GODDIN, JOHN EDWARD
Rank:
Service No:
Date of Death:
Age:
Regiment/Service:
Grave Reference:
Text on stone:
Private
14571454
24/09/1944
21
Royal Army Medical Corps attd. 1st Bn. Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry
I. A. 14.
There is a link death cannot sever love and remembrance
live for ever
Additional information:
Son of John Morris Goddin and Ada Florence Goddin, of Islington, London.
He died of wounds at the field hospital in the village of Meerveldhoven where he was initially buried.
Original gravesite at Meerveldhoven.
From the service records of John Edward Goddin, the following account can be reconstructed.
John Edward Goddin was born on 17 May 1923 in Finsbury, London. In civilian life he trained and worked as a Surgical Syringe Assistant, a background that would later be directly relevant to his military service. His physical description lists him as 5 feet 10¾ inches tall, with brown eyes and dark brown hair. He was unmarried.
He joined the British Army on 1 April 1943, enlisting in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). After training, he was posted overseas and entered the North-West Europe theatre on 3 June 1944, shortly before the Allied landings in Normandy.
Serving with the RAMC, John Edward Goddin would have been involved in the treatment and evacuation of wounded soldiers under extremely dangerous front-line conditions. During operations in the intense fighting that followed the Normandy landings, he was wounded.
John Edward Goddin died of his wounds on 24 September 1944. He was a young medical serviceman who gave his life while caring for others during the Allied advance through North-West Europe.
