Source: Leicestershire War Memorials Project.
Douglas Arthur Richards was an airman in the 211 Squadron of the RAF. He was born on 11 June 1915, and lived in 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. 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 a prisoner of war camp, probably Java, whilst on active service, on 1 November 1944. His home address at that time was 48 Main Street. He had married Gertrude May Kilby from Griffydam in 1939, presumably just before he went off to war. She was known as Cis.
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Submitted by N. Pearson in 2020