Service Details
Name:
LANDER
Given Name:
JOHN GERARD HEATH
Initials:
J G H
Service No:
4864
Rank:
Gunner
Other Casualties of this Rank
Regiment:
Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps
Other Casualties from this Regiment
Unit:
1 Bty.
Other Casualties from this Unit
Date of Death:
1941-12-25
Other Casualties on this Date
Cause of Death:
Killed in action
Additional
Information:
Son of the Rt. Revd. Gerard Heath Lander, D.D., and M. L. Lander; husband of Kathleen Elizabeth Frances Lander, of Morningside, Durban, Natal, South Africa. B.A.(Cantab.). Was a British rower who competed at the 1928 Summer Olympics. Lander was born in Liverpool. He attended Shrewsbury School and was in the Shrewsbury crew that won the Ladies' Challenge Plate at Henley Royal Regatta in 1924. He then went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he rowed for the First Trinity Boat Club. With Edward Vaughan Bevan, Richard Beesly and Michael Warriner, he won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless fours event rowing at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. They recorded a time of 6:36.0 in the final to beat the U.S. crew by 1 second. In 1929 Lander was expected to be included in the Cambridge crew in the Boat Race, but Richard Beesly, fellow gold medalist and the Cambridge President, called on Tom Brocklebank as stroke instead. Upon leaving Cambridge, Lander took up a business appointment in Hong Kong. He was the only British Olympic gold medallist to have been killed during World War II.
Commemoration
Country:
China, (including Hong Kong)
Other Casualties commemorated in China, (including Hong Kong)
Cemetery:
SAI WAN WAR CEMETERY
Other Casualties commemorated in this Cemetery
Grave Reference:
III. M. 4.

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