Patrick Comerford
At 6:30 tomorrow evening (8 May 2025) the church bells at Saint Mary and Saint Giles are ringing across Stony Stratford, like church bells and cathedral bells across the land, marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe Day.
The fragile peace we have had in Europe for the past 80 years has been marred and broken constantly, and even shattered on many occasions, with the civil war in Greece (1946-1949), the false stability and tensions of the Cold War, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in former Yugoslavia’, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Every town and village in Crete has monuments and memorials that are reminders of how every family on the island suffered during World War II. As I passed the Souda Bay War Cemetery on my way from Rethymnon to Chania Airport, I was reminded of the horrors of war, that peace in Europe has been bought with a heavy price, and how all too often we take our liberties, rights and systems of justice for granted.
The road to the airport climbs high above a horseshoe bay, the busy port and the cemetery at Souda Bay in a peaceful setting in an olive grove and surrounded by eucalyptus trees, about 5 km east from the centre of Chania. There are 1,500 Commonwealth war graves from World War II in the cemetery, along with 60 or so other graves. These graves bring home with force the calamity that was the Battle of Crete in 1941.
In May 1941, the Commonwealth force in Crete was organised in five widely separated defence areas along the north coast – around the three airfields at Iraklion, Rethymnon and Máleme, and at Souda Bay and the port of Chania.
The Germans launched their attack on Crete on 20 May with airborne troops. The airfield at Máleme was quickly captured and used for landing German reinforcements. The remainder of the Máleme position was given up on 23 May and its defenders fell back to Chania. The Allied line west of Chania was broken on 26 May, Suda Bay became indefensible and the troops from these two positions, with the remainder of the Maleme garrison, withdrew across the island to Hora Sfakion, where many of them were evacuated by sea on the nights of the 28-31 May.
The airborne attacks on the Iraklion and Rethymnon positions on 20 May were repulsed. Iraklion was defended until the night of 29 May when the garrison was evacuated by sea. Orders for the garrison in Rethymnon to fight its way southward for evacuation did not arrive, and it was overwhelmed on 31 May. Of the total Commonwealth land force of 32,000 in Crete, 18,000 were evacuated, 12,000 were taken prisoner and 2,000 were killed.
Among the graves at Soudha is that of John Pendlebury, the archaeologist who took over at Knossos after Arthur Evans retired.
Being a pacifist does not stop me from wanting to remember on VE Day and to honour the sacrifices so many people made so that we would have democracy, freedom and justice 80 years later. For example, without the extraordinary work at Bletchley Park, would World War II have dragged on for another six years? Would Britain and Ireland have been invaded? Would six million more have been murdered in the Holocaust?
This evening, in anticipation of the VE Day commemorations tomorrow, I am recalling all those names of the dead from World War II from the Comerford, Commerford and Cumberford families that I have found recorded on memorials and graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The 19 members of this extended family I have found to date on Commonwealth War Graves are from many parts of Ireland and Britain, including Wexford and Arklow, from Glasgow, Hartlepool, Hastings, London, Manchester, Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and Shrewsbury, and also from Australia, Canada and South Africa.
They include soldiers and officers, with ambulance units in the medical corps, drivers, able seamen, civilian casualties, soldiers in the D-Day landings, merchant seamen torpedoed in Atlantic convoys, brothers and sisters, and prisoners of war of the Japanese in Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), Hong Kong and Japan.
They are buried or commemorated in the Phaleron War Cemetery near Athens, in Normandy, Borneo, Burma, Japan, Nottinghamshire, London, Sydney, Durban and Montreal.
Five Comerfords who were Prisoners of War of the Japanese are remembered in the Sat Wan Memorial in Hong Kong, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery and the Rangoon Memorial in Burma (Myanmar), Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan, and the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in Borneo, Malaysia. Four Comerfords are named on the Merchant Seamen’s Memorial on Tower Hill in London and two are named on the Plymouth War Memorial.
These 19 people from World War II are:
Derek Comerford: United Kingdom; Ordinary Seaman, Merchant Navy, S.S. Empire Engineer (West Hartlepool). Age: 17. Date of death: 2 February 1941. Family information: son of Peter and Mary Hannah Comerford, of North Shields, Northumberland. His father, Peter Comerford, was born in Glasgow, and his father was from Ireland. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 40, Tower Hill Memorial.
Edward William Commerford, United Kingdom; Private, Home Guard, 18th County of London Bn. Age: 39. Date of death: 4 February 1944. Family information: son of Edward and Matilda Commerford; husband of Minnie Commerford, of Dulwich. Grave/memorial reference: Sec. 86. Grave 39695, West Norwood Cemetery and Crematorium.
Ernest Edward Comerford: Australian; Lieutenant, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 3 Rec. Trg. Bn. Age: 28. Date of death: 18 July 1945. Service number: QX.35506. Family information: Son of John Edward and Rosina Comerford, of Townsville, Queensland. Grave/memorial reference: 2W. D. 8, Sydney War Cemetery.
Frank Comerford: United Kingdom; Company Quartermaster Serjeant, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Age: 40. Date of death: 3 April 1944. Service number: 3514928. Family information: son of William and Margaret Comerford; husband of Doris Mary Comerford, of Frankwell, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Grave/memorial reference: Sec. A 2 D. Grave 1. Beeston and Stapleford (Chilwell) Cemetery.
Gerald Francis Commerford, Australian; Private, Australian Army Medical Corps, A.I.F. 2/10 Field Ambulance. Age: 25. Date of death: 9 February 1945. Service number: NX33246. Family information: son of Denis and Margaret Sarah Commerford, of Lower Lawrence, New South Wales. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 26, Labuan Memorial, Malaysia.
