Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 139

W ORLD W AR II

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

Name JOHN ROGER MICHAEL BLAKISTON (Trooper)

Roll Number 3207 Died 16:12:1944

Set / House F

Arrive SES 1937

Lef SES 1939

Where BELGIUM Serving with ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS

Age 21

Buried Schoonselhof Cemetery, Hoboken, Belgium Remembered Henfield Village War Memorial and The St. Edward’s School WW2 Memorial

Born in Bristol 1923 and only at the School two years with the war intervening. He left while still in the Vth Form. He left the School early to enlist and joined the Northamptonshire Yeomanry as a Trooper. He was killed in action when part of ‘Operation Market Garden’, Montgomery’s master plan to create a bridgehead over the Rhine and move into Northern Germany, so as to end the war early. Blakiston was buried close to where he fell in a Belgian cemetery at Hoboken near Antwerp. ‘He was a quite steady boy while at School, he made many friends by his steadfastness of character and purpose and his ready sympathy’ (Chronicle).