No.406982, Lance Sergeant, Walter GRAYSON
Aged 27
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Walter GRAYSON was born in Hull (Sulcoates Q2-1915 9D:431) son of John Thomas and Alice Maud GRAYSON (née TOWNEND).
His father had served in the 13th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment but was discharged in 1915 after having his right thumb amputated after an accident. He then re enlisted again in 1915 and spent the war in UK in the Labour Corps. There was at least one other child. It appears his mother died in 1931. Walter joined the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays), the same regiment as Lt Roger Bunn MM who is also commemorated in the Haverhill WW2 Roll of Honour. In October 1939 a parachute scare had brought orders to the Bays to move to East Anglia. The regiment moved on 3rd October and was garrisoned in Haverhill as a part of 2nd Light Armoured Brigade of the 1st Armoured Division. They trained during a very cold and hard winter, the Bays having received the new Mark VIC light tank, which arrived without its armament of a 7.92 mm and a 15mm Besa, so a sheet of 3-ply wood covered the mounting where the guns should have been. The Bays were to stay in Haverhill until early 1941 garrisoned at Place Farm (now Place Court) parking their Bren Gun carrying tanks on the Recreation Ground. They also provided a 12 piece dance band for the Saturday dance nights at the Town Hall (now the Arts Centre). Perhaps it was at one of these dances that Walter met his future wife, Olga Lilian Gee. Walter married Olga Lilian GEE in Q4-1940 (Newmarket 4A:3589). She married John SNELL in 1947. In the 1939 register Olga [25-0-1918](fish shop assistant) was at 42 Queens Street with her parents, Ernest [24-6-1891] and Doris [10-9-1898] GEE (fish shop merchants) and her two brothers, Percy [11-6-1922] and Cecil [19--1933]. Walter's father not been found in the 1939 register. |
The Bays arrived in the Middle East in November 1941 and were heavily involved in actions in the Western Desert. The Queen's Bays moved through the Gabes Gap on 7th April. On the 8th the regiment closed up to Mezzouna, which on the 9th was found to be clear, and so the advance continued for twenty miles until a force of twenty to thirty enemy tanks, including Tigers, was encountered. The German tanks steadily withdrew and the Bays followed up carefully, moving from one hull down position to another. On the 10th the Bays withdrew to Bouthada, near Sfax, resting for five days. On 14th April 1943 the Queen's Bays joined the First Army and their sand coloured tanks changed to dark green. On 23rd April they moved out of Goubellat with the 9th Lancers but they made slow progress, delayed by mines which had been laid in standing corn so making detection difficult. The following day, 24th April, the advance continued, crossing another minefield with the help of the Royal Engineers. The Bays reached the Goubellat plain, which turned out to be crossed by a succession of deep wadis (a watercourse that is dry except during periods of rainfall). The final wadi was passable at only one place and as 'A' Squadron emerged in single file, the tanks came under anti-tank fire from a wood at 100 yards range. Lieutenant Cottier's, Sergeant C. W Smith's and Sergeant Grayson's Crusaders were knocked out, the two Sergeants being killed, together with Corporals Hunt and Garforth, and Troopers Newbold and Terry. Originally buried in Bou Arada Military Cemetery 5:I:13, Walter was re-interred in Medjez-el-Bab War Cemetery in July 1944 |
Sherman tank of the Bays, at Tobruk photo: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
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