There are many reasons why it's been so hard to find out what happened to David. Here are the top three. HM LCI 185Confusion regarding the vessel. HM LCI 185 was of the class Landing Craft Infantry. It was commissioned from US and David was on it from the beginning. It sailed from Norfolk, Virginia early in 1943. Some time (probably early in 1944) it was repurposed in advance of D-Day to become an HQ ship thus it changed to HM LCH 185: Landing Craft Headquarters. What happened to it?Some Naval records suggest it was lost on 6th June, but subsequent research (including most recently ‘The Search/ No Roses on a Sailors Grave’) evidences that it was hit by an acoustic mine off Sword Beach near Lion-sur-Mer on 25th June 1944. The ship went down with at least 35 men on board. David was one of them. Service Record anomalyDavid started off in the Fleet Air Arm. He became part of Combined Operations some time during 1942 (before heading out to America to pick up HMLCI 185). Throughout all his service he sends home letters with the service number F/X 83787. Once or twice this is prefixed cF/X 83787. Yet the memorial documentation - taken from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission - has his service number as C/JX 283813. It is possible numbers were altered leading up to D-Day, but David never used this number in his letters. His parents are listed correctly, so this IS his memorial. But his date of birth is slightly inaccurate. It lists him as 21. His 21st birthday would have been on 31st July that year so he was actually 20 when he died.
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