HARTLEY, FRED
Rank:
Service No:
Date of Death:
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Text on stone:
Rank:
Service No:
Date of Death:
Age:
Regiment/Service:
Grave Reference:
Text on stone:
Corporal
4617450
19/09/1944
25
Royal Armoured Corps 15th/19th The King’s Royal Hussars
I. D. 14.
For ever a heartache always a tear only those who loved you hold you dear
Additional Information:
Son of Joseph Henry and Annie Hartley, of Bradford, Yorkshire; husband of Edna Hartley, of Bradford.
Fred Hartley got orders to stop the actions he was engaged in and rapidly move towards the bridge at Son. The Germans were undertaking a counter attack towards the bridge. During this attack the tank of Fred Hartley was hit by an panzerfaust. Fred was killed together with troopers, Davis, Richards and Sutherland.
He was born February 24th, 1919 and initially buried at Best.
From the service records of Fred Hartley, the following account can be reconstructed.
Fred Hartley was born on 24 February 1919 in Rondhay, Bradford, Yorkshire. Before the war he worked as a roller coverer, a skilled industrial occupation. He was 5 feet 6½ inches tall, with blue eyes and light brown hair. Fred married Edna McLean on 4 June 1941, and together they had one child.
He enlisted in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment on 8 October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War. Fred served with the British Expeditionary Force in France from 28 April 1940 until 15 June 1940. On 30 July 1942, he transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps.
Fred Hartley was deployed to North-West Europe on 25 August 1944. Less than a month later, he was killed in action on 19 September 1944, during the heavy fighting that followed the Allied breakout from
Relatives of Fred Hartley together with the grave adopters at the gravesite in 2018.
