LIEUTENANT JOHN D'ARCY CLARK,

AN APPRECIATION OF BY HIS BROTHER, JAMES,

My brother. John, had started the 1939-1945 War as a conscientious objector. and had very strong views about taking life. He was brave enough to continue and hold to his views in the face of others who might find it difficult to understand.

However. gradually. by 1941-1942. he decided that he wanted to join the RAMC as a medical orderly, to help to save life. Later, he joined the Searchlight Regiment before deciding that he had got it all wrong. and got his pilot's license and joined the Parachute Regiment, where he became a glider pilot.

He was killed in the latter stages of the war on the Rhine Crossing. his glider having landed on or near a German machine gun post, and caught fire.

My mother and father put up the reredos in St Helen's Church in his memory. There is a palette with brushes in one corner, to show that he was an artist"
James D'Arcy Clark, February 14th 2007

FROM THE BURTON OBSERVER, 19th APRIL, 1945

“Everyone was sorry to hear of the death in action on the Western Front of Lieutenant G J D'Arcy Clark, of the Glider Regiment, eldest son of Major and Mrs J N D'Arcy Clark of Etwall. He was aged 30, and it was his first operation over enemy territory since he volunteered as a glider pilot a year ago.

He was educated at Rugby, and had been studying at the Slade School of Art, in London. When war broke out he was continuing his studies in Paris.

His brother, Lieutenant James D'Arcy Clark, of the Yorkshire Dragoons, is a prisoner of war in Germany."

Regretfully. for the D'Arcy Clark family. when John returned to England. he left all of his artistic studies in Paris. They were lost or destroyed during the war.