The untold stories of English cricket heroes who died in World War Two

Telegraph

04-05-2025

Georgina Turnbull pulls a black-and-white photograph out of her carrier bag and carefully removes it from a wooden frame.
We are sitting on a park bench in Twickenham on a warm spring morning and tomorrow Georgina will turn 81. Close by, playing on her scooter is her young, great granddaughter, who calls her 'GG' and is curious about the picture we are looking at.
The photograph is of Georgina as a baby in her mother's arms, flanked by her late siblings, sister Sara and brother Simon. It was taken in the spring of 1944 in the garden of the family house and was in the wallet found on the body of the father she never met.
Major Maurice Turnbull of the Welsh Guards played nine Tests for England, captained Glamorgan and played two times for Wales at rugby union. He is the only man to play Test cricket for England and rugby for Wales.
He died in the Battle of Normandy amid the vicious fighting in the bocage during the gruelling weeks following D-Day as the Allies pushed the Germans out of northern France.
Turnbull was one of five England Test cricketers killed in the war and 45 county cricketers who died either on military service or because of enemy action between 1939-45.
Their stories reflect a world at war. They died on the battlefields of Europe, Africa and Asia. Two were casualties defending London in the Blitz, others died at the hands of the Japanese as POWs, three perished in bombing raids, one by a V1 rocket, another selflessly gave his life to save men when their ship was sunk by a U-boat in the freezing waters on the Arctic convoys, another was torpedoed in the Maldives, and several lost their lives in air accidents.
The last to fall was Middlesex's Paul Brooks, who enjoyed a brief moment of fame as a 16-year-old when he bowled Donald Bradman in the nets at Lord's while the Australians prepared for the start of the 1938 Ashes tour. Brooks became a Movietone newsreel star for a day. 'Naturally I feel very excited about it. Not many people have bowled out Mr Bradman in the nets,' he says to camera.
Of the five England players to die, three were amateurs: Turnbull, Geoffrey Legge and Ken Farnes. The two professionals were the Yorkshiremen George Macaulay and the great Hedley Verity.
Of the five, Verity's story has been told many times before. Less is known about the others and their experiences are brought together here, with the help of family members tracked down by Telegraph Sport. Each is a unique tale of wartime loss and tragedy.
As we prepare for the 80th anniversary of VE Day on May 8, they deserve to be remembered alongside their other fallen cricket comrades.
Maurice Turnbull
A true commanding officer
Turnbull was the last England Test cricketer to die in the war. Georgina was born a few weeks earlier while he was on the south coast of England preparing for the largest land invasion in history.
Turnbull captained Glamorgan between 1930 and 1939, working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep the cash-strapped club afloat. After impressing as a scrum-half for Cardiff, he was picked for Wales and played in their first win at Twickenham in 1933, not far from the park where Georgina posed with a framed portrait of her handsome father looking every inch the 1930s movie star.
'I never met my father. My mama had always said I had, probably to make me feel better about it, but we know I didn't [from his war records],' says Georgina. 'He did actually name me, though. My mama thought I was going to be a boy, and when I wasn't, she sent a telegram that just said 'a daughter is born'. He wrote back saying 'my love to you and Georgina'. I think he had a favourite aunt in his life and named me after her.'
She also has with her a letter, sent by his second in command, a week after Maurice, or 'MJ' as she calls him ('it feels a bit strange calling him Daddy'), died on August 5. The letter speaks warmly of a commanding officer and devout Catholic. The two attended mass together in the hours before the operation in the small village of Montchamp that took his life, along with nearly 100 men of the Welsh Guards that day. 'He was, I know, quite resigned and his death was painless, and he was with one of the other officers – he had sent me away with a message about half an hour earlier.'
Turnbull arrived in France 12 days after D-Day and within days was chasing the retreating German forces through the Caen plain. His final letters home reveal a sense of resignation and acceptance that he may not survive. His last letter was scrawled on a piece of paper the night before he died. He wished his daughter, Sara, a happy birthday and sent good wishes to Georgina. 'God bless you,' he wrote. His Wisden obituary stated that he was shot by a sniper, an error that upsets the family 80 years later because it suggests recklessness on his part as commanding officer. He was in fact leading his men in a counter-attack raid and awaiting American support that arrived too late. They crept along the side of a field to take the Germans by surprise when a Tiger tank poked its gun through the hedge and fired a round. Turnbull died instantly.
