buried in the cemetery there. By 1921 therefore, only Rose and John were living in Holbeach with their parents. Mary was now doing land work.
 
Mary Rebecca Foster died in 1932 in Holbeach and was buried there.               
 
John’s sister, Rose, married Frederick G Palmer in Holbeach in 1933. It was her brother John who gave her away. By September 1939 Rose and Frederick were living at Cotterstock near Oundle in Northamptonshire with their first two children: Noel F born in 1936 and Stanley Roy born in 1939.
 
In September 1939 Charles R Foster, now shown as 70 and widowed, was living at 37 Station Street, Holbeach. In the same household was an Emma Maidens (a 51 year old married woman), Phyllis M Maidens (a 19 year old single Domestic Servant) and Tom Watson ( a widowed 50 year old agricultural labourer).

 John Foster’s Marriage

 It isn’t known when John Foster left home. He did not seem to appear in the Register taken in September 1939 in Lincolnshire so may have already joined the Army by then.
 
By early 1944 John was in Devizes in Wiltshire where he married Lily Irene Perritt or Perrett. His sister never talked much about his marriage to her family.
 
Lily was the daughter of Tom and Amelia (or Annie) Perritt. Tom Perritt had married Annie Potter in 1902 in Pewsey, Wiltshire. Tom was born on 11/9/1878 at Littlecot, Wiltshire and was a Shepherd.  Annie (generally called Amelia in later records) was born on 22/7/1879 in Upavon Wiltshire. Both locations are close to Pewsey, between Salisbury and Marlborough.
 
Lily was the youngest of at least 9 children born between 1908 and 1920. Those born before 1907 were born in East Chisenbury, those between then and 1916 in West Dean and Lily herself in Great Bathampton. Sadly, three of the children died in 1913.
 
In 1911 Tom and Amelia were living at West Dean, just east of Salisbury with their first four children. There too were Tom’s married sister, her daughter and a nephew of Tom’s.  By 1921 the family were at Great Bathampton, Steeple Langford which is between Warminster and Salisbury. Five of the children including Lily were present. Lily was referred to as Lily Iona. At this time, a sister was working as a servant in a household in Poole in Dorset.
 
By September 1939 Tom and Amelia Perritt were living at No 5 Imber which is between Warminster and Devizes. There too were three of the girls including Lily Irene. All three were working as Domestic Servants. However, two of them had married in 1935 and 1937 but their husbands weren’t present.
 
Irene Married John Foster in early 1944 in the Devizes district.

Military Career

The 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment embarked for France in October 1939. They were with the 9th Infantry Brigade attached to the 3rd Infantry Division commanded by Major-General Bernard Montgomery. They served with the British Expeditionary Force and managed to return from Dunkirk after the battles of France and Belgium. They remained with the same brigade and division throughout the war and spent the next four years training in various parts of the United Kingdom.
 
The 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944. The battalion was  engaged throughout the Normandy Campaign, taking part in Operation Charnwood, Operation Goodwood, and throughout the rest of the Northwest Europe Campaign until Victory in Europe Day in May 1945.
 
Following the failure to take the bridge at Arnhem in Operation Market Garden in late September 1944, the Allied Forces were left in a very precarious narrow salient through the Netherlands. It was the aim of Operation Aintree to widen this salient by heading south from Nijmegen to take Overloon and then Venray before finally eliminating a German bridgehead on the River Maas near Venlo.
 
On 9 October 1944 the Battalion found itself in Haps, just south of Nijmegen. They were ordered to move south to St Anthonis on 11 October, but this was postponed to the following day due to bad weather. The move was completed on 12 October and they then moved slightly further west the next day, though with one man killed and 3 wounded.
 
On the 14 October, the day on which John died, the plan was for B Company to be guided through a wood held by the Royal Ulster Rifles to its front edge from where they would carry out a recce to check if a stream was passable and if the north eastern corner of a wood to the south was held by the enemy. However, the guides were late and the move through the wood was slower than expected, so the recce did not take place. At 7.30am the Company began to advance south out of the wood. However, before the Company had advanced 100 yds the enemy opened fire from a track about another 100 yds ahead. The advance continued but came under such heavy fire with so many casualties that the Company Commander issued an order to retreat back to the Royal Ulster Rifles’ position. By this point one Lieutenant and 34 other ranks had been killed or wounded. Following a recce by the Company Commanders, it was decided to launch an attack at 1530 hours with D and A companies in the lead. The enemy had been seen moving in the area of the stream in front of the wood. It was thought that the enemy holding the Battalion objective were probably a Company strong. Immediately the attacking force came into the open they were subjected to intense artillery and mortar fire but they pressed steadily on to reach their objective. During this action the Battalion suffered very heavy casualties including four officers killed and another four wounded. A total of 27 men of the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment who died that day are buried alongside each other at Overloon, including John Foster.

Aftermath

Following John’s death, Lily married Charles Basil Jennings in 1946 in Marlborough. Charles had been born on 23/7/1912 at 1 Elmswood Terrace, Marlborough. His father, David James Jennings, was a Professional Cricketer, born in Kent in 1862, and by 1921 he was the Groundsman at Marlborough College.
 
Charles had married Kathleen I Gleed in Marlborough in 1938. She had been born on 2/8/1914. In 1939 he was working as an Ironmonger’s Assistant and Motor Van Driver. They had two children: Norman D C Jennings on 30/9/1939 and Barbara E Jennings in 1941. However, Kathleen died in 1945 in Marlborough. Charles then went on to marry widowed Lily Irene Foster and she became step mother to Charles’ two children. It is not certain if she had any children of her own by either marriage.
 
John’s sister’s husband, Frederick Palmer, also served in WW2. Sadly, their son, Noel, died in an accident aged just 8 late in 1944, at about the same time as John died and while her husband was serving in the war. Frederick and Rose went on to have two more children, Elsie M in 1946 and Victor A in 1948, in addition to Stanley Roy.
 
John Foster’s father, Charles, died in Oundle, Northamptonshire in 1947, just three years after his son.
 
Charles B Jennings died in Marlborough in 1967 and Lily Irene Jennings in 1996 in Swindon.
 
John’s nephew, Roy Palmer, who was born in 1939, later served for 24 years in the army, seeing service in various parts of the world. On leaving the services he was self-employed in a variety of businesses throughout the UK. In later years he was Town Crier for Mablethorpe, Sutton on Sea and Skegness. He is now a Chelsea Pensioner and a member of the Circle of Toastmasters. A Chelsea Pensioner is a resident at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, a retirement home and nursing home for former members of the British Army located in Chelsea, London. On formal occasions these veterans are to be seen in their distinctive scarlet uniforms. In 2023 Roy became the Royal Hospital’s first Herald.

From FindMyPast website: Civil and Parish Birth, Marriage and Death Records; England Census and 1939 Register Records; Electoral Rolls; Military Records
Lincolnshire Regiment War Diaries via Traces of War Website
Wikipedia – information on the Lincolnshire Regiment
Chelsea Pensioners Website
Circle of Toastmasters Website
Information from Roy Palmer, John’s nephew

Research Elaine Gathercole