Gone Too Soon

Doing a family tree, looking back in time at the history of a family, always makes me reflect on how lucky I am to have survived thus far and how immensely lucky I was to have my mother survive to her mid-nineties. So many of the people I find have died young, some of them too young to have left an impression anywhere other than in their parents' hearts.
Disease, poor housing, air pollution caused by the industry in which their fathers worked, all played their part in shortening young lives and some families suffered many losses. Life was incredibly hard compared to what I've experienced.
I've also been surprised at the number of distant relatives who were involved in the armed forces, when growing up I had no idea that was the case. The relatives I knew about were miners, a reserved occupation, so they couldn't join up even when they wanted to. Some survived their service and went on to  have a family life again. But at least one didn't.
Cedric William Chicken's birth place was probably in Austria or Germany. His grandfather had emigrated to Bohemia to work in the coal mining industry there taking with him his wife and young son, John William. John William grew up and married an Austrian woman with the splendid name of Theodora Hermine Johanna Rosa Ottawa.  By 1921 John and Theodora were living in England again with their young family. Cedric joined the Indian Army, early in 1939 he married Kitty May Newman in Poona in India and in 1940 was promoted to 2nd lieutenant. Other promotions followed and by 1945 he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army Ordnance Corps.  The IAOC was part of the force fighting to free Burma from Japanese control when Cedric died on February 3rd 1945 near the Irawaddy River. I know nothing of the details - they don't seem to be recorded anywhere that I can currently access. He was originally buried in Mandalay Cemetery but later exhumed and transferred to Taukkyan War Cemetery where his grave is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. His widow and young daughter were probably in India at the time. Did they remain or did Independence the following year mean that they felt it better to go to England? Did his parents reach out to them or had they lost touch? I shall probably never know.

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