His body was later brought back from the battlefield by his men during the German counterattack. They ripped down a door from a farm and used it as a stretcher to take him away. One of them, Fred Llewellyn, rescued his wallet, found the photograph that Georgina is now holding and sent it to her mother. Llewellyn was reunited with the family in 2000 by Andrew Hignell, the Glamorgan archivist who details Turnbull's war service and life in his book: A Welsh Sporting Hero.
Glamorgan were playing a fund-raising match in Cardiff when news of Turnbull's death filtered through. The crowd stood for a minute's silence. 'I often wonder what he would have done with his life,' says Georgina. 'When I think of him now, I smile. I mean, I absolutely love him. There's no question about it and my pain of him not being living in my life is incredible, but all of us felt very blessed having him as a famous cricketer because his memory carries on, whereas other children did not have that. I talk about him a lot to all my children and grandchildren.'
The great granddaughter is learning now, too.
Geoffrey Legge
Pilot who brought Jews back from Germany
The first England cricketer to die during the war was Legge, who captained Kent in 1930, played five Tests, all overseas, and scored 196 in his final match for England, against New Zealand at Eden Park, Auckland. It was the highest score for England by a Kent player until Rob Key made 221 against West Indies in 2004.
A battered silver cigarette case is a tragic reminder of the accident that killed Legge in November 1940.
It is handed to me by his son, Colin, who is now 90 and about to reveal the remarkable, lifesaving actions of his father before and during the early stages of the Second World War.
The cigarette case was in Legge's breast pocket when his plane crashed in a farmer's field in Devon, one of the many air accidents that took the lives of around 8,000 British men in the war, killing him at the age of 37.
There is little on public record about Legge's service in the Fleet Air Arm, but his family has pieced together details over the years. What Colin says next is astonishing.
'This is interesting,' he says. 'The family had a paper business and had dealings with paper mills in Norway, Sweden, Finland, but also in Germany. My father was fluent in German. He studied it at Oxford. He had his own airfield and plane that were requisitioned when war broke out. He would spend time flying his own aeroplane to Germany, on business, and was reporting back to MI5, all about the German movements in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and other airports in Germany which he was using at the time.'
This was 1939, just before the war broke out. 'But the thing is it was not until the end of the war that my mother started to receive fur coats, and God knows what, from the people that he was bringing back to Britain in his aircraft.'
Who was he bringing back? 'He was bringing back Jews in his aeroplane. They were associates from the paper trade. And they were the ones who gave presents of fur coats to my mother.' One is now owned by his daughter, Emma, and the label is from a store in Germany.
When I put it to Colin that there are descendants of those Jewish families in Britain today who owe their lives to his father, he is thoughtful for a moment. 'I don't know if mother ever met them, she didn't talk about it much. She did a lot of war work herself, you know. She was always in uniform. She would go up to Trevose Head as a lookout [for German bombers] before the radar masts went up. She was an amazing woman.'
It was a mystery how Legge's plane came down. He was based on the Essex coast in a 'desk job' according to his son and was flying to the family home in Cornwall for the weekend with a fellow officer. Both were killed in the crash. Bad weather was blamed but Legge was an experienced pilot flying a Mark One Percival Proctor he knew how to handle. His family thinks he could have been engaged by the enemy. The farmer who owned the field where the plane crashed told them officials from the Ministry of Defence cleared away the wreckage within an hour. He had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander six days earlier.
'The weather was bad and it was very unlike father to fly in bad weather,' says Colin. 'So why it crashed, we don't know. According to my uncle, he was carrying top-secret papers with him. But I don't know if that's right. It is true that he worked with, not for MI5, and after the war my mother was advised that MI5 'thanked him for his service'.'
