Ronald Langley Bates. Clerk of Works Bates was born in 1901 in Leicester. He joined the Royal Engineers in 1922 and in 1929 while stationed at Brompton he married Kathleen Ivy Cox-Rogers. He was posted to Hong Kong as a WO1 (Clerk of Works) with the 40th Fortress Company and spent a great deal of time supervising the building of the pillboxes that dotted the island (many of which still stand today). He was lost on the Lisbon Maru. His wife evacuated to Australia in 1940 was left alone there to bring up their children and achieve her ambition of buying a house. She succeeded in both and died aged 92 having been without her husband for over 50 years.