Frederick George Whiteman was born on 14 March 1909 in Farnborough, Kent, the youngest of seven children of Arthur Henry Wenham, a bricklayer’s labourer,  and Sarah Jane Low. In 1935, Frederick married Marie Yvonne Pulham in Bromley, and the couple had three children – two in 1939 (twins) and another in 1940. By 1939, the Whiteman family lived at 1 Ford Bungalows, Ford Place Farm in Wrotham Heath, where Frederick worked as a cowman. On the night of the fateful Wrotham Heath bombing in October 1940, Frederick had paid a visit to the Royal Oak Inn and was killed during the air raid.  In the attack, Frederick had been in the bar and died whilst trapped under rubble.