Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Victor Whitehead
3rd Battalion, the 8th Gurkha Rifles
Date of Birth: 1908
Place of Birth: India
Date of Death: 1st of March 1945, aged 37
Buried: Commemorated on the Rangoon Memorial (Face 70), in the Taukkyan War Cemetery and in the Teignmouth Old Cemetery, plot OO49
Awarded the DSO and twice Mentioned in Despatches plus the 1939-45 Star and the War Medal 1939-1945
Ernest Victor Whitehead and Stanley Henry James Whitehead were brothers who were both sadly killed during WW2 while serving with the Indian Army.
They were the sons of Major Ernest Kilve Whitehead and Edith Henrietta Clough Raymond Whitehead (nee Mallock) and were educated at St John’s College, Johannesburg. Husband of Felicity Pelham Whitehead, formerly of Cullompton.
Ernest Whitehead was born in 1908 and was educated at St John's College, Johannesburg, and in 1926, together with another South African, T.R. Waller, was to receive "special recommendation" to attend the RMC Sandhurst, entering the military college the following year.
RMC Sandhurst By http://www.wyrdlight.com Author: Antony McCallum - http://www.wyrdlight.com Author: Antony McCallum, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12423885
He was commissioned a second lieutenant on the 30th of August 1928, and was transferred from the unattached list to the Indian Army on the 16th of October 1929, and was promoted lieutenant in November 1930, and captain in August 1937.
During the war he was to serve with the Gurkha’s, being awarded the DSO and receiving a MIDs’ (mentioned in despatches) twice.
Ernest Whitehead was killed fighting in Burma on the 1st of March 1945, while commanding the 3rd battalion of the 8th Gurkha Rifles, and he is commemorated on the Rangoon Memorial (Face 70), in the Taukkyan War Cemetery, which is about 35 kilometres north of Yangon (formerly Rangoon), in what is now Myanmar (formerly Burma).
Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Victor Whitehead, 3rd Battalion, the 8th Gurkha Rifles
Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Victor Whitehead, 3rd Battalion, the 8th Gurkha Rifles
