Cecil Cowley memoirs :" Immediately after the outbreak of the last war [WW2] ... Kit went to England.. through Woolwich and was commissioned to the Gold Coast Engineers- they were black men but competent in all trades, brave and efficient and well-disciplined. Kit's company led the advance from Kenya into Ethiopia. The road... was heavily mined and covered by many enemy artillery and machine guns. .... Kit went along that road and quietly disposed of each mine.... Kit's General told me he had never seen a braver action - twenty minutes of cool courage in the open under intense fire. Had already won am MC and earned a Bar for this."

From the Supplement to the London Gazette April 26, 1940:

The undermentioned Cadets trom I4ist

Officer Cadet Training Unit, R.E., to be

2nd Lts. 23rd Apr. 1940: —

Spr. Christopher William BALLENDEN

(129862).

Killed in Burma leaving a widow. Was a Captian no 129862 in the Royal Engineers and is remembered in the Taukkyan War Cemetry in Burma (12.D.4).