Herbert Allen Youngman

Trooper

Conflict:

WW2

Additional Information:

Son of Harry Alfred and Grace Mary Ann Youngman, of lnchbonnie, Westland, New Zealand.

References:

CWGC

NZ WAR GRAVES

Public Contributions:

Herbert Allen Youngman (NZ Army No. 390152) the Uncle I am named after but never met, born 28 May 1920, died 14 April 1945 aged 24 years, son of Harry Alfred Youngman (who was killed in a car acciden...t when Bert was just five years old) and Grace Mary Ann Youngman, nee Hodgson, of Inchbonnie, Westland, New Zealand, a small cluster of houses round a sawmill and a railway station in the morning shadow of Mt. Alexander. He was a Trooper in D Squadron of the 2nd Division Cavalry Battalion, 2nd N.Z.E.F., serving in Italy in WW II. He died of wounds in the Spring Offensive of 1945 close to the end of the war, at the Battle of the Rivers, on the coastal plains of north-eastern Italy. He was doing his duty but was already anticipating getting back home to dances, family and girlfriends. Sadly he fell in a hail of machine gun fire that inflicted wounds that even prompt medical treatment could not save him from. He lies with other brave Commonwealth soldiers in Faenza Commonwealth War Cemetery, Grave VI, B, 20. Bert was the 6th son of a big family as was common in NZ then. He volunteered for service in late 1940 when aged just 19 years, passed the medical and other tests, and took the oath of Attestation on 21 November 1940, but was too young for overseas service then and had to wait nearly four years on leave without pay before finally being called up for training at Burnham Military Camp on 10 May 1944. By the time he reached Italy the brutal reality of modern warfare would have been much better known to Bert from movie newsreels than when he first volunteered in 1940, likely with youthful patriotism and a desire for adventure. After training he had a short final leave with family and friends on his beloved West Coast, a wild place of small isolated but social communities where men worked and played hard in the shadow of forests and mountains that gave rise to big rivers. He then embarked for a War being fought a world away across well populated older “civilised” countries where he had ancestral roots on both sides, though this was totally unknowable to him then. He must have started from Lyttleton, the port where his immigrant NZ family first arrived from England in 1857, just as their ancestors had arrived in England from mid continental Europe about the time of the French Revolution. He arrived in Egypt 10 Nov 1944 and after more training embarked for Italy on 27 Dec with other much needed infantry reinforcements for the 2nd N.Z.E.F. The men they joined were by now battle hardened from fighting in Greece, Crete and North Africa before the ongoing Italian Campaign, started over a year before with the invasion of Sicily on 9 July 1943. The first really serious combat he was involved in was the 1945 Spring Offensive starting from the Senio River on 9 April. He died of wounds suffered on 14 April 1945 when his unit was forcing their way under fire across the Sillaro River very near the little town of Sesto Imolese. Fourteen New Zealanders lost their lives there that day. In the preceding week they had already fought across two other well defended rivers starting from the Senio where the Allied 5th Army including 2nd N.Z.E.F. had been forced to halt for the winter of 1944-45 to regroup. Bert was 24 years old when he died and his already widowed Mother, Grace Youngman, was notified in isolated Inchbonnie by a telegram a week later on 21 April. This was only three weeks after Bert wrote his last letter to my Mother Margaret, wife of his brother George, then 7 months pregnant with myself, their first son. Bert wrote as regularly as he could to his Mother, sisters and others in the family who wrote with pride to him. All the ladies liked him, my Mother told me years ago, and it was reciprocated, with his motivation appropriate to the different relationships. It was thus inevitable that I be given his exact same name when he died. I can only hope I’ve done enough with my own life under this name to respect the sacrifice he made, a promising life cut short in the service of his family, his community, his Country. All of us here in NZ and overseas who have benefited from the great sacrifice Bert and all too many other young NZ men made, owe the fallen a debt of gratitude that can never be fully repaid. Mine were the lucky generation who reaped the benefit of the peace and prosperity that followed and we must never forget that. Bert’s Mother Grace on 14 March 1950 received from the British Commonwealth and the NZ Government four medals that had been awarded to Bert for his service, namely the 1939-45 Star, the Italy Star, The War Medal 1939-45 and the N.Z. War Service Medal. They lay for many years in a drawer in the family home at Inchbonnie where Granny lived out her life with Bert’s unmarried brothers. Visiting nephews and nieces would occasionally discover and look at the medals, probably unable to gather their full import. Cousin Ian Bryan became their custodian later and wore them with pride on Bert’s behalf at West Coast ANZAC Day parades. Because I was my Uncle’s exact namesake Ian gave them to me when there was a family get together at Oxford, Canterbury, to celebrate 150 years of our family in NZ. They have been refurbished now and will be worn by myself and other close relatives of Bert’s at future ANZAC parades on their right breast, the left side of the chest over the heart being reserved only for those who have personally earned any medal worn. H. A. (Bert) Youngman (Junior) 20 April 2016. [Record since amended - NZWGT] Read More

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Casualty

Service Number:

390152

Name:

Herbert Allen Youngman

Rank:

Trooper

Date of Birth:

28 May 1920

Date of Enlistment:

Not known

Armed Force:

Army

Unit:

New Zealand Armoured Corps, 2 Divisional Cavalry Regiment

Casualty Details

Cause of Death:

Not known

Date of Death:

14 April 1945

Day of Death:

Saturday

Age at Death:

Conflict:

WW2

Embarkation Details

Text in italics supplied by Cenotaph Online, Auckland War Memorial Museum

Cemetery

Cemetery:

Forli War Cemetery

Cemetery Reference:

VI, B, 20.

Cemetery Location:

Italy