![]() He held an important sector of the western bridgehead. “Major Neale’s Coy took part in the airborne operation at Bénouville Bridge on 6th June 44. He was injured (but survived) on 10th June 1944 and won a gallantry medal, the Military Cross: One of those paratroopers would likely have been Ralph (Roger) Neale from Devoran / Truro, a paratroop Major who landed on D Day. As he went to take up his position at the 4.7 inch gun he looked up to see the sky filled with hundreds of paratroopers floating down “like a snowstorm”.” (p.147, Operation Cornwall 1940-44, Viv Acton and Derek Carter.) On 3rd June they were off Land’s End waiting for orders, and now early on 6 June they were close to the Normandy coast ready for action. Recently they had been on convoy duty in the cold and dangerous waters of the Arctic but in late May they had sailed south. ![]() On the dawn of D-Day Bill Marshall, who grew up at Restronguet Creek near Devoran, “was on board the destroyer HMS Saumarez. Many of these smartly dressed young Americans, black and white, would have been welcomed into the homes and lives of local families in the Devoran area and at dances at the Devoran Village Hall.Ī lavish thanksgiving meal (in time of rationing) was given in the Devoran Village Hall in late May 1944 by the locally camped Americans in return for the kindness shown to these black and white young Americans I will write a separate blog post on printed memories of the GIs. Remembering the many brave soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Invasion forces, many of them stationed around the Cornish coasts, who left to fight in Normandy on 6 June 1944. I wonder if people will still gather there in another hundred years in 2120 or 2122?īy then, it is odd to think that the First World War and the Second World War will be as remote in history to that future generation as Waterloo, Trafalgar and the Napoleonic Wars are to us today.īlog posted by Mark Norris, Devoran War Memorial project research blog, 13 November 2022. Villagers gathered at the war memorial in 1920. That direct or indirect living connection of knowing people who served in WW2 or even their children will one day be lost. ![]() In 2022 there are still a few (increasingly few) servicemen and women who served and fought in WW2, to whom these names on memorials were real remembered people. In ten years and certainly twenty years time this will probably not be so. Tucked away safe in my jacket pocket among the family WW1 and WW2 medals was my Grandfather’s Burma Star for naval service in the Far East.Īs our Devoran in WW2 talk proved back in May 2022 (before the Platinum Jubilee) this year proved, there are still people alive in the village who remember Devoran and life in WW2. The Kohima Prayer (of the Burma Star association) was also read out. The writing of ‘For The Fallen’ features in BBC World War 1 at Home radio series archived online: They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Īge shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.Īt the going down of the sun and in the morning ![]() The most famous verse of Lawrence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen (written in Cornwall up on the cliffs at Polzeath in 1914) was read out, ending “We will remember them” Remembrance is something that is passed on from generation to generation. Good to have seen young people from babes in arms to school age children there and taking part. The standards of the Guides and Scouts were lowered during the Last Post, just as they would have been at the memorial in 1920. The ‘new’ National Anthem was sung outside by the War Memorial, the first time it has mentioned “God Save the King” at an Armistice Service since 1951? Some of the stories behind the names on the memorial were apparently part of the church service. Remembrance Sunday 2022: I popped along to the churchyard and the war memorial to listen to the names of the village men who died in WW1 and WW2 being read out again and observe the national two minutes silence.Īs I arrived, the remembrance service was still going inside the church. The second part of the service was held around the war memorial outside the church…” Remembrance Sunday 1920: “Girl Guides, Boy Scouts and a large number of the general public joined in a service of thanksgiving and memorial for those who gave their lives in the Great War at Devoran Parish Church on Sunday. Devoran war memorial, Armistice Service, The West Briton 11 November 1920 ![]()
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