Ronald Cartland - Military Career

Military Career

Ronald Cartland achieved the rank of Major in the British Army. In 1937, he joined the Territorial Army. By August 1939, he was a lieutenant in the Worcestershire and Oxfordshire Yeomanry. When the Nazis invaded Holland, Belgium and France in May 1940, the now Major Cartland was serving in the 53rd Anti-Tank Regiment, (The Worcestershire Yeomanry) Royal Artillery. The unit was assigned to defend the town of Cassel, a hilltop site near one of the main roads leading to the Channel port of Dunkirk, France. Cartland and his men held off the Germans for nearly four days, from 27 to 29 May.

On the evening of 29 May 1940, Cartland and his unit split up, and joined the retreating British Expeditionary Force heading towards Dunkirk. On 30 May 1940, while reconnoitring his position from a ditch, he was shot and killed during the retreat to Dunkirk.

He was initially listed as Missing In Action, and his family in England did not learn of his true fate until January 1941. His mother received a letter from one of Cartland's men, now in a German POW camp where the soldier described Cartland's death in detail. His brother, James A.H., died the previous day and is buried at Zuidschote. A memorial service was held for Ronald Cartland on 18 February 1941, at London's St-Martin-in-the-Fields Church. He is buried at Hotton War Cemetery, near Liege, Belgium.