Lieutenant Rowland A Palmer

Rowland Alexander Palmer, M.A. (Cantab.), M.B.,B.Ch. (Cantab.). Burney Yeo Scholarship, King’s College Hospital, 1939; Tanner Prize, Obstetrics, 1942. President, C.U.A.C., 1939, represented Great Britain in the Quarter Mile, 1939. He was Captain of the Oxford and Cambridge Athlletic Team against Harvard and Yale, 1939. The son of Alexander and Geraldine Palmer, of Walton-On-The-Hill, Surrey, he was commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps and volunteered for airborne forces.

Lieutenant Palmer attended parachute course 45 at RAF Ringway from 4 to 13 January 1943 and was posted to 127 Parachute Field Ambulance.

He later took part in the amphibious landings in Italy in September 1943, on board a mine layer, HMS Abdiel. Unfortunately, HMS Abdiel struck a mine in Taranto Harbour causing significant casualties and loss of life, including Lt. Palmer.

Lt. Palmer died at sea on 10 September 1943, aged 27.

He is commemorated on the Cassino Memorial.

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