WILCOXON F W

WILCOXON, Frederick William

Regiment: HMS Gloucester Royal Marines

Rank: Marine

Died: 22 May 1941

Aged: 21

Buried/ Memorial: Plymouth Naval Memorial

Address: 28 Lightfoot Street, Hoole

Cheshire Observer 14 September 1943

MR J T WILCOXON

A report on the death of John Thomas Wilcoxon contained the following:

“One of his brothers was reported missing at the time of the battle of Crete, when he was serving as a marine in HMS Gloucester, which was sunk at that time.”

His brother Edward WILCOXON also perished during the war.

HMS Gloucester

HMS Gloucester was one of the second batch of three Town-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the late 1930s. Commissioned shortly before the start of World War II in August 1939, the ship was initially assigned to the China Station and was transferred to the Indian Ocean and later to South Africa to search for German commerce raiders. She was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in mid-1940 and spent much of her time escorting Malta Convoys. Gloucester played minor roles in the Battle of Calabria in 1940 and the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941. She was sunk by German dive bombers on 22 May 1941 during the Battle of Crete with the loss of 722 men out of a crew of 807.