Driver Robert George Edwards served with the Royal Army Service Corps, 567 Ammunition Company, during the early months of the Second World War. He was just nineteen years old.
Robert was born in Bolton on 8 July 1920, the youngest of three children. His father died in 1921, leaving his mother to raise the family alone. They later moved south to Kent, where she remarried in 1932. By the outbreak of war, they were living in Rainham, where Robert – a popular young man – was a member of Toc H and the Rainham Fellowship of Youth, as well as a chorister at St Margaret’s Church.
Robert volunteered for the Army, stepping into adulthood at a moment of national crisis, and joined an ammunition company of the British Expeditionary Force. As such, he was not trained to fight but formed part of the logistical backbone that sustained front-line troops. He would have driven a 3-ton lorry carrying artillery shells and small arms ammunition, delivering supplies forward under increasingly hazardous conditions.
As the German advance intensified in May 1940, such units continued supplying fighting troops for as long as possible. However, when the situation became untenable, they were ordered to destroy their loads, disable their vehicles, and withdraw on foot toward Dunkirk. These men were among the last to disengage.
By 29 May 1940, during Operation Dynamo, the British Army had been compressed into a shrinking perimeter around Dunkirk. Robert was most likely part of a withdrawing column moving north through congested roads under constant air attack as units fragmented under pressure.
He appears to have reached Dunkirk itself. What followed can only be inferred: he may have been killed while attempting to board a vessel, or when a ship was damaged or sunk during the evacuation. In such chaotic conditions, many were lost, and their fate remained uncertain.
In the immediate aftermath, Robert was reported as “Missing,” with no date recorded. A German record card noted a date of 21 June 1940. This was likely an administrative date, perhaps when his body was recovered or officially recorded, rather than the actual date of death.
A subsequent War Office review concluded that he had, in fact, drowned on the night of 29/30 May 1940, during the height of the evacuation, He was buried at Oye-Plage Communal Cemetery, France. Confirmation did not reach his family until March 1941.
Described by friends as a cheerful and promising young man, Robert was popular among his Army comrades, and always ready to organise entertainment. He had left a will, bequeathing his estate – valued at nearly £240 – to his mother, though probate was not granted until 1948, several years after his death had finally been confirmed. Robert’s story reflects the experience of many who served in support roles – men who were not on the front line yet faced the same dangers, and whose loss was often only understood long after the events in which they died.
Driver Robert George Edwards lies buried in the Oye-Plage Communal Cemetery, France