Arranged in front of Colin is an archive of treasures put together by his son Alex, who has spent years buying at auctions and online, bats, balls and memorabilia associated with Legge's brief England career. He averaged 25 for Kent and played for England in an era when amateurs were picked for overseas tours with a view to assessing their potential as future captains.
Legge toured South Africa in 1927-28 and New Zealand two years later. His 196 stands out; he scored 103 runs across his other six Test innings. Two years after his Test century he had left the game to join the family business.
The airfield he bought near Padstow, close to one of the family homes, became HMS Vulture during the war and while most is now farmland, some buildings still stand today. Colin does not remember much about his father, he was too young, but Alex is keeping his memory alive.
Colin picks up the cufflinks his father was given by the MCC for the tour of New Zealand, and there are also newspaper cuttings of his parents' wedding, which was quite the society occasion and Pathe newsreel footage of it is on YouTube.
Colin remembers old Kent players paying their respects and even received a coaching session from his father's team-mate, the great Kent player Frank Woolley.
'All of this stuff has never been on a table together before,' says Alex, as we chat in the sitting room of his house in the charming Wiltshire village of Biddestone. 'Dad might think I am a bit weird having all this stuff but if I wasn't interested, I think it would get lost.'
George Macaulay
A sad end
The life of Legge, wealthy amateur and businessman who left a loving family, contrasts sharply with that of George Macaulay, a man who died a lonely wartime death on Shetland just a few weeks later in December 1940.
Macaulay remains the fourth-highest wicket-taker in Yorkshire's history. An outswing bowler, he took 1,774 wickets between 1920 and 1935 and is one of only four men to claim 200 wickets in a season.
At Test level he faltered, playing only eight times for England. He was perceived as a man who struggled to handle pressure and was broken by the assault of Charlie Macartney in the Headingley Ashes Test of 1926 when he smashed a hundred before lunch. Macaulay crumbled, bowling a string of no balls and recorded figures of one for 123. He remained a force for Yorkshire in county cricket but was not an easy man to be around.
He had a fast bowler's temperament on and off the field. There was 'devil in everything he did', wrote Bill Bowes of his Yorkshire team-mate.
Macaulay was an alcoholic and his behaviour can probably be explained partly due to his experiences in the First World War. He enlisted four days after his 18th birthday in 1914 and was wounded at Ypres in 1917, shot through the leg. It may have saved his life. He was invalided home a week before the Battle of Passchendaele.
He fell out with Yorkshire over his benefit in the early 1930s, which raised just £1,600, a decent sum then but it was the lowest for a Yorkshire player for nearly 50 years, a reflection of a lack of popularity with team-mates and supporters. He was declared bankrupt in 1937 with debts in today's money of more than £100,000.
Too old to fight, he was a mess officer responsible for supplies at the RAF base of Sullom Voe, where craft were kept to attack U-boats. It was reported at the time that Macaulay died aged 43 of natural causes but Giles Wilcock reveals in his book The Road to Sullom Voe that he died after a marathon drinking session that left him comatose.
His wife later had her appeal for a war widow's pension rejected because Macaulay died of alcoholism not related to his military work. She lived until the 1980s, relying in part on the RAF Benevolent Fund and a little help from Yorkshire to survive.
Ken Farnes
A love left behind
While Macaulay bowled outswing and did not rely on pace, Essex's Ken Farnes was the quickest bowler of the 1930s after Harold Larwood.
His great niece Eleanor Haslam lives in Blackpool and her late father idolised his famous uncle. The family donated much of Ken's memorabilia to Essex, who put it on display at Chelmsford last year.
Among the treasures was the portrait in oil of Farnes commissioned by MCC for those picked on the 1936-37 Ashes tour. Also donated was his diary for the trip, which has never been published, and reveals the depths of this introspective man who loved painting, poetry, geology and an eye for the opposite sex. He split cricket between working as a school master at Worksop College.
'He was talked about a lot in the family,' says Eleanor. 'But the one thing that sticks out is the oil painting. It was always in pride of place and anyone who came to the house would ask 'who was he?'. Ken's eyes would follow you around the room. My father was very proud that Ken played for England. He was only a boy at the time but he would love to talk about his famous uncle.'
