We will remember you

Two brothers, William and Edward Gardiner, sons of a schoolmaster and my father's first cousins both killed in the world wars. Their family have no descendants so we will remember them.

William Norman Gardiner born in 1893 was killed on the 31st May 1916 at the Battle of Jutland, off Denmark, in the largest naval battle of WWI. Fourteen British ships and eleven German ships were sunk. William was a crew member of HMS Defence, an armoured cruiser and his name is one of many on the Royal Naval War Memorial in Plymouth.

His younger brother Edward A N Gardiner was born in 1904. He was killed on 9th April 1942 while serving in HMS Hermes, an aircraft carrier of the British Eastern Fleet returning from Trincomalee when they were bombed by Japanese dive-bombers off Ceylon in WWII. His name is also on the Plymouth Memorial but with those of the second WW.