Source: Leicestershire War Memorials Project.
Douglas Arthur Richards, an aircraftsman 1st class with the 211 Squadron of the RAF Volunteer Reserve was a Japanese prisoner of war. He was born on 11 June 1915, and lived at 48 Main Street, Thringstone and it would appear that his squadron served in Sumatra and Java on bombing raids to Japan in 1942. The squadron had heavy losses, and they surrendered on 8 March 1942 to the Japanese which is the date shown on records as the date of his capture. 340 personnel from the squadron were immediately taken prisoner of whom 179 died in captivity.
Douglas’s mother was Emma nee Hopkinson and his father was George Hallam Richards, one of 17 children of Samuel and Alice Richards. George was a coalminer originally from Osgathorpe, who married Emma in 1899 and who died in 1970. They lived ‘near The Green’ at the time of the 1911 census, which was before Douglas was born in 1915, and we know from that census record that Douglas had a sister called Elsie May, born in Thringstone in 1900, who appears to have married a Bertie Hudson in 1922.
Douglas died, in the prisoner of war camp in Java, on 1 November 1944 of beri beri and dysentery and was buried at sea. His home address at that time was 48 Main Street. He had married Gertrude May Kilby (born 25 Nov 1917) from Griffydam in 1939, just before he went off to war. She was known as Cis and also appears on the 1939 census at 48 Main Street, along with Douglas and his parents George Hallam Richards born 6 January 1876, and Emma born 9 February 1878. At the time of the 1939 register, Douglas was an assistant fireman at a colliery. His father was a coal miner, and his wife was in domestic service.


Submitted by N. Pearson in 2020