24thField Regt. Royal Artillery - UK

Born in Shrewsbury on March 11, 1911, the youngest son of Philip Richard and Jessie Slater, Thomas grew up with three sisters, Minnie, Emily, Alice Mary, .Dorothy Mary and a brother, William.

Thomas married Edith Perry in April 1933 in Wellington and when he was sent to Italy, she was pregnant with their child.

He enlisted in the Territorial Army on July 27, 1940 where he served until when he was transferred to the Royal Artillery on conversion in March 1942. He fought in Egypt from December 1942 to July 1943 then in Sicily until August 28, 1943 and then in Italy from the first days of September 1943 until his death.

Thomas Gerald Slater lost his life on January 2nd, 1945 while fighting to kick the Nazis out of Italy. He rests in the Villanova War Cemetery II-C-9

A letter from Peter Kimber, Thomas Gerald Slater’s son.

My mother remarried and I was adopted by my stepfather in 1947. My father Thomas Gerald Slater married my mother in Wellington, Shropshire, in April 1933: At this time my father was employed as a paint sprayer at a garage in Shrewsbury known as the Coleham garage. In June 1944 my mother was evacuated to Stockport, Cheshire, because of the munition factory nearby. The Army did this for all wives who were with children: I was born on the 30/07/1944

My father was in the 24th field Regt. and was trained to drive the priest self-propelled gun, a 5 man tank crew serving with the 7th Armoured Div.; then the Unit went to support the 1st Div. Infantry.

From Gerald Gibbons, Thomas Gerald’s nephew, we received the following info:

Have I got news for you !!!!!!!!!! The other day I was doing more research into the family, I had looked for a number of people and then tried Thomas Gerald again. I noticed a button for family trees and clicked it to see what would happen. To cut the story short the screen showed up a family tree called Kimber Slater; on investigating I found that, yes! Thomas Gerald had got married to Margaret Perry and had a son called Peter. After Thomas had died , Margaret remarried a Mr Kimber and he officially adopted Peter .  There was a contact button on the ancestry website , so I emailed him and have found that he lives in Dawley which is in Telford about 10 - 15 miles from us here in Shrewsbury. I have phoned him and introduced myself. Apparently after Thomas died contact was lost with the rest of the Slater family. I have told him about you, Wartime Friends and Villanova   He has Tom’s medals and some small photos.   I have been to the local archives and found an article on Tom’s death complete with a small photo. Unfortunately because it was the original newspaper hard bound they could not copy it for me , so I will have to take my camera down there and take a photo of it which I will pass to both you and Peter.

From a local newspaper: