Ref. D.N.A. 3A/E
Admiralty
16 November, 1954
This is to Certify that
Denis Raine
Leading Sick Berth Attendant
Official No D/??? 853707 Royal Navy
is presumed by the Admiralty, for official purposes, to have died on 2nd. December, 1950 on war service.
??Ewapark Director of Navy Accounts
This certificate was found in an Ancestry tree where it is accompanied by the following.
We had news in January 1951 that he had been missing from the previous December. Official news was sparse and it was not until 4 years later we were informed he had to help rescue some commandos stranded behind enemy lines. The American general in charge (MacAthur?) had ordered the UN troops to push the North Koreans back to the border with China, which brought the Chinese army into the war. The commandos were ambushed near to the CHOSIN Reservoir, which was a main water supply for Chinese Industry. They were then told to fight their way out. Denis and a comrade escaped from the Japanese [sic] when they were in sight of the lights of Haguri Ri where US Army engineers were working hard around the clock to construct a runway to take a C47 Aircraft. Denis received head wounds and he died two days later on the 2nd December 1950. We didn't get a death certificate, shown below, until 1954; it was a messy war with no lists of POWs.
Source: Ancestry