Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 137

W ORLD W AR II

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name JOHN STEWART NOALL BERNAYS (Lt Colonel)

Lef SES 1912

Roll Number 1266 Died 5:12:1941

Set / House C

Arrive SES 1907

Where OFF ALEXANDRIA Serving with THE LEICESTERSHIRE REGIMENT

Age 48

Buried Lost at sea, no known grave Remembered The Alamein Memorial, Egypt and The St. Edward’s School WW2 Memorial

Born in 1893 in Farnham, Surrey, he was one of the few OSE to survive the Great War but not the WW2. He had won a School Scholarship and his time at St. Edward’s was more successful scholastically than anything else. In 1913 he went into banking but served with the Leicestershire Regiment throughout the Great War, winning the Military Cross (MC). He later served with the Sudan Defence Force at the rank of Captain in the mid 1920s. He remained a regular soldier. With the outbreak of WW2 he was a Major with the Leicesters and was made up to Lieutenant Colonel in 1941 serving in the Desert Campaign. He was lost on the SS ‘Chakdina’, a Hospital Ship, travelling between Tobruk and Alexandria with six hundred passengers, including three hundred and eight wounded troops as well as one hundred POWs. Despite vivid Red Cross markings the ship was sunk by an Italian Torpedo Bomber, resulting in the loss of four hundred lives, including Bernays.