Reader Request

 

John A. Hodge

I was contacted by Gillian Downer, who was making enquiries into her great uncle, John A. Hodge’s Second World War military records.

All Gillian knew was that John was at Dunkirk and got injured in the legs, and that he was awarded the Military Medal.

All Second World War military records are held by the Ministry of Defence. These records are vital, as they contain a great deal of information that can’t be found elsewhere. To satisfy, the MOD’s requirements, we needed a copy of a death certificate of the person in question.

We obtained John’s death certificate. He died at Singleton Hospital, June 1975. The death certificate stated his date of birth as 1914, and place of birth as Bristol. The informant had been an employee of the hospital. This is where all the fun begins!

On checking the records there was no John Hodge born 1914 in Bristol, but one John born the year later, in 1915. His parents were married in 1914.

In conclusion, it seems that when the death was registered, the informant only went on the information that he was given in the first place. When doing research take care to cross check records for simple ‘mistakes’ like this.

We discovered that in October 1944, John Hodge was awarded the Military Medal, (right) during fighting at Bemmel, Netherlands.

Copyright - The Bay Magazine, August 2020