Kenneth George Iremonger (1911-1942)

Second World War Roll of Honour

Kenneth George Iremonger was born at East Retford on 4 September 1911, the elder son of George Edgar Iremonger, a bricklayer, and Mabel Annie “May” (née Rogers) Iremonger, of Hallcroft Road, Retford, later of “Roselea”, Walton Back Lane, Chesterfield. He was educated at East Retford Grammar School and Chesterfield Grammar School, where he was appointed as Captain of School. He went on to Downing College on a Kitchener Scholarship in October 1930, studying French and German and playing rugby, football and hockey. After graduating in 1933, he joined the staff of Calday Grange Grammar School, West Kirby, as a modern languages teacher. He was married in 1939 to Joan Hinchcliffe.

After the outbreak of war, Kenneth attended an Officer Cadet Training Unit before being commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 23 May 1942. He was posted to No. 2 Docks Group and was promoted to Captain in August 1942. (He was later offered a position as a Staff Captain but refused it, preferring instead to remain with his men.) No. 2 Dock Group embarked on 10 November 1942 and their ship departed the following day for Gourock, where it waited for their convoy to assemble. They arrived at Algiers on 22 November and bivouacked on the quay side overnight before re-embarking the following afternoon. The unit arrived at Bone, Algeria on 24 November and spent the next two weeks at the harbour arranging the unloading and dispatch of supplies, during which time they were subject to daily enemy air raids, many of which left unexploded bombs scattered nearby.

On the evening of 4 December 1942, arrangements were made to move a large quantity of petrol and ammunition which was sitting on Phosphate Quay. At 8pm a series of heavy air raids began, during which the petrol and ammunition dump was hit, destroying 500 tons of petrol. The resulting explosions killed Captain Iremonger, with several other ranks being killed and wounded. He was 31 years old.

The Griffin wrote of him: "He was one of the friendliest men in his time…He was as loyal a man as it is possible to be, and had, with perfect loyalty, a great cheerfulness of the best kind; a stable quiet happiness and unquenchable hope."

Captain Iremonger is buried at Bone War Cemetery, Algeria, and is also commemorated on the war memorials at Chesterfield Grammar School and Calday Grange Grammar School.

Sources

TNA – No. 2 Dock Group war diaries WO 175/552

Chesterfield Grammar School Roll of Honour, 1939-1945, by Philip Riden

Image

Kenneth Iremonger (centre, front row) with Chesterfield Grammar School Prefects, 1930 (courtesy of the Old Cestrefeldians' Trust).