Richmond | Albert Samuel
Biography
Albert Samuel Richmond was killed in action on 13-10-1944 in Overloon in the Netherlands at the age of 24. He was initially buried at Th.J. Janssen cemetery and reburied in grave II.E.9. at Overloon CWG Cemetery on 20 May 1944. He was a soldier in the 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment (Service number 4806020). The inscription on his grave reads as follows: ‘God’s greatest gift. remembrance’.
Family background
Albert was born 03 January 1920 in the parish of Holland, within the town of Boston in Lincolnshire, England. His parents were John William Richmond and Ada Meeds. He had 10 siblings. Ted, Lucy, Walt, George, Kath, Violet, Dot, Bill, Ivy and Derek. Lucy was raised by her grandparents after she contracted polio at the age of 9. His youngest brother Derek sadly drowned at the age of 2.
The Richmonds lived on Holland Fen, Lincolnshire, in England near the village of East Heckington and the town of Heckington. Sadly, none of Albert’s siblings are still alive; his youngest sister died about 5 years ago. The family was farm labourers from generation to generation. Albert’s last job before enlisting was farm labourer.
Albert married Kathleen Starbuck a spinster, on September 18, 1943, at Gorefield, Cambridge. His older brother Walt was ‘his best man’. During the wedding, military uniforms were worn.
Kathleen served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). The ATS was established in 1938. Initially, there were only jobs for cooks, clerks, nurses, shop stewards or drivers. But eventually there were more than 100 different jobs at the ATS, including serving in anti-aircraft batteries. This expansion allowed more men to be released for frontline service. More than 250,000 women served in the ATS during World War II, making it the largest women’s service.
His brother Walt was in the Home Guard. The Home Guard was formed in May 1940 as Britain’s ‘last line of defence’ against the German invasion. Members of this ‘Dad’s Army’ were mostly men above or below conscript age and those unfit or ineligible for frontline military service. The militia developed into a well-equipped and well-trained army of 1.7 million men. Men in the Home Guard were not only prepared for invasions, but also performed other duties, such as clearing bombs and manning anti-aircraft guns and coastal artillery.
Albert and Kathleen had a son Kenneth who was born in 1944. Albert sadly died before meeting his son. A letter was sent to him to tell him that he had become the father of a son Kenneth. However, this letter was only delivered to him in the Netherlands, which meant he could no longer apply for special leave to go home to see his family.
Kathleen never remarried. A saying of hers was ‘They took the one I loved, and I won’t marry again’. This courageous woman stuck to her statement and lovingly raised her son Kenneth on her own.
Kathleen and Kenneth visited the Netherlands once. Two of his sisters also visited his grave. Albert’s older brother Walt, Mandy’s grandfather, who wrote to us, was sadly never able to visit his grave.
“The death of his brother Albert was the greatest grief in his entire life. He would be so moved to see how carefully his brother’s grave is maintained. Albert’s death still brought tears to my grandfather’s eyes when he was well into his 80s. The loss was a grief that never healed.”
‘I myself very much hope that one day I can visit Albert’s grave on behalf of my grandfather, I know it would have meant the world to him.’
Albert’s name is on the war memorial in East Heckington, where his brother Walt and his wife, among others, laid flowers for him every year on Remembrance Day. Mandy laid crosses at the memorial in Westminster Abbey on Remembrance day.
Military career
Albert was enlisted into the Territorial Army on May 16, 1940, under the National Service (Armed Forces) Act of 1939, receiving the army number 4806020. Standing 5 feet 5.5 inches tall with brown hair and grey-blue eyes, he was medically classified under Grade I.
As his Next-of-Kin his father John William Richmond, living at Hall Cottage, East Heckington, Boston was mentioned. (Later this was updated with his marriage details).
Following his initial enlistment on May 16, 1940, he was posted to an Infantry Training Centre (ITC). Shortly after, on June 23, 1940, he was transferred to the 8th (Home Defence) Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment. Formed in November 1939 at Tottington, this battalion was tasked with defending vulnerable local points, airfields, and performing anti-parachute duties across East Anglia.
On December 24, 1941, the battalion was reorganized and renamed the 30th Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment. In 1942, it was temporarily upgraded to a Field Force battalion and moved to Newmarket for anti-parachute duties at the Snailwell aerodrome, before returning to home defense duties in Norfolk in April 1942.
The 7th Battalion: Tragedy in 1940 and Reformation
Albert was subsequently posted to the 7th Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment on 5 February 1943. This battalion had a dramatic history. Formed as a 2nd-line Territorial Army unit at the outbreak of war in 1939, it originally formed part of the famous 51st (Highland) Infantry Division. Stationed with them in France in 1940 along the Maginot Line, it initially escaped encirclement and Dunkirk. However, this reprieve was temporary. The battalion suffered devastating casualties when the 51st Division was surrounded and forced to surrender on June 12, 1940, with just 31 members managing to escape to Britain.
