Edwin Michael French, Sub-Lieutenant, was born in 1922, in Thrapston, Northants. He was the second son of Horace Levick French, an accountant, and his wife, Dorothy Evelyn, née Smith. Both Edwin’s parents were dead by 1928 and he appears to have lived with one of his maternal aunts in Surrey. Edwin trained on HMS Vindictive and became sub-lieutenant on April 1st 1941.