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St. John's the Baptist Church
Layhams Road, West Wickham, Kent, BR4.
In 1941, the London Fire Brigade, under intense pressure from the many fires caused by enemy bombing, had frequently to call in reinforcements from outlying areas. It was on one such occasion on 19th March at West Ham that five Coney Hall Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) men lost their lives. They comprised the crew of a pump, one of a convoy on the way to a five at Silvertown, which was obliterated in a land-mine explosion in Plaistow Road.
Wesley Drew, Stanley Short, Frederick Moore, Dennis Fitzgerald and Leslie Palmer were buried in this one grave in St John's the Baptist Churchyard, West Wickham, Kent. A simple wooden cross on a brick plinth was erected in 1942 and unveiled by the Mayor of Beckenham, Alderman W.J. Sampson J.P. on Easter Sunday 5th April 1942 with the dedication by the Rector, the Rev. Shaw Page.
Plans were made as early as June 1947 for a more permanent memorial but due to many difficulties in a post war Britain, with both material and money in very short supply a new memorial was not in place until October 1953. In fact it may not have been completed by that time except the memorial was badly damaged by a falling tree!
The new memorial was unveiled on Sunday 25th October 1953 by the Mayor of Beckenham, Alderman W.J. Sampson J.P. By coincidence the same man who had unveiled the temporary war time memorial 10 years earlier was now serving another year as Mayor. The dedication was by the Rector of St. John the Baptist the Rev. John Hough.
While wartime comrades stood guard at the corners with heads bowed, Divisional Officer C.T. Davis, Kent Fire Brigade laid a wreath on behalf of the Fire Service.
John Drew aged about 13 years also placed a wreath in memory of his father, one of the AFS fire-fighters killed in 1941.
Next to the memorial is the double grave of two further AFS fire-fighters killed exactly a month later. Ernest Beadle and Norman Mountjoy were among 33 AFS fire-fighters killed when their temporary Fire Station received a direct hit during an enemy air raid on the night of 19/20 April 1941 at Poplar, in East London.