The battalion was re-formed in the UK in 1941 and transferred to the 176th Infantry Brigade, part of the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division. After domestic training and postings, the unit prepared for active deployment.
The Normandy Campaign and Transfer (1944)
The 7th Battalion landed in Normandy in June 1944 (about two weeks after D-Day) and took part in heavy fighting during the Normandy campaign, including the fierce battles for Epron and the Orne valley. During this campaign, on the night of August 7/8, Captain David Jamieson of D Company was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroic leadership in beating off intense enemy night attacks.
Due to an acute shortage of infantrymen across the 21st Army Group, the heavily bloodied 7th Battalion was disbanded in late August 1944, and its remaining men were used to reinforce other British divisions suffering heavy losses in Normandy.
After the time of his embarkation from the UK on June 27, 1944, Albert transitioned from the 7th Battalion of the Royal Norfolks to the Suffolk Regiment under Act 626/39. On August 26, 1944, he was officially posted to the 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, joining the unit on the continent to take part in the 3rd Infantry Division’s operations.
They moved on through France and Belgium, with heavy fighting costing many lives at Chateau de la Londe and Tinchebrai before arriving in the Netherlands, where they reached Molenhoek, just below Nijmegen, on 1 October.
By then, Operation Market Garden had failed to capture the bridge at Arnhem, leaving the Allies in a narrow salient through the Netherlands. The battalion would therefore be part of Operation Aintree. The objective was to attack Overloon and clear the enemy salient west of the River Maas. They therefore turned south, via Mook and Rijkevoort to approach occupied Overloon from the north. From 3 to 7 October they stayed in Mook and left for Rijkevoort on 8 October and stayed there until 12 October.
The attack on Overloon was delayed by heavy rain and very muddy conditions until the afternoon of 12 October. The plan was for the 1st Suffolk Regiment to attack on the right while the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment continued on the left. Early that morning, the battalion moved through St Anthonis and Oploo to a staging area to attack Overloon. A barrage of artillery advanced 100 metres every five minutes with the battalion following. The battalion reached their objective that day which was just west of Overloon, but with 10 men killed and 57 wounded. During that night, the battalion was exposed to fairly heavy shell and mortar fire. The areas particularly affected were the factory, Bn HQ, and C Coy. The next day, 13 October, the battalion moved its position slightly to the east, along the main road from Overloon to Venray. This was a safer position than the previous night because other regiments had cleared the nearby woods of the enemy.
By midnight, flanking positions began to stabilize as the 1st South Lancashire Regiment cleared an enemy pocket that had troubled ‘A’ Company during the day, establishing themselves on the northern fringes of the wood, while the 2nd East Yorks positioned themselves astride the lateral road through Overloon alongside a squadron of Churchill tanks.
Throughout the night of October 12 and 13, the battalion area endured fairly heavy shelling and mortar fire, which particularly affected the brick factory area, Battalion Headquarters, and ‘C’ Company. The following day, October 13, brought continued tension, including a suspected enemy battalion assembly for a counterattack in the southeast woods at 10:40 AM, which was broken up by a coordinated strike from two artillery field regiments and a squadron of Typhoon fighter-bombers. Later that afternoon at 4:40 PM, orders arrived to shift parts of the battalion locally further east astride the main Overloon-Venray road, requiring ‘D’ and ‘B’ Companies to move while ‘A’ and ‘C’ held their positions ahead of first light on October 14.
Amidst this heavy artillery barrage around the brick factory on October 13, a harrowing eyewitness account preserved in a letter from an officer to the mother of another fallen soldier, John Warnell, describes how Warnell was instantly killed by shrapnel when a sudden morning shelling struck just as breakfast was being collected near the factory. While it cannot be definitively confirmed whether all the men who perished that day were lost in this exact same incident, Private Albert Samuel Richmond was killed in action in the Overloon sector on that same fateful day, October 13, 1944 and 20 comrades were wounded.
His other comrades killed on this day were Stanley Douglas Bowyer, John Alfred Thomas Warnell and George Victor Willoughby.
They were initially buried at Th.J. Janssen cemetery and reburied at Overloon CWG Cemetery on 20 May 1944.
Of the Suffolk Regiment, 1st Bn. 23 men are buried at Overloon War Cemetery.
Albert served a total of 4 years and 151 days, comprising 4 years and 42 days at home and 109 days in North-West Europe.
For his service in the Second World War, he was posthumously awarded the 1939-45 Star, the France & Germany Star, the Defence Medal, and the War Medal 1939/45.
In 2026, a long-cherished wish of the granddaughter of Albert’s brother Walt came true. Mandy and her husband came to Overloon to visit Albert’s grave. On a beautiful, sunny autumn day, they laid flowers at the grave in remembrance. It was a lovely and emotional visit, after which they expressed their gratitude for the care shown to the servicemen and the cemetery by the residents of Overloon, the adopters and our foundation’s efforts.