Hugh Brown Cumberford, United Kingdom; Radio Officer, Merchant Navy, SS Kellwyn (Swansea). Age: 19. Date of death: 27 July 1941. Family information: son of John Brown Cumberford and Agnes Cumberford, of Dalmarnock, Glasgow. Grave/memorial reference: Tower Hill Memorial.
James Matthew Comerford, Australian; Corporal, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/26 Bn. Age: 26. Date of death: 25 May 1943. Service number: QX17117. Family information: son of Edward Tobias and Ellen Cecelia Comerford, of Paddington, Queensland, Australia. Grave/memorial reference: A1. B. 19, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Burma (Myanmar).
John Commerford, United Kingdom; Lance Corporal, Middlesex Regiment, 1st Bn. Age: 27. Date of death: between 1 and 2 October 1942. Service number: 6010413. Family information: son of Serjeant TJ Commerford, The Royal Fusiliers, and of Mary Commerford, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, England. Grave/memorial reference: Column 14, Sat Wan Memorial, Hong Kong.
Lilian Rose Comerford, United Kingdom; civilian casualty. Age: 62. Date of death: 30 September 1940. Family information: of Rose Cottage, The Ridge, Hastings; daughter of Francis Thomas and Charlotte Comerford. Died at Robertson Street. Reporting authority: Hastings County Borough.
Mary Agnes Comerford, United Kingdom; civilian casualty. Age: 17. Date of death: 16 December 1940. Family information: daughter of Thomas and Mary Agnes Comerford, of 26 New Allen Street, Collyhurst, Manchester; died at Ancoats Hospital, New Cross, Manchester; her brother, Michael John Comerford (see below), died in 1944, and is buried near Athens. Reporting authority: Manchester County Borough.
Michael John Comerford, United Kingdom; Gunner, Royal Artillery, 165 Field Regt. Age: 22. Date of death: 5 December 1944. Service number: 1144779. Family information: son of Thomas and Mary Agnes Comerford, of Manchester; husband of Sabina Comerford, of Manchester; his sister, Mary Agnes Comerford (see above), was a civilian casualty in 1940. Grave/memorial reference: 16. E. 12, Phaleron War Cemetery, near Athens.
Noel Patrick Commerford, South African; Able Seaman, South African Naval Forces, HMS Cornwall. Age: ?. Date of death: 5 April 1942 (off the coast of Ceylon/Sri Lanka). Service number: 66493. Family information: son of Mrs P Commerford, of Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa; brother of Terence Commerford (see below), who died five months later. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 74, Column 1, Plymouth Naval Memorial.
Patrick Comerford, United Kingdom (Ireland); Able Seaman, Merchant Navy, SS Clune Park (Greenock). Age: 52. Date of death: 12 February 1941 (200 miles south-east of the Azores, in Convoy SLS-64 from Freetown to Liverpool). Family information: husband of Catherine Comerford, of Dungulph, Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford. His brother, Laurence Comerford, was a casualty in World War I. Grave/memorial reference: Panel 31, Tower Hill Memorial.
Patrick Comerton (Comerford), United Kingdom (Ireland); Able Seaman, Merchant Navy, SS Newbury (London). Age: 49. Date of death: 15 September 1941 (torpedoed by U-94 and sunk 800 miles south-east of Cape Farewell, carrying coal from Cardiff to Buenos Aires). Family information: son of James and Mary Comerton (Comerford); husband of Mary Ellen Comerton (Comerford), of Arklow, Co Wicklow. Memorial: Panel 72, Tower Hill Memorial, London,
Terence Commerford, South African; Ordinary Seaman, South African Naval Forces, HMS Express. Age: 21. Date of death: 19 September 1942. Service number: 330258. Family information: son of Pierce and Wilhelmina Commerford of Cape Town; brother of Noel Patrick Commerford (see above), who died five months earlier. Grave/memorial reference: Block F. Grave 275, Durban (Stellawood) Cemetery.
Thomas Matthew Commerford, United Kingdom; Trooper, Royal Armoured Corps, 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars. Age: 36. Date of death: 19 August 1944 (Normandy Landings). Service number: 7927353. Family information: son of Thomas James Commerford and Mary Commerford; husband of Phyllis Ettie Mary Commerford, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex. Grave/memorial reference: III. F. 13, Banneville-la-Campagne War Cemetery.
Thomas Michael Comerford, Australian; Private, Australian Infantry, A.I.F. 2/20 Bn. Age: 39. Date of death: 26 October 1943. Service number: NX55519. Family information: son of John and Bridget Ann Comerford. Grave/memorial reference: Aust. Sec. A.B.1, Yokohama War Cemetery, Japan.
William Comerford, United Kingdom; Fusilier, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 1st Bn. Age: 22. Date of death: 18 January 1943 (POW). Service number: 6981836. Family information: son of Edward William Comerford and Harriet Comerford, of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Grave/memorial reference: Face 11, Rangoon Memorial, Burma (Myanmar).
William Michael Commerford, Canadian; Private, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps. Age: 36. Date of death: 30 November 1944. Service number: D/142978. Family information: husband of Muriel Commerford, of Montreal. Grave/memorial reference: Sec. I. Lot 1498. Grave 5957, Montreal (Notre Dame des Neiges) Cemetery, Canada.
Behind each of these names and numbers are real-life stories … but more of these stories tomorrow evening.
