[Extracted with thanks from Jane Staniland’s research report: “War Memorial, Holywell-cum-Needingworth: The men who died in the Second World War 1939-1945”]
In Memory of CYRIL ARTHUR WHITE Serjeant 5779350 9th Bn., Royal Norfolk Regiment attd. 22nd Bn., King’s African Rifles who died on Wednesday, 17th February 1943. Age 29.
Memorial: Grave Reference/Panel Number: NAIROBI MEMORIAL, Kenya / Column 1.
Cyril White was known to his friends and family as Billy. He was born on 30 August 1913 and was the only child of Arthur and Ann White. He went to Needingworth school, then worked with his father and uncle, Baden Dodson, at Daintree Farm. Later he worked at Sandifer’s Farm, as a journeyman delivering for Senescall’s corn merchants and at a St Ives coal merchants. He had several cousins in the village and together they dominated the football and cricket teams (there are five Whites on the ‘Roll of Honour’); he also enjoyed cross-country running He was very close to his cousin Ronnie Dodson in St Ives.
In 1936 he married Florence Wickett from Cambridge at Chesterton church. They met when she was working at Slepe Hall in St Ives. They had two children, Colin and Gillian, and lived in Church Street, Needingworth, before lodging with his parents at 35 High Street during the war.
Cyril was called up in June 1940 and joined the Royal Norfolk Regiment, training at the Britannia Barracks in Norwich. Two of his colleagues were subsequently sent to Singapore and died when the Japanese invaded in 1942. One night his family got a telegram informing them that he would be arriving at Ely station at 9pm, rather than St Ives, and his father cycled fifteen miles in the dark to meet him, wheeling Cyril’s bike alongside.
In 1942 he was posted overseas to Kenya. As the only country in East Africa with any appreciable white population it had become the focal point of the campaign against the Italians to the north, who until their defeat in November 1941 had threatened the British in Egypt and their sea-route to the Far East and Australia. Over two thousand members of the British Commonwealth forces had died in the fighting . Cyril was involved with training the native volunteer battalions of the King’s African Rifles, drawn from Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Nyasaland, and being prepared for their role as reserves overseas. They had been strengthened to many times their peace establishment, and it was in Kenya that they were assembled to be joined by contingents from South Africa, Rhodesia and West Africa.
Cyril had been in Kenya for six months and was taking his first leave at an army resort at Malindi, near Mombasa. When one of his friends got into difficulties swimming he and another soldier went to help him, but despite being a strong swimmer Billy and his friend were drowned, although the third man managed to return to the shore. Their bodies were never recovered.
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