What was to prove a tragic fortnight for Dulwich Hamlet FC began on February 24th 1942, when news arrived that Reg Anderson one of the club’s brightest young stars - had failed to return from a mission whilst serving in the RAF. His death at the youthful age of 25, was confirmed shortly after. Hamlet had sadly lost an integral player from their successful team of the immediate pre-war years.

REG ANDERSON

A local lad, Reg was born in Peckham in 1916 and lived on Woodwarde Road - just a stone’s throw from the location of Dulwich's home ground until 1895. He first came to the attention of Hamlet scouts playing for Wilson’s Grammar School in Camberwell. However, it was whilst playing for his 'old boys’ team - Old Wilsonians - that Dulwich really began to take notice, Anderson's 27 goals in 1933/34 prompting a move to Champion Hill that summer.

Once with Hamlet, he made steady progress and a First Team debut arrived in late 1936. A clever inside-right with an eye for goal, he soon became a fan favourite and by the outbreak of war in 1939 he was club vice-captain, having already been part of the 1937 side that lifted both the FA Amateur Cup and the Surrey Senior Cup. Selected for England's Amateur XI, he was to make three international appearances before war was declared.

It was perhaps on the back of scoring a hat-trick playing alongside Hamlet teammate Bill Parr in one of these - an 8-2 victory over Wales at Rhyl in 1938 - that Reg moved to Third Division Cardiff City. He played a handful of times for the Bluebirds as an amateur in the Football League, before deciding to return to Dulwich in time for the start of, what was to prove to be, the abortive 1939/40 season.

Like many of his Hamlet teammates of the time, Reg volunteered to serve in the RAF. On completion of his training as an Observer (Navigator) he was promoted to sergeant and posted to Bomber Command, where he would form part of the crew for a twin-engine Hampden bomber. It was whilst serving with 106 Squadron at Coningsby, on just his fifth mission, that Reg’s aircraft was shot down in the Heligoland Bight area, with the loss of the entire four-man crew.

Their remains are buried in Kiel War Cemetery. Reg had been chosen to represent the RAF in a match against Belgium at Wolves' Molyneux ground the following Saturday, and it is poignant to think that perhaps one of the last things he did before leaving for that fateful mission, may have been to sort out his kit in preparation for a match in which he would never get to play.

BILL PARR

The club had barely recovered from the shock at the loss of Reg Anderson when, on March 8th 1942, came further tragic news. Bill Parr (pictured above), another mainstay of the club’s immediate pre-war successes had lost his life, aged 26, in a training flight accident. Unlike Reg, Bill wasn’t a local lad.

Originally hailing from Blackpool, he had already started to establish himself as a player having made 18 appearances for his home town club as an amateur, before a change of job led to him moving to south London in early 1939. Bill was already an established England Amateur international by this time, making a total of 12 appearances for his country at that level.

An outside-right, he quickly formed a rapport with Reg Anderson and it is thought that a desire to continue this partnership at club level led him to sign for the Hamlet, rather than Brentford or Spurs as had been rumoured at the time. The partnership bore early fruit at the end of the 1938/39 season when Dulwich beat Erith & Belvedere 3-0 in the London Senior Cup Final at The Den in front of 18,000 spectators. Both men featured strongly in the game. But it's possible that Bill had realised that playing at this level was perhaps less of challenging than he needed, as in May 1939 it was announced that he would be joining north London giants Arsenal as an amateur for the 1939/40 season.

The new season dawned with it being far from clear which club Bill would play for.While he featured in Dulwich's handbook for the aborted 1939/40 season, he also turned out for Arsenal and, to confuse matters further, would appear as a guest for Wealdstone during wartime football. On the outbreak of war, Bill had also volunteered to serve as aircrew and trained as a pilot on multi-engine aircraft. On completion of his training, he was posted to Coastal Command in order to fly maritime patrols against U-Boats in the Western Approaches.

Sadly, Bill would never fly an operational mission. On the night of March 8th 1942, the Hudson bomber that he was piloting suffered a catastrophic engine failure shortly after taking off from RAF St Eval in Cornwall. The aircraft crashed whilst attempting an emergency landing at nearby St Merryn and immediately burst into flames with the loss of all three men on board. Ironically, Bill had written a letter to his mother in Blackpool on what proved to be the day of the accident in which he confided to her that “It’s a great life.”

Whether these two players, especially perhaps Bill who seemed destined to play at a higher level, would have continued playing for Dulwich after the war had they survived, is open to speculation. But their loss, within just a fortnight of each other, was a devastating blow to the club’s morale from which it took a considerable time to recover.

With thanks to Steve Hunnisett and the Dulwich Hamlet FC History Group