Seven roads in Bovey Tracey named after WW2 veterans

Trooper Reginald James Martin and Capt John Catterall Leach will have roads named after them

Seven roads in a Devon town have been named after World War Two veterans.

A granite sign recording the origin of the road names will be unveiled on a new housing development in Bovey Tracey on the 78th anniversary of VJ Day.

The names used for the Devonshire Homes Longston Cross development are from seven of the 15 people commemorated on the town's war memorial.

The Bovey Tracey Heritage Trust said the use of the names provided residents with a "link with the town's history".

The road names are Beer Grove, Carpenter Drive, Leach Avenue, Marriott Way, Martin Drive, Smaridge Row and Wills Road.

Pte Harold Edwin Beer was born in Bovey Tracey in 1916 and was a drummer and worked for a pottery firm served in Malta, North Africa, Sicily and Italy from 1940.

The oldest of five he was aged 28 when he was killed in action on Gold Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

Pte Sidney Albert Carpenter, was serving with the 12th Battalion Devonshire Regiment when he died in March 1945 aged 27 at the capture of Hamminkeln during the crossing of the Rhine.

Capt John Catterall Leach joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1907, and was promoted to captain in 1933.

He was 47 when he was one of 327 men lost when the Prince of Wales was abandoned and sank in the South China Sea in December 1941 after it was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

Pilot Officer Richard Eric Smaridge and Pte Harold Edwin Beer have also had roads named after them

Lt Humphrey Richard Hickson Marriott was captured in Belgium in 1940 and was held as a prisoner of war at Eichstatt, Germany.

Aged 25 he was one of 11 officers killed after being mistakenly strafed by an Allied Mustang fighter aircraft in April 1945.

Trooper Reginald James Martin, nicknamed sheep, enlisted in the British army in 1943 and was a Cromwell tank driver.

He landed in Normandy on 18 June 1944 and he died aged 20 later that month during the Battle for Caen.

Pilot Officer Richard Eric Smaridge joined the RAF in May 1939 and trained as an air gunner.

He was 23 when he was aboard one of three Blenheim bombers shot down when returning to Malta from an anti-shipping strike to Buayrat al Hasun in Libya in 1942.

Pte Leonard John Wills, nicknamed Skippy, joined the Devonshire Regiment but was later transferred to the South Wales Borders. He was 25 and serving in India when he died of malaria in 1944.

The ceremony will take place at the junction of Marriott Way and Carpenter Drive on the Longston Cross development at 19:00 BST.