Alfred came from the Sadd family of timber merchants whose business operated on the site where this museum is now built. He was born in Maldon on 7th November 1909 to Henry and Bessie Sadd, one of eight in this large Congregationalist family. Alfred read Theology at Cambridge University before being ordained as a Minister in the Congregational Church on Market Hill, Maldon on 19th June 1933. He was active in the Sea Scouts movement, and loved exploring the River Blackwater.
In the 1930s he joined the London Missionary Society and went to Fiji in 1933 and in 1934 to the island of Beru in the Gilbert Islands which was a British colony. The islands were one of the most isolated stations of the Society.
Coming home on a six-month leave in 1938, he enthusiastically regaled his family with numerous stories of the people to whom he ministered, as well as the beautiful island on which they lived.(1)
When the Second World War began, Alfred Sadd considered evacuating but worried about leaving his congregation.(2) After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 they did not seem to pose an immediate risk to the islands but in February 1942 Tarawa was bombed, however no Japanese soldiers had actually landed and Sadd hoped that he and his flock were safe.
According to an account by May Pateman held at the SOAS Archives in London, in August 1942 the Japanese invaded, terrifying the locals. Alfred Sadd arrived, riding his bicycle, whereupon the Japanese soldiers spread a Union Jack in front of him and ordered him to ride his bicycle over it. When he refused, they confiscated the bicycle and he was taken to the commanding officer who again ordered Alfred to walk on the British flag which he repeatedly refused to do. Instead, he picked it up and kissed it. As a result Sadd was sent, along with nearly two dozen other island prisoners, to work in the hard labour camp. Not long after there was an American air raid which prompted the Japanese to execute all prisoners.
Many were barely out of school and Alfred felt great compassion for them as they waited in a line to be beheaded. He stepped to the front of the line, and spoke to them, cheering them on with words of faith. He bravely stayed at the front shielding them as long as he could, concerned more for their fears than his own. Alfred, consequently, was the first to be beheaded. It was October the 15th of 1942.
His body was never recovered and today he is remembered on the Betio Memorial Tarawa, Gilbert Islands. His sacrifice is also commemorated on the Maldon Town War Memorial outside All Saints Church and he is recorded on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, though he has no known grave.
Location of Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) (3)
References:
1. https://reformedperspective.ca/rev-alfred-sadd-1909-1942/
2. https://maldonurc.org.uk/the-church-on-market-hill/
3. https://www.hmdb.org/map.asp?markers=89208,85150,89211
