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SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY |
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"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"
1871533 Corporal WILLIAM FLOWER.
42 Field Coy., Royal Engineers.
who died, aged 27, on the 27th August 1940.
Son of William Edward and Margaret Elizabeth Flower, of Harker St, Skelton Green, North Yorkshire.
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El Alamein War Cemetery.
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His parents received notification that he had been killed in an accident in Egypt and no further details are presently known.
He had been in the service for five and a half years.
Before the War he was well known in boxing circles, having fought many fights in Middlesbrough, Guisborough and Redcar. He was known as "Tiger" Flowers.
1934.
24th March -
At the O.K. Boxing Palace, Redcar, Tiger outshone the main bout and provided the surprise of the evening when he outpointed Shipley of West Hartlepool in an 8 round challenge contest for £2 a side.
Shipley is a hardened boxer and well used to 8 round contestss, but his opponent has rarely fought longer than 4 rounds.
From the start, however, Flowers was out to win.
A terrific first round, in which both boxers drew blood, served to make the crown sit up and take notice of 7 of the fiercest round ever seen at the O.K. Palace.
Shipley was obviously as surprised as anyone at the remarkable form shown by his opponent.
Though he rallied several times, Flowers was the undoubted victor.
After the bout Shipley challenged Flowers to a 10 rounder for £4 a side.
April 2nd -
The return fight took place and boxing fans expected another fierce struggle. They were not disappointed.
Flowers was the aggressor throughout.
Shipley's terrific right hand dealt him some terrible punishment, but he always returned to the attack and deservedly won on points.
At the 1911 census his family were living at 40 Harker St, Skelton Green. His Dad, also William, aged 28 and born in Skelton, was an Ironstone Miner at the Face. His mother, Margaret, age 26, came from Lazenby, N Yorks.
They already had a girl, Gertrude and 2 boys, James and Robert. William would be born in 1913.
By the time of the Register made in 1939, the family had moved to the other end of the street, No 1, and William was in the Army. 2 more children had arrived, Thomas, born 1915 and Winsome, born 1919.
His brother, Robert, was a miner at Park Pit and had been awarded a gold watch for what seems like some act of bravery at the Mine. See page for 1933.
Alamein is a village, bypassed by the main coast road, approximately 130 kilometres west of Alexandria on the road
to Mersa Matruh.
The campaign in the Western Desert was fought between the Commonwealth forces (with, later, the addition of
two brigades of Free French and one each of Polish and Greek troops) all based in Egypt, and the Axis forces
(German and Italian) based in Libya.
The battlefield, across which the fighting surged back and forth between 1940 and 1942, was the 1,000 kilometres
of desert between Alexandria in Egypt and Benghazi in Libya.
It was a campaign of manoeuvre and movement, the objectives being the control of the Mediterranean, the link
with the east through the Suez Canal, the Middle East oil supplies and the supply route to Russia through Persia.
El Alamein War Cemetery contains the graves of men who died at all stages of the Western Desert campaigns,
brought in from a wide area, but especially those who died in the Battle of El Alamein at the end of October 1942
and in the period immediately before that.
The cemetery now contains 7,240 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, of which 815 are unidentified.
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