Farnes, a shot-put blue at Cambridge, was a natural sportsman. Tall and athletic, he generated hostile pace off an 11 stride run-up. Brydon Carse is the closest current day equivalent. The family newspaper cuttings of the Australia tour show photographs of a strapping Farnes on the boat, hitting golf balls into a net and swimming in the sea.
He played 15 Tests, taking 60 wickets at 28, dismissing Bradman twice. In one of his final Tests at Melbourne in 1937 he was involved in the most poignant of dismissals: Ross Gregory caught Verity, bowled Farnes for 80. All three would die in the Second World War.
David Pracy, the Essex archivist, carefully removes the album of newspaper cuttings the Farnes family kept while he was on tour for England and the copy of the 1939 Boy's Own magazine that features him on the cover.
Essex have also digitised his handwritten diary of the 1936-37 Ashes. It reveals a man fascinated by the sights, sounds and people he met on the six-month trip starting in September, ending in April. He details the long voyage to Australia, a kangaroo hunting expedition and bowling Bradman at the MCG. There is a long gap over the new year period when he was too distraught to write because his mother had died in the UK.
Injuries and school work curtailed Farnes's England career and he signed up for the RAF at the outbreak of war hoping to fly fighters. He was too big for the small cockpits so was moved to Wellington Bombers. He finished his training academy in Canada top of the class.
The small village of Chipping Warden, Northamptonshire, has changed little since October 1941, when Farnes was killed on his first night-flying exercise in a Wellington. He got into trouble practising an overshoot manoeuvre and crash-landed in the village, keeping the plane upright long enough to avoid houses before smashing into a tennis court. He died instantly.
There is a plaque on a house at Hogg End, just close to the village church and where he crashed, commemorating Farnes's sacrifice.
What it does not reveal is the personal tragedy. Waiting for him at his base was his girlfriend Aeron Franklin. She knew he had died when he did not return to land. They had been together for six months. Farnes had given her a copy of his favourite poem: Hassan by James Elroy Flecker.
Aeron had been married before and had a daughter, Diana. She would go on to marry the film critic Barry Norman and believed her mother and Ken would have married had he lived. For the rest of her life, Aeron kept Ken's newspaper obituaries and the copy of Hassan.
He was just 30 when he died. 'For me, seeing the bails fly, it was almost an overwhelming moment,' he wrote about dismissing the Don in front of 60,000 at the MCG. There should have been many more such moments.
Hedley Verity
A doomed charge
Verity was the most famous sportsman to die in the war and undoubtedly one of the greatest bowlers of all time. He took 1,956 first-class wickets at an average of 14, the highlight being his 10 for 10 against Notts in 1932. He played in four Ashes series and took 15 for 104 against Australia in 1934. He finished with 144 Tests wickets at an average of 24.37, dismissing Bradman more times than any other bowler (eight).
He enlisted at the same time as Bowes and was badly wounded on his first day in action for the Green Howards, during the invasion of Sicily in 1943.
Verity's platoon were in action on the Catania plain, pinned down by machine guns while attacking a German-held farmhouse. He was struck in the chest by shrapnel. A front-page story in The Telegraph reported that he was last heard ordering his men: 'Keep going! Get them out of the farmhouse and me into it!'
His company was forced to retreat leaving the wounded Verity on the battlefield. He was picked up by the Germans along with his batman, Tom Rennoldson. Verity was operated on in another farmhouse and while on the table a grenade fell out of his pocket. He was shipped to the Italian mainland to a POW camp where he died on July 31 from infection.
His friend and team-mate Bowes learnt about Verity's death while in Chieti POW camp. Bowes was distraught. 'I often wonder what a certain man in Yorkshire thought when he read the news. Not knowing that both Hedley and I had already visited the recruiting office at the beginning of the war, the man said: 'And what about you? I reckon that anybody who is good enough to play for England can fight for England.' Perhaps he got his answer. Hedley was good enough to die for England.'
And so were many others.
Gerry Chalk
A Spitfire hero denied an England career
Ian Phipps is the energetic new archivist at Kent and he has prepared for my arrival at Canterbury on a cloudy March day. The first team are preparing in the indoor school for the start of the season.
