Warrant Officer 335809 Charlie William Noel Chatfield of 36 Squadron...

...was born 1905 at Eastbourne, the son of Charles and Barbara Chatfield.

On the 15th of August 1933, he married Maud Elizabeth Giddens at At Michael at Bowes, Enfield. The marriage register notes that Charlie was a Corporal with 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron (B) at RAF Hendon. His father was a printer. Maud, aged 24, was a spinster of 16, Eleanor Road, Bourne Park. Her father, George, was a ….? Guard.

Charlie was serving with 36 Squadron which was flying the very obsolescent Vickers Vildebeest torpedo bombers. Such was the state of the defences of Malaya that when the Japanese invaded in January 1942, these aircraft were used to attack enemy shipping. In spite of the courage of their crews, who did achieve some success, they could do little against the more modern and numerous aircraft of the Japanese and by March the 7th, the squadron ceased to exist.

Charlie was captured and died in Japan as a Prisoner of War at the Fukuoka Camp No.4 of acute colitis, on the 30th of November 1942 at the age of 37. His remains were cremated and he now lies in the Yokohama Cremation Memorial .

His probate records him as of 92, Married Quarters, Seletar, Singapore and that he had died on or since the 30th of November 1942 on war service. His estate of £375-9-4d was administered to his Maud, his widow of Morden in Surrey.

Charlie is also remembered on the family grave in Ocklynge. Also recorded on this grave are Leslie Edmund Ashley Chatfield, died 28th March 1941, aged 30. His mother Elizabeth Barbara "Bessie", died 15th July 1964, aged 84 and his father Charles who died on the 4th of March 1962 aged 79. 

This memorial takes the form of a shrine in which there is an urn containing the ashes of 355 soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Commonwealth, the USA and the Netherlands who died as Prisoners of the Japanese. Their names (save for the 51 who were not identified), are inscribed on the walls of the shrine. The cremation Memorial is alongside the Yokohama War Cemetery and Memorial. The cemetery holds 1,553 identified and 63 unidentified Commonwealth War Graves whilst the memorial is dedicated to twenty men of the Indian Army and Air Force who died after the war as part of the occupation force.