Percy James White is the 7th name mentioned on the memorial sign, and his story is quite special in many ways. Percy James White died on 28 October 1944 in Nispen, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands, when he was 30 years old. When Percy James White was born in 1913, his father, William, was 37 and his mother, Florence, was 33. He had five sisters and two brothers.

Interesting to note on the temporary war memorial in Nispen, the name was mentioned as White A by error, this should have read White P. Also he was listed as L/Cpl on the memorial sign and there are letters he sent from Holland earlier in the month he died where he has written it himself at the top of the letter. Yet on his final stone he is a Private. The Royal Military Police museum provided the following explanation: "the vast majority of soldiers the CMP have to deal with are Privates, it makes sense to give the MPs the rank of Lance Corporal with the obvious authority of a higher rank that it brings. With over 50,000 men serving during the War in the CMP, it would be a huge increase in costs to pay them all as LCpls. What you have, therefore are men serving as Acting Lance Corporal. Some of these are A LCpl (U) and A LCpl (P). This stands for unpaid and paid. In other words, they have the authority of the rank as they are wearing the rank stripes, but are not getting that rank’s pay.".

Private White was first buried in a field grave in the garden of a house at Bergsebaan 146 in Nispen and then reburied in the cemetery of Bergen op Zoom. The house was owned by "Harry van Eekelen". Based on a picture of the temporary grave, with a house in the background, the location of the temporary grave was identified as the house standing on Bergsebaan 146 in Nispen (Source 1, Source 2) .

In the yearbook edition 1995 of the historical society of Nispen (Heemkundige kring Nispen) page 99, a letter translated into Dutch was published. The letter was addressed to the mother of Harrie van Eekelen and was send by Florence White who was the mother of Percy . Please find below the re-translation of the translation as mentioned in the diary of Marie Konings*. The pictures referred to in the letter are the profile picture of Percy White and the picture with the person standing next to the grave below. These pictures were received from the relatives of Percy White. What is amazing to know is that the relatives didn't know about the existence of this letter and the heritage society of Nispen wasn't aware of the existence of these pictures. The relatives of P. White were able to work out that it must have been his brother Ernest who travelled to his grave and took the photos as his other brother Charles stayed home during the war working on a farm. Ernest’s visit wasn’t something the family known that had happened or that he then went to Berlin - they had always assumed the photos were sent from someone in Holland as they were among the collection of family photos and their origin was never discussed. So after nearly 80 years, we were able to make the circle round and reconstruct history.

The family retrieved also two letters Percy sent to his sisters, on the 6th and 14th October 1944. They are both quite short with mostly family chat and thanks for letters sent but in the one sent to his sister Emie on the 6th he wrote the following: ‘Well I suppose Jim and Arthur are busy on the tractors getting ready for a bumper harvest next year, they should see the farms out here, all small family affairs, you open the kitchen door and find the cowshed with the pump and sink in and pigs and poultry. I’m writing this under the thatch on a oat rick yes under the thatch, this is how it’s done, the thatch is on a circular wooden framework which is hoisted up and down a long thick pole which stands in the centre of the rick, so this saves thatching each year as the umbrella thing must last several years once it’s made, which I should think takes a bit of doing.’

Jim was his brother-in-law and Arthur his nephew, both of whom worked on a farm during the war. Percy and his family had lived on a farm and so he had grown up working in the fields. His description of the farms in Holland and differences to home is so poignant in light of what was actually going on around him - it all sounds so peaceful. He knew his farming family would be interested in what he was seeing abroad and these details took up nearly half the letter home.

On https://nispenremembers.heemkundenispen.nl/verhaal19.html you can also listen to the audio story about the letter in Dutch. Additional context is given in Dutch language here: https://nispenremembers.heemkundenispen.nl/verhaal19_begravenindenvreemde.html.

* Marie Konings was living next door to the family van Eekelen, and recorded the letter in her diary as she was deeply impressed about the events she witnessed during the war. Although not confirmed nor established as a fact, Marie could have been one of the kind girls that laid flowers on the grave as referred to in the letter.