Col Leonard Schofield Harrop, MBE
29 September 1915 - 7 February 2011

Interment of Ashes Ceremony on 22 April 2012 at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, Hodogaya, Yokohama

Len Harrop joined the then newly-formed Tokyo Branch of The Royal British Legion in 1975, being the second member of the branch and, until his death in 2011 at the age of 95, the oldest and longest serving member. He never missed a Remembrance Sunday commemoration while he was in Japan.

As his published obituaries noted, Len enlisted in the Territorial Army in 1938 and the following year was called up and joined the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade. In 1941 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and served with the 51st Highland Division in Normandy in the battle for Caen in July 1944.

After the war, he returned to France to join the Army Graves Service and was later transferred to the ANZAC Agency of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in Singapore, as district inspector for the Pacific region. In 1948 he left the Army at the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

After working for the CWGC in Australia and New Guinea, he arrived in Japan in 1952 having been appointed supervisor for the CWGC in Japan. Here in Japan, he devoted his life to the planting and upkeep of the Hodogaya Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Yokohama - a task he single-mindedly pursued, with excellent and enduring results. In 1978 he was appointed MBE for services to the British community in Japan.

A kind man and true friend of Japan, Len only returned to the UK when, after over 50 years here, his health was beginning to fail.

Sir Christopher Wren's gravestone in London's St Paul's Cathedral bears a Latin inscription that translates as 'If you seek his monument, look around you'. This might well be said also of Len Harrop, now that his ashes, most fittingly, have been interred in this beautiful place.

Requiescat in Pace 

Col Leonard Schofield Harrop, MBE, 29 September 1915 - 7 February 2011

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