MORE than 90 ‘old boys’ from Bablake School died during World War II and I have established that another 650 Coventry men served.
Many of those men were decorated for their bravery during battle. One such man was Second Lieutenant Kenneth George Horsley.
Kenneth was born at 156 Harnall Lane East on August 17, 1924, the son of Leonard and Getrude Florence Horsley.
Ten years later Kenneth was enrolled at Bablake School.
He was noted for his sporting prowess, scoring a bevy of tries in a derby rugby match in December 1938 when the junior rugby colts beat local rivals King Henry VIII 32-0 at home. A year later he won the school’s annual 440 yards dash.
In 1940 Kenneth put his budding sporting career behind when he left the school to work for AP Aircraft Parts Ltd. It was during his time at the factory that, at 16-years-old, he was awarded the British Empire Medal for bravery during an air raid.
His citation posted in the London Gazette reads the medal was awarded for ‘gallant conduct on April 8 and 9 1941, when, during a heavy raid, rescuing five trapped people, in spite
of falling debris and the dropping of high explosive bombs’.
Kenneth’s actions did not go unnoticed by his former school, as the July 1941 edition of ‘The Wheatleyan’ records shows: “‘Our congratulations to KG Horsley, (1935 - 1940) to whom in recognition of his bravery in a raid the British Empire Medal has been awarded. Horsley went out to help the civil defence workers during the raid. He saw a house that had been struck by bombs and completely demolished and by his courageous efforts in crawling through a tunnel beneath the debris the trapped people were rescued uninjured.
“He is not attached to any civil defence unit but during raids on Coventry travelled about the district lending a hand with incendiary bombs, helping the AFS and rescue squads.
“In the heavy raids to which his award refers he went to Eagle Street to see if some relatives were safe and found the house next door had been demolished.
“After helping to extricate his aunt, his cousin and two other women from beneath the stairs which were partly wrecked, he assisted a police sergeant in an attempt to rescue the five people trapped beneath the wreckage next door.
“A hole was tunnelled from the side of a large crater next to the top of the stairs and Horsley entered through the narrow gap, he reached the trapped people after passing out bit by bit the obstacles in his way until there was space to push the trapped persons through the gap to within reach of the police sergeant who was able to pull them through to safety.
“The conditions at the time were such that civilians who had started to assist left the scene.
“The bravery displayed by Horsley cannot be too highly praised.
“The rescue work took two hours to complete with debris falling from the damaged roof and high explosives dropping continuously in the vicinity the official statement says”.
A year later from the bombing Kenneth joined the 4th County of London Yeomanry ‘Sharpshooters’.
As part of the Royal Armoured Corps he participated in the D-Day invasion of France in June 1944. He died in action on July 20 of that year.
Second Lieutenant Kenneth Horsely is buried in Ranville British Cemetery, near Caen, in France.
He has a plaque in the War Memorial Park which reads “2/Lt Kenneth George Horsley RAC Killed in action July 20 1944”.
Trevor Harkin, author of “Bablake School and the Great War”, seeks relatives of Bablake old boys or old boys themselves who served during the Second World War to contact him on trevor_harkin @hotmail.com
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