RYDER James

Appears on the Army casualties list for Worcestershire.

The following information has been researched by and is courtesy of Paul Van De Winkel:
I live in the village of Posterholt, the place, where James Frederick Ryder was killed. When I bought the house where I currently live, somebody told me a story, that a British soldier died in my cellar. I started to research after I had finished rebuilding the house. After 5 years I spoke to an old lady, who told me, that James died on his reconnaissance patrol, when he reached the blown-up bridge on the street, where I am living right now.

James Ryder was the husband of Constance Winifred Ryder nee Tomlinson, father of Mabel and Barbara Ryder. On the 25th January 1945 James was sent towards Posterholt, to check the German strength in the village. When he and his company (A) reached the “Vlootbeek” brook, (where the bridge was blown one day earlier by the Germans), the Germans opened fire with their machine guns, killing James Ryder. He was initially buried in a field grave in the garden of family Knoben on the Boomstraat in Posterholt. After the war, his widow Constance and daughter Barbara (Mabel died during the war) visited the grave of her husband. In 1947 James (and Joseph Donaldson and Ernest Brooks) was reburied at Jonkerbos War Cemetery in Nijmegen.

James Ryder. Photo courtesy of Paul Van De Winkel

The original grave of James Ryder. Photo courtesy of Paul Van De Winkel