Phipps has laid out some astonishing artefacts. We are looking at the uniform and kit found on Gerry Chalk's body 40 years ago, some of it remarkably preserved despite four decades in the Normandy mud. There is the stained, torn flying jacket, his ripped goggles and fragments of Chalk's shirt and tie. We have chosen not to publish photographs of his clothing.
While Farnes's giant frame prevented him flying a Spitfire, there was no such problem for Chalk, the Kent captain in 1939. He never played for England, but may have done had it not been for hostilities breaking out.
He died in 1943 when he was shot down over northern France, crashing into a farmer's field with the engines still roaring. He lay there buried until the 1980s when an archaeologist excavated the wreckage and found Chalk still strapped into his seat.
The collection has never been put on public display by Kent as a mark of respect. I pick up Chalk's flying jacket, his goggles, parachute and bits of his woollen sweater that he was wearing when he was shot down. They are incredibly well preserved. But the most arresting artefacts are the old pennies and shillings that were in his pocket. They make him feel human, a normal person going about his everyday life, which just happened to be flying a Spitfire in combat. The radio and broken earpiece are haunting. A small paint brush, presumably used to wipe away dust and dirt from his instruments, is still in one piece.
Chalk's penultimate game for Kent was against Yorkshire when he carried his bat, scoring a second-innings hundred against an attack led by Verity, who took five for 48 in a comfortable win. He may have played for England had he lived. Like so many others, a promising future was snatched away.
All those who fell
Joseph Connaughton (Middlesex)
Died in 1944 aged 25 when his troopship – HMT Khedive Ismail – was torpedoed by the Japanese off the Maldives and went down in three minutes.
John Butterworth (Middlesex)
Killed when a bomb hit his anti-aircraft gun on Shooter's Hill while defending London during the Blitz.
Reggie Butterworth (Middlesex)
Brother of John. Served as a gunner in the RAF Volunteer Reserve, flying in Lysanders. Was killed over northern France when his plane was shot down in May 1940.
Laurie Eastman (Essex)
Killed in the Blitz during one of the heaviest nights of bombing in April 1941 while serving as an ARP warden.
Francis Arkwright (Hampshire)
Nigel McCrery, the late screenwriter who was the creator of Silent Witness and New Tricks, revealed in his book, The Coming Storm, that Arkwright died when he was hit by an armour piercing shell while trying to manoeuvre his tank company at Acroma, Libya, in 1943. He was awarded the DSO for his courage that day.
Peter Eckersley (Lancashire)
Also an MP, he died in a flying accident in 1940 in Hampshire.
Sir Alfred Evans (Hampshire)
Vice Admiral out of retirement for World War Two serving as a commodore of conveys, he died in a plane crash over Newfoundland.
Bernard Howlett (Kent)
Brigadier won a bar to his DSO for actions in the invasion of Sicily and was due to be promoted to major general to command a division in the Normandy landings when he was killed by German artillery fire while riding a horse to inspect his troops in Italy.
Jack Lee (Somerset)
Died in the Normandy campaign, serving with the 208 Pioneer Corps two weeks after D-Day.
Charles Packe (Leicestershire)
Killed on July 1, 1944 during the occupation of Chateau de la Ronde, a crucial staging point on the way to Caen.
Robert Nelson (Northamptonshire)
Died when an Italian aircraft bombed his barracks in Deal, Kent.
William Baldock (Somerset)
Executed by the Japanese while fighting for the Malaya voluntary force in 1941.
Eric Dixon (Northamptonshire)
Died when his plane went missing off the coast of Libya in 1941.
Donald Walker (Hampshire)
Shot down over the Netherlands while on a bombing raid on Cologne in 1941.
George Kemp-Welch (Warwickshire)
Killed when a V1 bomb was dropped on the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks in Westminster on June 18, 1944. In total, 121 people were killed and it took two days to dig out the bodies. It was hushed up at the time.
