Soldier Joseph Arthur Boyd

We received this letter John Heideman who lives in the Netherlands and at this moment is writing part 3 of his book about his hometown Castricum during World War II. Can you help with his research?

Castricum is a village on the west coast of the Netherlands. In part 3 of the book will be a chapter about the 62 bodies, of mostly airmen, that washed up on the shore of Castricum during wartime. 34 of them are buried in our local cemetery.

Castricum was liberated in May 1945 by parts of the Royal Artillery Regiment. When I did some research about the 34 graves, I found out that some of the buried men of The Royal Artillery Regiment died after the liberation of Castricum.

One of them was Joseph Arthur Boyd. He died because of an accident. He drowned in a German anti-tank canal after a swim.

After a long search and putting adverts in some local English newspapers I got in contact in 2007 with a former neighbour of Joseph Arthur Boyd and his parents. The name of the neighbour was Evelyn Egan. She wrote to me that Joseph had a close friend in the same regiment and his name was James Wilson. Joseph and James fought their way through Normandy, France, Belgium and Holland. Miss Egan gave me an old address of James Wilson in Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire. She also mentioned in her letters that James Wilson later married the sister of Joseph, her name was Jenny. In 2008 I wrote a letter to the old address and a few months later I got a letter back from James Wilson! In the letter he told me things about Joseph. After this correspondence the contact with James suddenly stopped. He probably passed away.

Now I am looking for more information about James Wilson. I want to write down his wartime story as well and make the story about Joseph more complete. And maybe there are some pictures of James and Joseph. Maybe by publishing this article some of the family members or old friends of James will give a reaction. James Wilson used to live in Castle street in Berkhamsted.

If you have any information about Joseph or James, please contact John via email: info@castricumbakkumwo2.nl or visit www.castricumbakkumwo2.nl.