In Darlington North Cemetery is the Commonwealth War Grave, with a private headstone, of D/MX673927 Wireman Titus Wilfred Ridsdale serving on H.M.S.Dundonald with the Royal Navy who died 17/08/1944.
The headstone reads:
In loving memory of
our dear son
Titus Wilfred Ridsdale R.N.
accidently killed
17th August 1944 aged 21 years.
He still lives in our hearts.
Wilfred Ridsdale, his dear father,
died 25th June 1960, aged 58 years
and Margaret Ridsdale,
his dear mother
died 9th June 1979, aged 77 years.
Born in Darlington on 31st August 1923, Titus Wilfred Ridsdale was the first child and only son of local couple Wilfred and Margaret (nee Mason) Ridsdale, his sister Brenda was born in 1930.
By 1939 the family had moved to live at 82 Weardale Crescent, Billingham where both father and son worked in the chemical industry.
Young Wilfred enlisted with the Royal Navy and became a Wireman with the service number D/MX673927, signifying his home port was Devonport on the south coast. A wireman was an electrical specialist responsible for maintaining wiring, circuits, and electrical gear, often deployed on landing craft or at naval air stations.
He was posted to H.M.S. Dundonald, a training base at Gailes Camp, Troon in Ayrshire, Scotland, which was the Signals School for Combined Operations personnel and training base for officers and crew using radio and other devices to assist small landing craft find their way to designated landing places on hostile beaches, so in preparation for D Day.
At the time of his death on 17th August Wireman Ridsdale was assigned to H.M.S.Daedalus, the Fleet Air Arm station at Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire. He and a fellow soldier had hitched a lift in a lorry which overturned when it hit a gatepost at the level crossing at Poole Railway Station. The driver was killed and the two soldiers were taken to Cordelia Hospital, Poole where Wilfred Ridsdale died from his injuries.
Titus Wilfred Ridsdale is remembered at Darlington on D40.035 and in our List of Ships’ Crews. (H.M.S. Daedalus)
