Ranyard | Charles William
Biography
Charles William Ranyard died on 12th October, 1944. He was 26 years of age and was a Lance Corporal in the 1stBattalion of the Suffolk Regiment (Service No. 4350904). He was initially buried at the Bossenhoekweg in Overloon and later re-interred in the Overloon War Graves Cemetery.
The 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was stationed in Devonport as part of the 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and served with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France from late 1939 to May 1940. The division was commanded by Major-General Bernard Montgomery. With the rest of the BEF, it was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. The next four years were spent training in the United Kingdom for the invasion of Normandy in 1944, otherwise known as D-Day on 6th June. The 1st Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Goodwin, landed on Sword beach and was involved in attacking and taking the Hillman Fortress on D-Day itself. They continued to progress through France and Belgium, including severe battles which cost many lives at Chateau de la Londe and at Tinchebrai before arriving in the Netherlands, reaching Molenhoek just below Nijmegen by 1st October. From there they swung round to the south, passing through Mook and Rijkevoort to approach occupied Overloon from the north. The aim was to attack Overloon and clear the enemy salient west of the River Maas in what was known as Operation Aintree.
The attack on Overloon was delayed by heavy rain and very muddy conditions until noon on the 12th October. The plan was that the 1st Suffolk Regiment would attack on the right while the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment would proceed on the left. In that attack on that day one officer and 9 men of the 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment were killed, including Charles William Ranyard, and a further 2 officers and 55 men were wounded. Overloon was successfully liberated on 14th October, but at a large cost in lives.
Family history
Charles was born in the small village of Welton le Wold, between Market Rasen and Louth in Lincolnshire in 1918 to Ernest and Annie Ranyard.
Ernest Ranyard had married Annie Rushby in 1906 in the district of Louth in Lincolnshire. Both were born in 1884. They were both from long established Lincolnshire farming families, though their families moved frequently to find work. Ernest and Annie went on to have children as follows: George Ernest 1909, Cyril Ephraim 1911, Herbert Dennis 1913, Jack 1915, Charles William 1918, Ida M 1920 and Ronald Arthur 1923.
At least until 1921, the family seemed to move quite frequently between small farming villages in or just west of the Lincolnshire Wolds around Louth. Ernest was generally working as a cowman. Ernest died in the Horncastle district of Lincolnshire in 1928, aged just 44. He was buried at St German’s Church in Ranby. Charles would be just 10 years old at the time and Annie was left with six children aged between 5 and 19.
It is likely that the family were already living at Bleasby Moor in Legsby by the time Ernest died as Tom Ranyard (who is George Ernest Ranyard’s son and so the nephew of Charles William Ranyard) indicates that Ernest was a foreman at Dring’s Farm, Bleasby House, Legsby. Legsby is a small village just south east of Market Rasen. They were certainly there by 1936 when Ernest and Annie’s 13 year old son Ronald died as he is buried in St Thomas’ Church in Legsby. He believes that most of the family were employed in agriculture by the Drings at one time or another. Bleasby Moor was a small hamlet just south of Legsby and several of the houses were owned by the Dring family to house their workers.
In September 1939 Annie was living at Bleasby Moor with Jack and Ida, both still single. Jack was described as a Garthman and Ida was a paid domestic servant. In the same area was George who was now described as a Cowman and married with his two children, though his wife was not present at the time. Cyril (generally called Sid) and his wife Alice were living nearby in Legsby itself.
It may be that Charles had moved away from Legsby by 1937 to work as a Groom at Harrington at the south end of the Wolds for it is possibly he who was summoned for driving with no driving licence; having no silencer on a motorcycle; using an uninsured motorcycle and using an unlicensed motorcycle at Driby in that year. Apparently, his friend, Edward Bellamy, had allowed him to use his motorcycle even though the road fund licence had expired the previous year and he had not yet transferred the insurance from the previous owner. Charles told the policeman who caught him “I am just having a bit of a ride out. My pal lent it to me. I am only learning. I’m going to buy one in the spring”. When Bellamy was asked why the silencer had been removed he said “I thought the bike sounded better without it” – causing laughter in court. They were both fined £2 and disqualified for 12 months.
Certainly by September 1939 neither Charles nor Herbert seem to have been living in Legsby. Herbert married his wife Phyllis Harris in York in summer 1939, though by September she was back living with her parents Septimus and Alice Harris in Lissington, just a mile or so from Bleasby Moor. According to Tom Ranyard, Herbert also saw active service in WW2, so may already have signed up. The only Charles Ranyard born around the right time who could be found in the September 1939 register was a Charles W Ranyard (with a birth date of 31/5/1918) who was working as a bricklayer in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire and living in the household of George and Olive Saywell at 37 Cherry Tree Lane. George was also a Bricklayer, just 5 years older than Charles. Either this is the same Charles William Ranyard from Lincolnshire (perhaps having followed Herbert into bricklaying), or perhaps he too had signed up by then along with Herbert.
Tom Ranyard can just remember meeting Charles when both were visiting Tom’s grandmother (Charles’ mother) Annie Ranyard and her son Jack at Bleasby Moor when Charles was home on leave. He has a distant memory that he might have had a Matchless Motor Bike, suggesting he achieved his earlier ambition of owning a motorcycle.
While Herbert survived the war, Charles sadly died at Overloon in 1944. He is commemorated on the war memorial on the lynchgate of St Thomas’ Church in Legsby.
Annie, and Jack and his wife Betty continued to live together in Legsby until their deaths. Annie died in 1968, aged 84, and is buried at St Thomas’ in Legsby.
