Lennard Eaton Smith

04/01/1913 – September 1945 – aged 32

Lennard Eaton Smith was born on the 4th January 1913 in Higher Broughton. He came to St Bede’s on  28th April 1924. Sometime after leaving the College, he was married to  Ivy and they lived at St Anne’s-on-Sea, Lancashire. In 1939 he was working as a Gentlemen’s’ Outfitter. 

Lennard took part in the Normandy Landings and the Allied invasion of Occupied Europe. The Germans surrendered on the 8th May 1945, and that same day, the Austrian town of Klagenfurt was liberated by the 8th Army of which Lennard was a part. He then seems to have remained with his men in the town. The cause of his death, some four months after the German surrender, remains a mystery. The most likely explanation is that he was injured before the surrender and only succumbed to his wounds afterwards. Lennard was thirty-two years old.