[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

In memory of Sergeant Percival Kitchener Saunders, 18 Divisional Workshops Royal Ordnance Corps, service number 7624351, inside-forward for Brentford and Sunderland.  Joining Sunderland as a teenager, he managed 20 appearances and 6 goals; a gifted sketch artist, he spent much of his spare time drawing pictures of the Wearside shipyards.  Transferring to Brentford in summer 1939, he scored on his debut to secure a 1-1 draw against Everton at Goodison Park in one of the three games that was played before war broke out.  He was one of the first Brentford players to enlist, joining the Royal Ordnance Corps which posted him to the Far East.  In February 1942, in the chaos following the surrender of Malaya and Singapore and with the Japanese poised to invade the Dutch East Indies, Sergeant Saunders was among those evacuated from the port of Emmahaven aboard the Dutch ship SS Rooseboom, bound for Ceylon.  At 11.35pm on the night of 1st March 1942, the Japanese submarine I-59 spotted the Rooseboom in the Indian Ocean and torpedoed it after a short pursuit, leaving only five survivors, one of whom was soon captured by the Japanese and shot as a spy.  Sergeant Saunders, who died in the attack, is commemorated along with other Sunderland players who lost their lives in the world wars with a statue outside the Stadium of Light.

In memory of Private Wilfred Shaw, 2nd Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, service number 4697323, right-back for Doncaster Rovers.  A one-club professional, Doncaster signed Shaw from Rossington Colliery in 1930 and he remained at Belle Vue for the rest of his career, making 180 acknowledged appearances and countless more in the wartime leagues.  Having enlisted in the Argyll & Sutherlands, he served in the liberation of Western Europe; in 1945, when the Allies came to the Reichswald Forest - a five-mile funnel of land bounded by the rivers Rhine and Maas to the north and south, and the natural corridor through which to invade Germany - there was little choice but to blast through the heavily-defended bottleneck that encompassed part of the infamous Siegfried Line.  For two full weeks the British forces fought through darkness and mist, through gusting wind and icy rain, slogging along flooded forest paths and across quagmire minefields to dislodge a fanatical defence of German paratroopers, with the Highlanders playing pipes during the advance to guard against friendly fire when visibility was poor.  It was on 20th February 1945, twelve days into the offensive, that Wilf Shaw was killed on the northern flank of the Reichswald Forest front.  He was survived by his elder brother, legendary cup-winning Albion fullback George Shaw.  At the conclusion of the battle, the regimental sergeant-major of the King's Own Scottish Borderers flew a token piece of dirty laundry from the West Wall of the Reichswald Forest fortifications, fulfilling the five-year-old promise to "hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line."

In memory of Leading Seaman Charles Thomas Sillett, Royal Navy SS Corvus, service number C/JX 248591, left-back for Southampton.  A soldier before he became a footballer, Sillett initially played only in army matches during the 1920s and didn't become a professional until his mid-twenties, when he scored twice on his debut for Saints at centre-forward.  Versatile and two-footed, his career at the Dell put him in a variety of positions around the field, though left-back was his favoured role.  Dogged by injuries, he captained Southampton in his last season before retirement, and then managed a pub in the New Forest until the outbreak of war, when he volunteered as a gunner aboard defensively-armed merchant ships and served on the Atlantic convoys.  On 29th September 1942 he survived the sinking of HMS Registan by U-332 east of Barbados, and was rescued by an Argentinian merchant boat; but at 10.15am on 27th February 1945, bound for Plymouth with 1800 tons of coal, Sillett's ship the Corvus was spotted by U-1018 and torpedoed seven miles from Lizard Point.  The explosion ripped open the ship's starboard side; she listed heavily and sank within minutes.  Six of the twenty-two crew and two of the three gunners were killed or drowned, Sillett among them.  Within two hours, U-1018 was successfully sunk by the convoy escort.  Sillett was survived by his widow Anne and his sons Peter and John.  Both sons went on to become professional footballers at Chelsea: Peter was capped by England in the 1950s, and John Sillett managed Coventry City to FA Cup glory in 1987.

In memory of Major John James Tompkins, Royal Fusiliers, service number 138742, left-half for Fulham.  Employed as one of the ground-staff at Highbury during his amateur days, Arsenal's legendary manager Herbert Chapman was disappointed to hear that Tompkins had signed for Fulham after seeing him play, as he regarded the half-back as a future England player.  Ultimately, Tompkins played 164 matches for Fulham including an FA Cup semi-final in 1936; known for his tough tackling and attacking runs, he was a lynchpin of the side.  Having joined the Territorial Army on the eve of war, he was drafted into the Royal Fusiliers and rose swiftly through the ranks.  Seconded to the 7th Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment after D-Day - an experienced officer leading a raw unit - on 10th July 1944 he was involved in the fighting around Hill 112, south of Caen, where Alan Fowler had died at daybreak.  Ordered to take the village of Maltot, at 8.15am the battalion advanced down the slope of a ridge through tall, ripe corn and encountered fierce enemy resistance with little cover.  Despite heavy losses, part of the battalion captured Maltot and attempted to fortify their position, only to find themselves in the jaws of a trap: a number of German Tiger tanks were dug in and concealed on the outskirts of the village, reinforced by elite SS troops, and they subjected the Hampshires to a punishing counterattack.  Major Tompkins was last seen charging an enemy machine-gun nest, but his body was never recovered, and he was thought to have suffered a direct hit from a tank shell.  He was 30, and his name is inscribed on the war memorial at Bayeux.

If you've read this far, thank you.  I hope you've enjoyed VE Day and will have a great time for the rest of the weekend.  But please carry on keeping your distance from others as you do.  The "sacrifice" we're making by staying at home is nothing compared to the sacrifices made by the men I've written about in this thread, and those who lived to see VE Day in 1945 and are still with us today are among the most vulnerable in this pandemic.  Don't let them down.  Keep them, and yourselves, safe; and in good time we'll all be at the football again.