Raymond kinder was 3 months short of reaching 101 years old when he passed away.
Raymond “Razor” Kinder was in the army before the outbreak of World War 2 and he was in India in the Wiltshire Regiment. Upon the outbreak of war he was sent to Belgium and was part of the British Expeditionary Force tasked with stopping the Germans. As we all know this went wrong and he was one of the 350,000 soldiers evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk. Razors next action as far as we know was on D Day in France. D Day plus a few days he found himself in a two man trench with his comrade and they had liberated a couple of bottles of beer from a farm house. They drank them and fell asleep. They were woken up with boots running over their trench and a short while later running back. It was a German attack which was stopped and driven back by the British. Razor ended up in Africa and was separated with his fighting buddy for days. They were out of water and out of food. In military terms, “on their chin straps”. They agreed they would hand themselves in to the first patrol that came across them, German or British they didn’t care, they were on their last legs. A truck came into view, instincts took over and they dived into a ditch. When the truck came closer it had written on the front. “Next stop Croydon”. And out of the cab, a man shouted “Razor!” he was a friend form Croydon before the war. Razor had also saved a soldier from another country in the Allied forces and carried him on his back to an aid station.
This soldier, later in life, when Razor was in his 90’s tracked him down to say thank you. Razor had a broken leg during the war and a friend hitch hiked to see him in hospital and sneaked him out in a wheel chair to the pub. After quite a few beers they returned in trouble as a search party was out looking for him. Razor was also captured by the Germans but he managed to escape. We do not know too much of this but in his personal items there were three sets of dog tags which the Germans issued to American prisoners of war. He was bayoneted twice once in the side and once in his arm. He had shrapnel in his body and eventually lost eye at the end of the war in combat. His grandson asked “him how many Germans had he killed?” he replied. They were pretty good with their bayonets so I had to use mine and my rifle, so quite a few. Also in his personal items was a medal ribbon for the Distinguished Service Order. There was no medal just a ribbon. From what I have heard there is reasonable evidence he should have received this award. As a pensioner he was approached by a youth who tried to rob him. This youth picked on the wrong person. He got a right hook from razor and got away with nothing.
This hero of the War lived all his life in Croydon. One man I wished I had met and talked to.
Stand down soldier your service is done. Go to final RV we will take it from here.