Peter 'Foster' McRae (Somerset)
Died on board of destroyer HMS Mahratta when it was torpedoed by a U-boat in the Barents Sea off Norway while escorting a Russian convoy in February 1944. Only 16 of the 236 crew survived. McRae was the ship's surgeon and survivors later said he hauled men onto lifeboats before saying 'there's not enough room for us all' and slipped over the side. He was never seen again.
John Blake (Hampshire)
A commando who won the Military Cross for leading a bayonet charge during the Anzio landings in 1944. Killed soon after on the Yugoslav (now Croatian) island of Brac by a German counterattack after successfully leading his men through a minefield.
James Grimshaw (Kent)
Killed at Nijmegen, Netherlands, at the end of Operation Market Garden.
Norman Bowell (Northamptonshire)
Captured by the Japanese and shipped to Ballalae in the Soloman Islands to build an airstrip. Many POWs died of illness or from beatings. Those still standing when the Allies closed in, were executed.
Peter Whitehouse (Kent)
Joined the Black Watch in 1941 and after fighting in Iraq, Iran and north Africa, he died in the Italian campaign in November 1943.
Roger Winlaw (Surrey)
Pilot who died in an air accident in north Wales in 1942 while serving with 256 Squadron.
Claude Ashton (Essex)
Navigator who died in the same air crash that took Winlaw's life over north Wales while training for night-raids flying in Bristol Beaufighters.
Ronald Gerrard (Somerset)
Also played rugby union 14 times for England, winning the Triple Crown in 1932 and 1934. Won a DSO in Africa for clearing a field of landmines and was later killed in action near Tobruk in 1943.
Kenneth Scott (Sussex)
Won the Military Cross for actions in Tunisia holding up a German advance. He was killed a year later during the Sicily invasion at Monte Rivoglia.
Peter Whitehouse (Kent)
Fought in Iraq, Syria and Iran with the Indian army and died in the Italian campaign at the Sangro river.
Cedric Humphries (Worcestershire)
Killed while serving with the Somerset Light Infantry when his slit trench was hit by a shell close to the German border in November 1944.
Peter Cherrington (Leicestershire)
Won the DSO for his bravery in Burma. He was killed soon after.
Sidney Adams (Northamptonshire)
His most notable cricketing feat for Northamptonshire was bowling the playwright Samuel Beckett with his first ball in first-class cricket. Adams died crossing the Rhine with the Royal Artillery near Hamminkeln in March 1945.
Alastair Campbell (Hampshire)
Cricketer and footballer who played 200 games for Southampton. He died of pneumonia while on military duty in 1943.
George Groves (Nottinghamshire)
Former first-class cricketer who was a journalist working for the Sporting Life in Newmarket. He died when their office was bombed in 1941.
Geoffrey Fletcher (Somerset)
Fought in North Africa and was killed in the Battle of the Mareth Line, Tunisia in 1943.
Charles Mayo (Somerset)
Also died in the North Africa campaign. He was killed in action near Alexandria, Egypt in 1943 aged 40.
Frederick Barnado (Middlesex)
Great nephew of Thomas Barnado, founder of the children's charity, he was killed in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942.
Roger Human (Worcestershire)
He was picked for the England tour of India in 1939-40 that was called off due to the outbreak of war. He did go to India, dying there while serving with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1942.
Gerald Seeley (Worcestershire)
Joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve training as a gunner on Blenheim light bombers. He died in July 1941 when his plane was shot down off the coast of Belgium.
Henry Carr (Glamorgan)
Joined the RAF on the outbreak of war, serving in the intelligence branch for two years before he died of illness aged 35 in August 1943.
Charles Spencer (Glamorgan)
Joined the Royal Marines at the outbreak of war. He was found dead in Portsmouth in 1943 with a service revolver next to his body. 'Mystery Death of A Captain' was the headline in the Daily Telegraph.
Alexander Shaw (Sussex)
Spent most of his life in India and joined the 11th Sikh Regiment. He fought in Burma where he was promoted to captain. Died by suicide in July 1945.
Robert Miller (Sussex)
Played 12 games for Sussex before moving to Africa in 1935. He died in Aden in 1941.
Cyril Hamilton (Kent)
Played two games for Kent in 1935. Joined the Royal Artillery and was killed in action in Eritrea in 1941.