Captain, Royal Horse Artillery
Born: May 24th 1913
Died: June 14th 1944
Age at Death: 31
Killed in action, June 14th 1944
Boxing 8 1930
Paul Franklin was born on 24 May 1913 to William Franklin, a commercial traveller, and his wife Julia (née Collard). At the College he fought in the Boxing VIII as a flyweight. A fellow team member was Oscar Ackerman. He was a plucky fighter, as shown by one match report describing a fight against Epsom College:
Hewitt [his losing opponent] looked the older and more powerful, but Franklin by continual use of a good straight left gradually forced a most meritorious victory after receiving a good deal of punishment in the opening stages.
In 1941 Paul enlisted in the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery, which landed in Normandy soon after the Allied invasion in 1944. Only eight days after D-Day he was killed in Operation Perch, the battle to capture Caen during the hard fighting to break the Allies out of their small beachhead. He is buried in the Bayeux War Cemetery.
A heart-breaking letter, from Paul’s father to Walter Hett, then Headmaster, survives in the school archive to provide an insight into how they chose to deal with his death:
...of course it is a terrible blow to us, but we are not railing against our fate, but are very thankful for 31 years of the joy he gave us.
