Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Ray
&
Major John Mallock
7th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment

The Battalion’s casualties in this, its first major action, totalled eighteen officers and two hundred and eight other ranks killed, wounded and missing. Four officers were killed: Captain Terry and Lieutenants T. P. Evans, Sandy and Waddell. Colonel Ray was twice wounded, but remained on duty until wounded again, this time so seriously that he had to be evacuated, and he died on his way home to England.

(D.S. Daniell, The Royal Hampshire Regiment, 233)

Born on 2 July 1903 in Wimborne, Dorset, Donald William Garnham Ray was a first-class cricket player and wicket keeper. He was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers after graduating from RMC, Sandhurst in 1923. From 1934 he served in India and in 1938 became adjutant to the Ceylon Planters’ Rifle Corps. He relinquished the post on the outbreak of war and served in France with the Fusiliers in 1940.

In 1941, he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and command a Royal Fusiliers battalion until assigned as CO for the 7th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment in September 1943. The battalion landed in France with the 43rd Division in late June 1944. In its first action in early July, the battalion attacked German positions near Maltot. Although twice wound, Ray remained on duty. A third wound to the neck proved fatal. He was evacuated but succumbed enroute to England on 12 July. He was buried in Wimborne.

Command of the 7th Hampshires had passed to Major John Rawlyn Charles Mallock.

Born on 17 February 1909 Cockington, Devon, Mallock was the son of Major Charles Herbert Mallock (1878–1917), a Royal Field Artillery officer killed by poison gas, and grandson of Richard Mallock (1843–1900), a Conservative MP. The younger Mallock played cricket at college and was commissioned with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1929.

He was posted to the 7th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment as second-in-command before the invasion of France. Just one day after succeeding Ray, Mallock and the new 2iC Major R.J. McPhillips were killed along with the CO of the 7th Somerset Light Infantry, Major E.J. Bruford.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis Talbot of the 5th Battalion, Dorset Regiment arrived as the new commanding officer. The Hampshires regimental history recorded, “the Battalion had been cruelly mauled in its first days, and two Commanding Officers had been killed. The Battalion was sore and a little bewildered by its ill-fortune, but Colonel Talbot swiftly restored its old confidence and Hampshire spirit.”