Lance Sergeant E. D. Edlin BEM
2nd Bn. Suffolk Regt.
5438517
Killed in action, 25 January 1944, India. Aged 37.
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Ernest Daniel Edlin was born in Woking in 1907. His father Charles was a butcher from Harefield in Middlesex and his mother Florence was from Windsor. Ernest had an older brother (Frederick) and two older sisters (Ethel and Gladys), another sibling died in infancy. In 1911 the family lived at Melbourne Villas, Ellen (?) Street, Woking.
At the outbreak of war the 2nd Bn. Suffolk Regt. were posted to Mhow in India. They spent much of the next three years on policing duties. Over this period the regiment was severely depleted in numbers, firstly due to illness (more than half the battalion contracted malaria) and secondly as men, keen to see some action, asked to be transferred to front line units such as the 151st Parachute Battalion.
Ernest was awarded the BEM in 1941 for gallantry.
In October 1943 the battalion was finally on the move. They sailed from Madras aboard the SS Ethiopia bound for Chittagong (in what is now Bangladesh) and then marched for a week to Waybin in modern day NE India.
On 24 January 1944 the 2nd Battalion attacked a Japanese outpost that had been giving them sporadic trouble since the beginning of the month. At first they were driven back by machine gun fire from previously unlocated bunkers, together with mortar fire and grenades. After four days of fighting the battalion eventually took the position and managed to dig in but continued attacks from nearby outposts forced them to withdraw soon after. Ernest died on the second day of fighting.
The circumstances surrounding his British Empire medal are a little confusing. He is noted as BEM on his Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry yet the only Edlin gazetted as receiving a BEM between 1930 and 1946 is Ernest Edlin, a fitter at Vickers Armstrongs Ltd. in December 1944.
Ernest Edlin has no known grave and is remembered on the Rangoon Memorial, Myanmar (face 7) and on the Woking County Grammar School roll of honour located in Christ Church, Woking.
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Last updated 29 August 2009
Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
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